The strategic plan of the Gateway Coalition is based on the following elements:

1. The central focus for the Gateway Coalition is the development of students as emerging professionals.

   This broad statement emphasizes ideas that have been subordinate to the delivery of technical content and the corresponding increase of student technical knowledge and technical problem solving capability. This affirms the importance of leadership, teaming, organization, historical, social and political contexts, as well as business, science and technical pedagogy.

   One aspect frequently missed is the need to provide the knowledge base and the capability for career-long learning. Making the development of students more important will change both how and what students learn.

2. The retention of students from matriculation as engineering students to graduation is receiving increasing attention.

   While yesterday's measure of program quality may have been the selectivity of a program as noted by the fraction of those who matriculated who did not graduate as engineers, today's measures are for what fraction of the students who matriculate in engineering are retained to graduation.

   The new paradigm of Continuous Quality Improvement for manufacturing and service emphasize the importance of succeeding the first time and avoiding re-work wherever possible.

   Very poor retention rates for the under represented minorities and, to a lesser extent, for women underscore the need to improve the retention of students to graduation.

3. Changing how we teach uses approaches that are appropriate for learning the content, skills, and competencies the student needs.

   The lecture method has become the de facto standard approach for teaching undergraduate engineering students, with laboratory instruction a much smaller part of the educational program. Changing the way we teach will require the development or adaptation from other areas of whatever alternate approaches may be appropriate. Faculty will also need to learn to use these approaches.

   To achieve our objectives, these should be conducted within the context of the entire educational experience.

4. The structure of a curriculum can impact both what is taught and how it is taught and is a major descriptor of the educational program.

   Several aspects of the way the curriculum is structured have received attention recently. These include:

   1. the total system organization and relationship of pedagogical content (not merely layering and sequencing of courses but an integrated continuum) to look at the educational program as a total system;

   2. the kind of engineering courses included in the freshman and sophomore years;

   3. the fraction of the program that is elective, as opposed to that required by specific courses and the manner in which the choice of electives is restricted;

   4. the size of the curriculum, in terms of the number of semester or quarter hours.

   Changing what is taught changes the curriculum to realize more readily the pedagogical goals within the broader context of the coalition's goals. This can include revisions or replacement of current courses as well as replacement of significant blocks of courses with another group of courses requiring a similar fraction of the curriculum. The new group of courses may have an emphasis differing from that of the courses replaced. However, meeting the broad goals set for the education program is the focus and it is expected the revised curriculum will do this better than what was in place previously. These changes may occur at the lower division, the upper division, or both and may even involve moving topics presently covered at one level to another level.

5. Facilitating the implementation and institutionalization of innovation in engineering education is a potential role for the coalition.

   One aspect of this that has been relatively neglected is importing educational innovation developed elsewhere to a new environment; we need more attention for this.

   The coalition can serve as a facilitator for innovation not supported directly by Gateway funds. Coalition funds can serve to initiate an effort to be funded from other sources or the coalition can serve to enhance a proposal for a new project.

6. Developing relationships among Gateway institutions that:

   1. establish common objectives;

   2. establish communication and collaboration among faculty;

   3. use the coalition as a vehicle for enhancing innovation in engineering education at each institution.

Return to the Gateway Home Page