GLEAN Team Report

Attached please find the final copy of the Report to Union College on the Future of Engineering at Union, prepared by the GLEAN Team.

III. Decisions: Our analysis of Alternatives under Consideration at Union College

IV. Reality Test: Risks of implementing recommended alternatives, and how to manage those risks

Exhibit 1: Union College’s ratings in U.S. News and World Report as compared with liberal arts schools benchmarked as competitors

Exhibit 2: Union College’s ratings in U.S. News and World Report as compared with engineering schools benchmarked as competitors

Exhibit 3: Using the Seven S’s to diagnose the current state of Engineering at Union

Exhibit 4: Using the Seven Stage Model to understand the Engineering division’s performance level

Exhibit 5: How the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy interacts with the 7 S’s

Exhibit 6: How the original five Engineering Initiatives affect and are affected by the 7 S’s

Exhibit 7: Average amounts donated by engineering and liberal arts alumni from 1990-2000

Exhibit 11: Risks related to Engineering’s decisions, and how to mitigate the risks

Appendix A Working Draft of Bob Balmer’s Converging Technologies for a Changing World proposal

Based on our assessment of external and internal factors in Exhibits 1 through 4, we believe that the Engineering Division at Union College is facing the need for significant change.

The seeds of successful transformation exist in the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategic initiative that has been developed by the Dean of Engineering, Bob Balmer, and the CORE Engineering team.

Whether the faculty will rally around the new strategy may depend on problems such as their concerns with the Faculty Review Board, Union policies and practices on fund raising, and communications between Union College administration and the Engineering Faculty.

The Engineering Division of Union College is facing three issues as it reinvents itself for the 21^st Century.

The overarching strategic initiative that Bob Balmer and his team have created to meet the needs of the 21^st Century is entitled Converging Technologies for a Changing World. We believe that Converging Technologies for a Changing World can be a beacon for Engineering at Union that will meet the needs of the 21^st Century.

To implement this strategy, engineering faculty and resources must be reallocated. The Dean of Engineering and the administration of Union College believe that the faculty group least consistent with the Converging Technologies initiative is Civil Engineering. We support their conclusion.

To help faculty understand and embrace the changes that will evolve from the implementation of CTCW, we believe that Union’s leadership should: 1) examine the balance of priorities between teaching, research and service, and 2) initiate changes in the career planning and performance management systems for faculty across Union College.

While we support the recommendations of the Dean of Engineering and the Leadership of Union College for the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy, and for the phasing out of the Civil Engineering program to reallocate faculty billets to Computer Science and CTCW, we have identified several risks that may arise. First, the success of CTCW initiative will be threatened if Division IV cannot secure sufficient financial resources. We believe that substantial financial support can be garnered from industry sponsors, and IBM has already indicated interest in the initiative. Second, the proposal to phase out Civil Engineering to reallocate human resources to support CTCW is a controversial decision. Potential risks include the loss of financial support from Civil Engineering Alumni, the possibility of lawsuits by CE faculty, negative press, and negative impact on Civil Engineering students. These risks can be mitigated by carefully managing communications with all stakeholders in this decision.

Our other two recommendations, an examination of the balance of priorities between teaching, research and service, and a review of the career planning and performance management systems, are much less controversial, and the potential risks less substantial. However, failing to take action on these two decisions will actually increase the risk that the CTCW strategy may fail, and may also increase the risk of lawsuits or other adverse reactions to the decision to phase out Civil Engineering.

As specific implementation plans are developed, we also recommend that the leadership of Union College and the Board explicitly identify potential implementation risks and how to manage them, using a process similar to that described in the Reality Test section of this report, and illustrated in Exhibit 11.

Our diagnosis of the state of the Engineering Division at Union College examines both internal and external perspectives:

External Perspectives: Union College and the Engineering Division have been treading water relative to their competition in recent years.

