Smith College is the nation’s largest liberal arts college for women.

Engineering a Liberal Education

An all-female liberal arts campus might, initially, appear to be an unexpected location for a progressive engineering program.  But Smith College leaders believe strongly that this type of highly technical program—integrated fully with strong elements of a liberal education—is appropriate, even essential, to help prepare the next generation of America's engineering workforce.  Established in 1999, the Picker Engineering Program integrates the skills and knowledge of the engineering field with the benefits and outcomes of Smith’s liberal arts and sciences curriculum.

The Picker program meets many of Smith’s larger goals for all its students.  Not only does an engineering degree from Smith provide graduates with sophisticated knowledge and multiple pre-professional opportunities, but it also serves to advance women in a traditionally male-dominated field.  Informed by their broader liberal education, Smith’s engineering students are “disciplined not only in academic rigor but also in continuous self-discovery, effective communication, critical thinking, socially responsible decision-making, and engineering a sustainable future,” according to the program’s vision. “The program fosters an intellectual and emotional balance," says Linda Jones, director of the Picker Engineering Program.

This need for informed, balanced perspectives is particularly important in engineering, a field that has profound social and ethical implications—for example, when building safer bridges and buildings or developing defense tactics.  “Engineers are the people who can bring inventions and resources and technology to bear on human needs,” Jones notes. “Ideally, engineers should be at the absolute interface of these social and political conversations.”   

A Focus on Outcomes

Because the program seeks to develop well-rounded students prepared to engage in multiple “conversations,” its list of outcomes goes well beyond basic engineering skills.  With goals such as, “the ability to communicate effectively with diverse audiences,” and “the ability to appreciate continual intellectual advancement and a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in, life-long learning,” the program expects students to develop more than just technical abilities.  This goal closely aligns with the Accrediting Board of Engineering and Technology’s vision for engineering programs, a vision that emphasizes the development of multiple professional skills, including solving unstructured problems, communicating effectively, and working in teams.  In order to foster these outcomes, Picker faculty utilize reflective writing sessions and, recently, portfolio development.  These practices are designed to encourage students to internalize the process of learning and its important outcomes—instead of simply checking off tasks.

“It’s not just about achieving the outcomes…it’s about transformation,” says Jones, who believes that when students recognize the changes they have undergone since arriving on campus, they can better realize and appreciate their education and its effects.  And portfolios are not only about chronicling and improving skills, but expanding on them as well—Jones encourages students who have success in one area of their portfolios to “take the next risk” and push themselves to the next skill level.

The Picker Engineering Program believes that "engineers must appreciate and understand the human condition."

Donna Riley, assistant professor of engineering, also considers the internal learning process important.  She notes that, “In the broadest sense, I think the most important outcomes for students to achieve both in and out of engineering are the abilities to think critically and to take reflective action in response to what they have learned.”   These outcomes are particularly important for engineers, Riley says,  giving Smith engineers “a definite edge, because the skills they represent are still rare among graduating engineers nationwide.

A Learner-Centered Education

This broad approach to learning outcomes is also reflected in the Picker Program’s learner-centered education.  Not assuming students will focus on the more mainstream fields of engineering— such as mechanical engineering—faculty members encourage students to set their own learning objectives and use an interdisciplinary approach in the major.  A student might, for instance, take Japanese language and culture courses in order to better understand a country that is also a leader in engineering advances, or a student interested in engineering ethics might pursue a double major in philosophy and engineering.   

Riley, who teaches a course on "Engineering, Policy, and Development" and frequently incorporates gender studies into her classes, believes that interdisciplinary approaches “provide students with the ability to see their world from multiple perspectives. However, it is essential that the different ways of thinking in different disciplines come across to students, and are internalized.”  She cautions, though, that “this [internalizing] does not happen automatically—care must be taken in presenting topics in ways that challenge students to take on these different perspectives. Otherwise, students may just bring their engineering perspective, apply some version of their problem-solving framework or the scientific method, and move on, having gained some topical knowledge but having missed out on the transformative opportunities presented to them.”

The program also gives individual students an opportunity to focus on areas of improvement during “skill studios”—skills-building classes taken either during the semester break or in August.  The students recommended for a skill studio are identified in engineering classes and then assessed to better understand what their specific challenges are.  At the moment, this program exists for math skills within the engineering department, but Jones would like this program to grow throughout the college.  She notes that Picker faculty are “constantly rethinking…how to enable young people to learn a particular discipline,” and working with students to improve in one skill area often results in the students being able to make exponential improvement within the larger discipline.

When asked to cite a difference she feels that the Picker Engineering Program has made, Jones references a recent Ada scholar who has been recruited by the Navy’s Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation Program.  Imagine, she says, “a woman engineer, trained at Smith in a liberal arts concept, stepping into the Navy, and bringing into that arena her perspective and her voice.”

By Ursula Gross

The Picker Engineering Program’s Web site offers more specifics on the program, and you can read a transcript of a separate interview with Dr. Linda Jones here.  Learn more about ABET on its Web site. 

The Picker Engineering Program was also featured in the 2007 AAC&U LEAP Publication, College Learning for the New Global Century (pdf), as a program that embodied the principle of “Connecting Knowledge with Choices and Action.”