Remarks by ASEE President Don Giddens

Remarks by ASEE President Don Giddens

Old Executive Office Building, February 8, 2012

The American Society for Engineering Education is an organization with over 20,000 members who have interest in engineering and engineering technology education. Our members come from faculty in engineering and engineering technology programs in colleges and universities, members of the corporate world, and also students who are interested in going into the engineering education profession. As a Society we are deeply concerned with engaging more students in the study of engineering, and we are active in related issues from K-12 education, to improving student learning, to public policy associated with innovation, research and education.

The project being unveiled today, begun by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, will examine the critical issue of retention – how do we providethe environment to enable those students who have already entered college with an expressed interest in engineering to graduate with engineering degrees. The American Society for Engineering Education is pleased to accept the responsibility for carrying the initiative begun by the Council and several deans in our Engineering Deans Council to the next level. In fact, in 2010 with funds from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, ASEE piloted a survey of 27 schools – 22 public and 5 private – to collect data on retention. This project revealed challenges in the definition of retention data, the ability of some schools to track retention, and the large variation in retention metrics among public and private engineering schools. However, some metrics were very clear and alarming:

• The aggregate four-year graduation rate for freshman cohorts running from 2001 to 2006 reported by the 22 public schools was 22.4% and by the 5 private schools was 48%.

• The eight year graduation rate of the 2001 entering class of public schoolstudentswas 56.6%, while it was 71% in the private schools.

Clearly, there is work to be done!

The experience gained in this pilot will serve us well as ASEE undertakes collecting data—again, with funding from the Sloan foundation—from as many of the 380 U.S. programs as possible. We hope to develop metrics and determine best practices that will help all programs improve in this important area and will be a solid basis for recognizing those schools which excel.

The deans here today represent engineering schools that already do well in retention and are committed to doing even better. The leadership of the Engineering Deans Council has endorsed our involvement in this project enthusiastically, as has the ASEE Board of Directors; and many of these individuals are among those attending this event. Please take the opportunity to get to know this outstanding group of committed educators, and please know that ASEE will work diligently to help reach the goal of graduating more engineers who will serve as the fuel for innovation, job creation and economic security.