Exhibit 1 reveals that Union College’s ratings in U.S. News and World Reports declined 6.6 points on a 100-point scale from 1997 to 2001. Exhibit 1 shows that although the ratings of four institutions benchmarked as competitors of Union College have also declined in the same period, Union’s drop was somewhat larger than its peers. The average decline in ratings of top 40 liberal arts colleges (including Union) was 4.1 points. The average decline in ratings of Union’s peer group (including Union): 4.9 points. Union’s relative decline in ratings resulted in a drop in Union’s rankings from 34 in 1997 to 35 in 2001.

Exhibit 2 reveals that Union’s ratings in U.S. News and World Reports as a college with an undergraduate engineering program increased 6% (0.3 points on a 5-point scale) from 1997-2001. However, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Harvey-Mudd College, both benchmarked competitors of Union College, improved their ratings by 18% (0.9 points on a 5 point scale) in the same period. The average increase in ratings of top 20 engineering schools (including Union) was 0.4 points. The average increase in ratings of Union’s peer group (including Union) was 0.5 points. Union’s rankings in this category declined from 14^th to 15^th, and it fell into a different peer group in the process, as the reputations of schools surrounding it in 1997 it improved relative to Union.

What conclusions might be drawn from these two exhibits, taken together? First, that Union College and the Engineering Division have not improved their position relative to their competition. Union’s ratings in both categories have resulted in a slight fall in its overall rankings from 1997 to 2001. Some of Union’s competitors are actively improving their scores. As a result, if Union tries to maintain status quo, over time, it will be overtaken by schools moving up from below, and the gap between Union and the leading liberal arts colleges, with or without engineering programs, will widen.

What are the implications? As the competition for the best and the brightest high school students intensifies, Union must take significant steps to transform itself, or risk having its reputation fade gradually over time. A fading reputation will lead to a decline in the quality of Union faculty and students, which in the long run will result in less successful and less loyal alumni, which will adversely affect alumni giving and the financial health of the college.

Internal Perspectives: While a viable new strategy has emerged for Engineering, some current programs must be discontinued to reallocate scarce resources, and new external funds must be raised for the new initiatives.

If the Engineering Division must transform itself in order to enhance the reputation of Union College, what is its current readiness for the challenge ahead? Exhibit 3 presents our diagnosis of the Engineering Division using the Seven S framework that has been used by McKinsey and Company, Pascale and Athos, and others to assess organizations in the for-profit and not-for-profit sector. The underlying principle in the Seven S framework is that for a new strategy to be successful, the structure, systems, shared values, style of leaders, staff, and skills of the organization must support the strategy.

When we began working with Union College in the fall of 2000, there was no clear strategy for Engineering at Union to achieve excellence, as described in Exhibit 3. Since then, the Dean of Engineering, Bob Balmer, with the collaboration of a core team of Engineering faculty and Union’s administration, has created a new strategic initiative entitled Converging Technologies for a Changing World. "Converging Technologies" is basically the melding of two or more existing technologies to produce new "state-of-the-art" technologies. While various technologies have converged in the past, the impact of the computer has accelerated the process and brought the world to the edge of another technological revolution, one that will be at least as significant as the combined impact of antibiotics, transistors and integrated circuits, and plastics and polymers. Appendix A provides a working draft of the Converging Technologies for a Changing World initiative.

We believe that this initiative is an excellent platform for the transformation of Engineering at Union College for the 21^st Century. If implemented, we believe that it will have a tangible positive impact on Union’s reputation as an academic institution, and will result in attracting top-notch faculty, students, and corporate sponsors. A senior executive at IBM has reviewed the strategy and is offering enthusiastic support. We believe that other corporate sponsors can be recruited, and new funds can be raised to finance part of the initiative.

However, Exhibit 3 reveals that there are problems with the other six S’s that threaten the success of the strategy unless they are addressed.

First, the current structure of the Engineering Division, with separate departments for Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering, and a related department of Computer Science, cannot be sustained without an increase in non-tenure line faculty that will increase costs and adversely affect Union College’s ratings. In a nutshell, the academic requirements set by external Engineering Education standards boards require a large number of specialized courses in each engineering discipline. This leads to the need for faculty to teach upper level courses in Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering. This in turn leads to relatively inefficient use of faculty resources because of the small number of students in each of those three departments relative to colleges or universities with a larger engineering enrollment. Union College simply does not have the faculty to teach the required courses in all of the existing departments and simultaneously undertake the Converging Technologies for a Changing World initiative. The leadership of Union College has considered a number of alternatives to remedy this problem, which will be discussed later in this report.

