The Engineering Leadership Development Division: A Journey of Becoming and Belonging

David Niño

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Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Career Advancement Through Engineering Leadership Development
Tagged Division: Engineering Leadership Development
Page Count: 8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--37862
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/37862
Download Count: 209

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Paper Authors

biography

David Niño Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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David Niño is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Program Manager in MIT’s Graduate Program in Engineering Leadership. He has served in this role since 2015, where he leads the development of leadership education for MIT graduate students in engineering and other disciplines. Under his leadership, the program has grown from one graduate class serving less than 20 students and to a variety of highly-rated academic classes and workshops that serve over 200 graduate students annually. In addition to teaching MIT academic classes, he has created several MIT online programs for professional around the world, reaching over 1,000 learners annually in four different languages.
Prior to joining MIT, David was a faculty member in the schools of engineering and business at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He was Director of Rice’s university-wide leadership program and later played a leading role in designing and establishing the university’s first four-year academic certificate in engineering leadership.
David consults and speaks with senior technology professionals and executives on topics related to developing leadership among engineers, researchers, and other technical experts. He has published on the topics of organizational culture, ethics, and the development of management and leadership skills. David holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his B.A., B.B.A., and M.A. degrees. He lives in Weston Massachusetts with this wife and three children.

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Abstract

This paper aims to tell our division’s story of why we originated, what we have achieved, and what may lie ahead in terms of challenges and opportunities. Like a “State of the Union” address, it provides a personal perspective, but a perspective informed from working alongside many other officers since the origins of our division. I describe how two engineering professors, inspired by two publications on engineering leadership education, decided to lead the formal process of establishing our division within ASEE. While this was happening, a separate group of engineering leadership educators were planning a national conference on engineering leadership that, among other things, served to signal that our academic field was rapidly evolving as a valuable innovation in the development of future engineers. These were two of the forces that came together during the origins of our division. One of the most valued achievements during our “start-up” stage was providing a place of belonging for a diverse range of interested engineering educators. We grew from 215 to over a thousand members within a few years and have published 112 papers. These papers have collectively achieved 21,075 downloads from ASEE, and had our division not been formed, many of these ideas may never have been published. These and other meaningful achievements are described in this paper and they all point to our value as a new academic community. After about seven years of development, we will undoubtedly face many challenges in the future, including the needs to strengthen the credibility of our intellectual contributions and sharpen our strategic focus. I end the paper with a few suggestions about some timely opportunities to address in our future. These include the creation and publication of case studies to aide in our teaching and the exploration of the relationships between leadership and engineering, science, and technology. I also note that this is a good time to clarify some of the boundaries between engineering “leadership” and engineering “management”. In sum, our division is the largest and likely the most important academic community on the topic of engineering leadership in North America. As the outgoing chair of our division, my hope in writing this paper is to inspire future educators to help make it a better place for our members and for those that we serve.

Citation
Format

Niño, D. (2021, July), The Engineering Leadership Development Division: A Journey of Becoming and Belonging Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37862

TY - CPAPER
AB - This paper aims to tell our division’s story of why we originated, what we have achieved, and what may lie ahead in terms of challenges and opportunities. Like a “State of the Union” address, it provides a personal perspective, but a perspective informed from working alongside many other officers since the origins of our division. I describe how two engineering professors, inspired by two publications on engineering leadership education, decided to lead the formal process of establishing our division within ASEE. While this was happening, a separate group of engineering leadership educators were planning a national conference on engineering leadership that, among other things, served to signal that our academic field was rapidly evolving as a valuable innovation in the development of future engineers. These were two of the forces that came together during the origins of our division. One of the most valued achievements during our “start-up” stage was providing a place of belonging for a diverse range of interested engineering educators. We grew from 215 to over a thousand members within a few years and have published 112 papers. These papers have collectively achieved 21,075 downloads from ASEE, and had our division not been formed, many of these ideas may never have been published. These and other meaningful achievements are described in this paper and they all point to our value as a new academic community. After about seven years of development, we will undoubtedly face many challenges in the future, including the needs to strengthen the credibility of our intellectual contributions and sharpen our strategic focus. I end the paper with a few suggestions about some timely opportunities to address in our future. These include the creation and publication of case studies to aide in our teaching and the exploration of the relationships between leadership and engineering, science, and technology. I also note that this is a good time to clarify some of the boundaries between engineering “leadership” and engineering “management”. In sum, our division is the largest and likely the most important academic community on the topic of engineering leadership in North America. As the outgoing chair of our division, my hope in writing this paper is to inspire future educators to help make it a better place for our members and for those that we serve.
AU - David Niño
CY - Virtual Conference
DA - 2021/07/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - The Engineering Leadership Development Division: A Journey of Becoming and Belonging
UR - https://strategy.asee.org/37862
DO - 10.18260/1-2--37862
ER -