Traditionally, engineering education books describe and reinforce unchanging principles that are basic to the field. However, the dramatic changes in the engineering environment during the last decade demand a paradigm shift from the engineering education community. This revolutionary volume addresses the development of long-term strategies for an engineering education system that will reflect the needs and realities of the United States and the world in the 21st century. The authors discuss the critical challenges facing U.S. engineering education and present a plan addressing these challenges in the context of rapidly changing circumstances, technologies, and demands.

Community colleges play an important role in starting students on the road to engineering careers, but students often face obstacles in transferring to four-year educational institutions to continue their education. Enhancing the Community College Pathway to Engineering Careers, a new book from the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council, discusses ways to improve the transfer experience for students at community colleges and offers strategies to enhance partnerships between those colleges and four-year engineering schools to help students transfer more smoothly. In particular, the book focuses on challenges and opportunities for improving transfer between community colleges and four-year educational institutions, recruitment and retention of students interested in engineering, the curricular content and quality of engineering programs, opportunities for community colleges to increase diversity in the engineering workforce, and a review of sources of information on community college and transfer students. It includes a number of current policies, practices, and programs involving community collegeâ€"four-year institution partnerships.