Second, a combination of problems in systems, the style of leadership, and shared values at the Union College level have resulted in confusion, frustration, and low morale among many of the Engineering faculty and staff. Our team surveyed the majority of Engineering faculty and staff members, and discovered the following:

Third, there is an imbalance of skills in Engineering to support current programs and the Converging Technologies for a Changing World initiative. There appears to be a serious shortage of Computer Science (CS) faculty for the current curriculum. CS courses are increasingly required as a foundation for all of the Engineering disciplines, and for liberal arts graduates as well. With the implementation of the Converging Technologies initiative, the need for a strong CS foundation will only increase.

Internal Perspectives: The Engineering Division as a team stands divided today — and poised to move toward peak performance tomorrow.

At least as important as a diagnosis of the Engineering Division as an organization is the assessment of its current state and future potential as a team. Exhibit 4 uses the Seven Stage Model developed by Drexler and Sibbet to provide our diagnosis of the current state of the Engineering Team. We draw several conclusions from what we have observed.

First, the cross-disciplinary team of Union College faculty and administration, led by Bob Balmer, called the CORE engineering team, was formed in September of 2000 and is working effectively. Exhibit 4 shows the CORE team operating at stages 4 and 5 of the Seven Stage Model, making decisions about the overall direction for Engineering at Union (Converging Technologies for a Changing World) and simultaneously planning for implementation. We have been impressed with the creativity, commitment, and collaborative spirit that have characterized the CORE team members’ interactions among themselves, with us, and with the Engineering Division. We support and applaud their progress as a team, and Bob Balmer’s leadership in the process. We believe that all that is needed for them to reach peak performance status is a green light from the Union College Board to take the next steps to implement the Converging Technologies in a Changing World initiative. If the board delays or rejects the proposed initiative, our prediction is that the CORE team will regress to stage 1, "Why am I here?"

Second, the faculty of the Engineering Division is divided at this point, and is not as far along as the CORE Engineering Team. Exhibit 4 depicts that the faculty in Engineering seem to be divided between Stage 2, where there is a need to build trust, and stage 3, where there is a need to clarify the strategy and direction. This is to be expected. Union College and the Engineering Division are confronted by the need for dramatic change to meet the evolving needs and expectations of future students and their parents, corporate sponsors, alumni, and other stakeholders. Most people perceive that change will be risky, costly, and painful. As a result, we expected faculty reactions to admonitions by their leadership that they "do more with less" to range from disbelief to outrage. In fact, the faculty reactions were somewhat milder than that.

Why have we depicted the faculty as split between Stage 2 and Stage 3? First, almost everyone seems to have progressed past Stage 1, "Why am I here?" The positive statements from over 80% of the Engineering faculty about their love of teaching and interaction with the students of Union College were noteworthy and refreshing, compared with the attitudes that we have interacted with in other academic institutions. This suggests that most, if not all Engineering faculty members are clear about why they are at Union. Second, approximately 70% of faculty interviewed stated that they did not trust the Union College Administration. In contrast, very few of the faculty expressed negative perceptions about Bob Balmer. While most Engineering faculty members have begun to develop trust for Bob and their colleagues, for some, the level of trust that enables high performance teamwork is not yet developed with respect to Union’s administration. Finally, more than 50% of the Engineering faculty expressed unhappiness with the Faculty Review Board as a mechanism for annual review and compensation decisions. Specifically, they are uncertain that the current system will evaluate them on the same criteria for excellence that they strive for. This type of discontentment is typical in an organization where the goals are not clear. These uncertainties prevent some of the engineering faculty from progressing further to develop a high performance team.

Our conclusion is that morale among engineering faculty is lower than in many organizations with whom we have worked. If action is not taken to address the concerns of Engineering Faculty identified in Exhibit 3, it will threaten the implementation of the Converging Technologies for a Changing World initiative.

