Steen Hyldgaard Christensen

The Role of Research in Academic Drift Processes in European and American Professional Engineering Education Outside the Universities

‘Academic drift’ refers to a long term process induced by educational systems’ dynamics whereby vocationally and professionally oriented post-secondary education institutions with a focus on professional training, teaching, and learning strive to become like universities by incorporating university structures and emulating their values, norms, symbols and practices. In this process they increasingly aspire to research and scholarship. However, the role of research in academic drift processes in professional non-university engineering education has attracted relatively little attention in the literature on academic drift as the focus has up till recently largely been on the introduction of more theory in the curriculum at the expense of practice, on the vertical extension of study programs, and on the introduction of university courses in the engineering college sector. In this chapter we will examine three examples of research drift that have taken place in professional non-university engineering education institutions in Ireland, The Netherlands, and the United States, respectively, from the massive expansion of higher education in the 1960s to the present. More precisely we will examine and compare research drift in Irish Institutes of Technology, Dutch Hogescholen, and three American institutions – a public technical institute, a state teacher’s college, and a sectarian liberal arts university, and with an eye to recent developments in Denmark. In reviewing the literature, we have the following questions in mind: What are the driving forces behind academic drift in non-university engineering education in Europe and the United States? Are these driving forces of a similar nature or do they differ? Is academic drift desirable for vocationally and professionally oriented programs, and if not, can it be avoided? What research mission are former designated non-university engineering education institutions in Europe and the United States aspiring to fulfill? What kinds of tension and dilemma does this new mission create in the above-mentioned kinds of institution?

Engineering as a liberal art – Vehicle for critical thinking or material rewards?

The lofty rhetoric in the quote by Domenico Grasso and David Martinelli is intended to promote a holistic engineering education that goes beyond technology by means of engaging the liberal arts. Considering the overwhelming burden of the task both in terms of the scope described and also in terms of foreseeable impediments, it seems fair to ask: how can such venture at all become possible? In the following I shall discuss two questions related to the attempt by Louis L. Bucciarelli and David Drew2 to solve this problem. They propose to establish a pre-professional degree program – a bachelor of arts in Liberal Studies in Engineering. I ask two questions: (1) What is the intrinsic value of Liberal Studies in Engineering? (2) What can Liberal Studies in Engineering do additionally if they are brought to bear as a vehicle for extrinsic ends, and are those ends worth pursuing? (1) Historically liberal education has been associated with privileged elites – in particular, elites in government – at princely courts, in the great State churches, in universities, expensive schools, and leading professions. Moreover, liberal education has traditionally been associated with leisured classes and other groups aspiring to a high social position. Despite variation over time and place, Sheldon Rothblatt has identified four common attributes of a liberal education, which, taken together, constitute their intrinsic value.3 These are: