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Presented October 1982 at University of Houston
The objective of our study of engineering education and engineering technology education was to preview enrollment-employment a quarter century ahead by using the ASEE Evaluation Study of 1952-55 and other studies for guidance. The 1955 report of the Committee on Evaluation of Engineering Education was brought into sharp focus by the unanticipated launch of the Soviet Sputnik just a quarter century ago. These two events-one theoretical and intellectual, the report; the other pragmatic and practical, the rocket-symbolize the forces that have brought about a gradual clarification of the desirable differences between engineering education and engineering technology education.
The 1955 report of the Committee on Evaluation of Engineering Education dealt with engineering education and engineering technology education as a single unit. The names used are unimportant; engineering technology in 1955 was being taught under the designation of "engineering." The engineering programs of 1946-50 probably were closer in their basic objectives and concepts to present-day technology programs than to modern engineering curricula. Pragmatism was and still is the educational philosophy of some colleges of engineering. However, several influences-social, professional, and economic-have combined to produce independent programs, departments, and colleges of engineering technology. That movement was encouraged by the 1971-72 ASEE report on the Engineering Technology Education Study, which will be reviewed later.
In the early post-war years, 1946-50, educational administrators of the most progressive departments and colleges of engineering began to question whether engineering education was keeping pace nationally with the great strides of science. The point was made that the highest levels of administration of the major and post-war research projects were filled with many scientists and few engineers. Also, at all technical levels, many engineers and technologists were reporting to scientists on what were essentially engineering projects. Hence, there was a sense of urgency to improve the engineer's capability in the growing areas of applied science. This led in May 1952 to the appointment by ASEE president, S. C. Hollister, of the Committee on Evaluation of Engineering Education of which the author served as chair.
To develop a uniform understanding of the influence of the 1955 ASEE report upon both engineering education and engineering technology education, the pre-1955 history of these two related types of education should...