The National Science Foundation has awarded Purdue a five year grant to transform its mechanical engineering department. We are using this opportunity to integrate Strategic Doing into a bold, replicable model of transformation.

1. An Engineering Education ‘Skunkworks’ to !
Spark Departmental Revolution
PI: Anil Bajaj, Head of the School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University!
Co-PI: Ed Berger, Engineering Education Researcher (School of Engineering Education and School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue)!
Co-PI: Elizabeth Briody, Anthropologist (Cultural Keys, LLC)!
Co-PI: Ed Morrison, Change Agent (Purdue Center for Regional Development)
Vision
Objectives
Theory1of1Change
Research1Plan
Barriers
Faculty1Development
How1will1you1be1a1national1leader1for1revolutionizing1engineering1departments?
Goals
•Students with dramatically improved PFE outcomes, defined
as (5XME report*):!
•Flexibility and agility!
•Innovation and creativity to benefit society!
•Global focus!
•Teamwork and leadership!
•Communication skills!
•An ME program with dramatically improved levels of trust,
more student-centrism, and a massively expanded capacity
to develop/deploy educational innovations
•Trust, human nature!
•Critical competing
demands on time!
•Academic norms about
performance, metrics,
individuals!
•SD helps build trust in
networked
organizations!
•SD demands agile,
evidence-driven
decisions based upon
measureable
outcomes
Roadmap1for1Scaling1and1Adaptation
Bookkeeping—time, money, people, collected throughout project—the “cost”
Evidence—research questions, both EERQ and CCRQ (quantitative, qualitative)
Cultural context—characterization of current and envisioned culture
Publication—ASEE, ASME, organizational change, anthropology
Workshops—ASEE, ASME, special sessions
Purdue Foundry--commercialization
NSF I-corps
roadmap
“traditional” dissemination
scaling and adaptation
time
Research Questions
Culture and change research questions!
CCRQ1: How do ME dept. members describe the current culture,
and how does that compare to the envisioned future culture?!
CCRQ2: Using Strategic Doing, can a leadership team guide agile
networks to use research-based pedagogies at scale?!
CCRQ3: How does the Purdue MES enable broad-scale cultural
change by driving the conversation at the borderlands?
Engineering education research questions!
EERQ1: How do students navigate the pedagogical borderlands
encountered in concurrent/consecutive classes?!
EERQ2: How do faculty calibrate their pedagogical approaches for
student achievement of PFEOs?!
EERQ3: What are the most useful and effective tools for
assessment at scale?
Students (~400) Faculty (~70)Staff (~130)
interviews
surveys
Faculty (~35) in-class observations
Students (~20) Faculty (~20)Staff (~20)
Students (~10) Faculty (~10)Staff (~5) External (~4) Skunkworks
Data Collection
plus routine data collection from alumni and employers for ABET and other self-study
purposes, augmented with specific questions related to achievement of PFE outcomes
•ME undergraduates will
experience powerful
educational programs under
continuous innovation by
faculty, staff, and students.!
•ME students will achieve PFE
outcomes in radically
improved ways that prepare
them for future opportunities.!
•ME students, faculty, and staff
relationships will be rooted
in trust developed through
execution of a shared mission.
doplan assessidea
Purdue MES; key issues: evidence, context, bookkeeping
assessdo adjust
Purdue ME Program; key issues: evidence, context, scaling
Promising?
Successful?
* A. G. Ulsoy, “Report of The ‘ 5XME ’ Workshop : Transforming Mechanical Engineering !
Education and Research in the USA,” Arlington VA, 2007.
• Transformation requires strategic design
of open, loosely joined networks among
students, faculty and administrators.!
• These new networks must engage
individuals at both an intellectual and
emotional level in the creation of new,
shared value. !
• Strategic Doing (SD) provides a tested
protocol to design and guide these
networks.
• To create new more powerful educational experiences, faculty need
more productive collaborations with colleagues and students.!
• Skunkworks will provide guided workshops for faculty to develop
these skills as they design/test/use educational innovations. !
• Incentives emerge as faculty learn to “link and leverage” their
assets and become more productive. Less wasted time meeting,
more time engaged in teaching and research.
The SD approach might be one of the most effective
ways of implementing change on campus.… Our
diverse team of faculty and administrators have
pivoted many times because of the continuous
feedback that we analyze and plug back in into the
decision making process.!
Ilya V. Avdeev, Ph.D.!
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical
Engineering!
Founder, UWM Student Startup Challenge (SSC)!
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee