WhyIDEA
Why liberal arts AND engineering?
Letter from the Assistant Director
Dear students, stakeholder, partners, and friends,
In my current role as the Assistant Director for Engineering Innovation at the AUCC and Director of The Institute for Dual Degree Engineering Advancement (IDEA) I often receive the question “Why study liberal arts?” As a product of the Dual Degree Engineering Program I too once grappled with this question as an 18-year-old college student. The expansiveness of the liberal arts education is what drew me in as I enrolled in the AUC as a wide-eyed and eager first year student. I wanted a college experience that invested in me as a whole person. Courses in Black history, foreign language, humanities, comparative politics, social science, and fine arts rounded out my in-depth exposure to science and technology. As I reflect today, I am reminded of the quote by Albert Einstein
The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.
“The future didn’t just happen; it was created.”
It reminds us that engineers develop solutions for the future and actively work to create a better world. This is also especially true for AUC students, the vast majority of which are navigating the world as Black men and Black women working to improve the world by creating a more just society. Many dual degree engineering graduates use our liberal arts and engineering educations with the intent to make a difference.
The field of engineering which places value on solving problems that meet global, social, and environmental need surely has a place for those that value the creation of a more just world.
Those that understand the value of the liberal arts and the value of an engineering education even still sometimes ask me “Ok, but why study liberal arts and engineering together?” I am reminded in these moments of the article “Bringing the Liberal Arts to Engineering Education” by Lonie Bordoloi and James Winebrake which argues
“Engineering education needs to prepare students to design expansively and imaginatively — a capacity that liberal-arts education cultivates, along with critical thinking, clear communication, and productive collaboration.
It is the skills cultivated by liberal arts education that are additive to engineering. Many institutions today are focusing more so on technical skill development and away from the development of critical thinking, teamwork, and communication skills which are all valued by engineering employers.
The field of engineering, which places a tremendous value on innovation and problem solving, has a place for those that possess a diverse skillset amplified by diverse experiences.
The Institute for Dual Degree Engineering Advancement seeks to increase the value of the liberal arts-based dual-degree engineering education and better leverage this value for the engineering profession. The institute will shed light on the value added by AUC dual degree engineering students. The last question I sometimes get is “Why study liberal arts and engineering in the AUC?” I’m reminded of the words of Benjamin E. Mays one of the most transformative figures in AUC history who said,”
“Every man and woman is born into the world to do something unique and something distinctive and if he or she does not do it, it will never be done.”
