Engineering Education for the 2030s and Beyond

Abstract

Engineering, by its nature, is a field that is constantly changing as new technologies are invented, developed, and matured. The core information necessary to be a degreed engineer has greatly changed from the 1980s – the time that the author was a student just as, in those days, the core knowledge changed from previous decades. Technology development is by its nature disruptive to the practices of the past and we as engineers develop technology. During the past couple decades, the rate of technology transformation has accelerated. Hence, it is necessary to rethink what and how we educate the technological innovators of tomorrow. Just as we no longer teach slide rule usage (are any faculty members competent to do so today?), new tools like generative AI are changing how engineering is practiced and will be practiced going forward. The author has a unique perspective having been an administrator for nearly 20 years – students and the demands of the classroom have changed over two decades! One of the challenges in academia is multi-objective optimization of the content we teach: some (most) of our students will take full-time jobs after graduation while some will pursue PhD studies. The former suggests the need to ensure students are “job ready” the day they graduate with opportunity to re-tool periodically throughout their career while the latter need “fundamental understanding of basic theory” to successfully complete the PhD degree. This talk will focus on thoughts on the tough decisions faculty (who own the curriculum) need to consider to be relevant in the coming years including the use of generative AI in their courses.

Bio

Leo C. Kempel, the Dennis P. Nyquist Endowed Professor of Electromagnetics, is the ninth dean of the Michigan State University College of Engineering, where he leads eight academic departments and two academic programs. Under his leadership, the college’s research, teaching, and innovation continue to generate high-impact opportunities and advancement and fuel workforce and economic development across the globe. Kempel’s research interests include conformal antennas, engineered materials for microwave applications, and computational electromagnetics. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society, and the Engineering Society of Detroit. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, the Commission B of the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI), and the Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. A faculty member in the college’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kempel previously served as the inaugural director of the MSU High Performance Computing Center, associate dean for special initiatives, and associate dean for research.

Kempel received both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University
of Michigan.