A new higher education radio program has hit the Voice America airwaves: Big Beacon Radio, Transforming Higher Education. Each month the show interviews a mover and shaker from the world of higher education transformation & reform or discusses topics of interest to change in higher education. Learn more about the program, here.
Big Beacon's latest endeavor to spread the word about transforming higher education is Big Beacon Radio, a monthly broadcast on Voice America. Listen here, or subscribe on iTunes. The first episode featuring Olin College's Rick Miller is available here.
Editor's note: Big Beacon recently met Athena Lin online through her tweets and blog. She is a rising sophomore in Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, and we were so taken with her positive perspective on engineering education that we have asked her to share her thoughts about engineering and engineering education with Big Beacon's readers, and we're hopeful…
One of the key step in creating inspiration and momentum for change is understanding the consequences of not changing. In the parlance of the important change work of John Kotter, author of the Heart of Change and friend of Big Beacon, building the narrative that explains the need for change is called creating a 'burning platform'. That term paints a…
The following is a guest post by Gregory Bucks, University of Cincinnati. A grassroots effort is underway to improve the quality of undergraduate engineering education in the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) at the University of Cinicinnati. The program, called Advancing Student Success in Engineering and Technology (ASSET) grew out of a conversation between EECS prof Jason Heikenfeld…
I've spent the last several years of my engineering career thinking very carefully about what engineers can and can't do. So far my conclusions are that engineers can have tremendous impact in areas that you might not expect - ending poverty, fighting injustice, creating jobs, saving lives. The engineering profession's scope is well beyond the boundaries of the purely technical.…
Changing the engineering curriculum and engineering education more generally is very difficult. Industry over the past several decades has developed a discipline of change management to help make change more systematically, and A Whole New Engineer (here), calls in Chapter 9 for Changing the Way We Change. This twitter chat considers the obstacles to change in engineering education and how they might be overcome.…
This week on The Engineering Commons Podcast, Big Beacon's volunteer Kai Zhuang discusses evolving relationships between technology and humanity, especially as it relates to engineering education. Frustrated by his own experiences as an engineering student, Kai is working to modify engineering education into a less rigid format that encourages self-discovery and trans-disciplinary explorations. Check out the show! "The Engineering Commons" is an…
Join me, Dave Goldberg, as I host a twitter chat on Wednesday evening, 23 April 2014, at 8pm Eastern (hashtag #BigBeacon) with the theme, The Five PIllars of a Whole New Engineering Education. The Big Beacon manifesto (here in English, here in French) calls for A Whole New Engineer, A Whole New Engineering Education, and Educational Rewire (a new process of educational and organizational change). The forthcoming book, A…
Join me, Dave Goldberg, as I host a twitter chat on Wednesday evening, 16 April 2014, at 8pm Eastern (hashtag #BigBeacon) with the theme, The Six Minds of the Whole New Engineer. The Big Beacon manifesto (here in English, here in French) calls for A Whole New Engineer, A Whole New Engineering Education, and Educational Rewire (a new process of educational and organizational change). The…