July 2008 Journal of Engineering Education 231 SHERI D. SHEPPARD Stanford University J AMES W. PELLEGRINO University of Illinois at Chicago BARBARA M. OLDS Colorado School of Mines EVERYTHING CHANGES, EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED The world is dynamic. A multitude of challenges and opportu- nities are accelerating changes in how we view our planet and inter- act with one another as countries, states, communities, and neigh- bors. In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman argues that easier access to information technologies and rising technical com- petence around the globe are key agents prompting these changes (Friedman, 2005). Other factors include new developments in nan- otechnology, biotechnology, material science, and photonics, which carry the potential for enabling longer and healthier lives and improved work and living conditions (Augustine, 2006; Melsa, 2007; NAE, 2004). Still other factors include natural disasters, changing political infrastructures, and shifting world demographics (Duderstadt, 2008). It would be naive to treat technical and non-technical challenges and opportunities as separable. For example, as we consider poten- tial health improvements created by biotechnology, we must ac- knowledge that “making it true for the masses in the developing world is one of the great moral and ethical, [and we add political] challenges for society as a whole” (NAE, 2004). Technical and non-technical issues are inextricably and increasingly linked, as the boundary between “autonomous, non-human nature and human generated processes” become increasingly blurred; R. Williams de- scribes this linked state as “a hybrid world” (Williams, 2002, p. 31). As a consequence, what engineers do is increasingly and intimately involved in creating and shaping this multi-faceted and highly- integrated world. In other words, engineering and engineers have never mattered more. EDUCATION FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW All of this makes for a challenging environment within which to design and deliver quality engineering education. U.S. engineering education must not only prepare graduates to work in this rapidly changing world, but also engage students in disciplines beyond engineering to make them better engineers and more informed human beings and citizens (Bok, 2005). Educated professionals, such as engineers, with a highly developed understanding of techni- cal matters and a well grounded sense of social responsibility, are ar- guably among the best equipped to struggle with the complexity of consequences of technological innovation and intervention in our new reality. This should challenge each of us in engineering educa- tion to reflect deeply on the significance of integrating ethical rea- soning into the learning agenda in a more intentional and holistic manner. What tools and strategies might the architects and deliverers of today’s engineering education use to create programs that form en- gineers capable of confronting tomorrow’s challenges? Some were described in the 12 papers published in the 2005 special issue of Journal of Engineering Education entitled, “The Art and Science of Engineering Education Research.” For example, in the article “En- gineering Design Thinking, Teaching and Learning,” Dym et al. provided a framework for thinking about design education that ex- poses the potential of project-based learning (the dominant peda- gogy for teaching design) to both engage and retain students in en- gineering. In “Assessment in Engineering Education: Evolution, Approaches and Future Collaborations,” Olds et al. summarized the wide array of tools and strategies for assessing education’s effi- cacy. This paper is complemented by another, entitled “Becoming a Professional Engineering Educator: A New Role for a New Era,” by Fink et al. who challenge us to go beyond just thinking about needed changes, to using understanding to effect change. LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM OUR STUDENTS This special issue is based on an engineering design approach to identifying ways and means for creating more vital engineering pro- grams. It focuses on the primary “customer” of engineering educa- tion—students. A better understanding of students—who they are, what motivates them and stimulates their interests, how they come to conceptualize engineering, and how they learn to work with the principles, values and methods central to changing engineering practice—is critical for designing better educational experiences. Posing questions about students and discovering deep and subtly nuanced answers is increasingly possible given advances in the cog- nitive sciences and neuroscience (and ironically, many of these ad- vances have depended on engineering prowess), not to mention the growing community of scholars committed to asking (and answer- ing) hard questions about the processes of learning and instruction. With the idea of creating a special issue focused on students, we brought together teams of authors who are leading scholars from engineering, the natural sciences, education, learning sciences, so- cial sciences, and the humanities. We challenged the authors to look at educational issues that are not typically explored and frame Guest Editors’ Foreword On Becoming a 21st Century Engineer