Based on our assessment of external and internal factors in Exhibits 1 through 4, we believe that the Engineering Division at Union College is facing the need for significant change.

The Engineering Division of Union College is facing three issues as it reinvents itself for the 21^st Century.

The responses that have been made by Bob Balmer and the CORE engineering team address the first two issues. The third issue cannot be addressed unilaterally at the Engineering division level, because decisions about the relative emphasis of research, teaching and service should affect all Union College faculty.

Decision 1: What new strategy for engineering will meet the needs of the 21^st century?

The overarching strategic initiative that Bob Balmer and his team have created to meet the needs of the 21^st Century is the Converging Technologies for a Changing World proposal. Appendix A presents a working draft of this initiative. Although it is still a work in progress, we believe that the main themes in the initiative are an excellent strategy for reinventing Engineering and Union. Converging Technologies will introduce new cross-disciplinary courses and research in areas such bioengineering, mechatronics, intelligent systems, smart structures, intelligent transportation, computer systems engineering, and so forth. It will thereby create a more versatile and effective engineering graduate than one educated only within a traditional engineering discipline, such as Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, or Computer Science. It will also bring the benefits of engineering disciplines to a wider segment of the Union College student body though some cross-disciplinary courses with the Arts and Science faculty.

Exhibit 5 provides an analysis of the implications of the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy given the Seven S’s for the Engineering Division previously discussed in Exhibit 3. The conclusions that we draw from analysis in Exhibit 5 is that if successfully implemented, the CTCW can have a positive impact in most dimensions of the Seven S’s that were diagnosed in Exhibit 3. However, Exhibit 5 also identifies potential concerns and risks with respect to that might threaten the success of the CTCW initiative.

The Engineering CORE team has also launched five other initiatives to learn about best practices at peer institutions with excellent reputations. The findings from these initiatives will shape Union Engineering’s future strategy under the Converging Technologies for a Changing World umbrella:

Exhibit 6 provides our analysis of the potential implications of these five initiatives, assuming that they are part of the overarching Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy, and given our diagnosis of the Engineering Division’s current situation regarding the Seven S’s shown in Exhibit 3. The good news is that the five initiatives seem well aligned as part of CTCW. The bad news is that some of the problems identified in Exhibit 3 may adversely affect some of the initiatives. See Exhibit 6 for details of our analysis.

Decision 2: How can we best re-deploy engineering faculty and resources to achieve this initiative?

The college administration considered a wide array of alternatives for the re-deployment of engineering faculty and resources. The guiding assumptions were that the new strategy could not include requests for new faculty billets, due to overall resource constraints and the challenging fund raising environment facing Union College and other academic institutions.

In the course of deliberations, it became clear that Alternative 3 was the only viable option among those considered. We concur with their selection of Alternative 3.

The Dean of Engineering and the administration of Union College believe that the faculty group least consistent with the Converging Technologies initiative is Civil Engineering. A detailed review of the competencies and motivations of the various Engineering Departments was beyond the scope of this study. Therefore we can offer no data to either confirm or refute the assessment of Civil Engineering’s fitness for the new initiative. However, we understand the logic of Bob Balmer’s and Roger Hull’s diagnoses, and believe that Union College should support their recommendation to eliminate the Civil Engineering department and reallocate the tenure lines to support Computer Science and the CTCW initiative.

Decision 3: What is the appropriate balance of teaching, research, and service for our faculty?

An issue frequently raised by Engineering Division Faculty, and not explicitly addressed by any of the current initiatives is the appropriate balance of teaching, research, and service for Engineering faculty throughout their careers at Union College.

Faculty appear to have been recruited to Union in the past with the expectation that the requirements for research and publication in refereed journals would be less intense than would be the case at a leading research university. However, excellence in teaching and interaction with undergraduates in research projects were extremely important, given Union’s positioning as a small, private liberal arts residential college with higher tuition than a state university or a community college.

Now, many Engineering faculty members perceive that the rules of the game may be changing in ways that are not clear to them. Some complained about being under pressure to simultaneously teach more and do more research than they had anticipated. There also appears to be confusion in some faculty members’ minds about what constitutes "legitimate" research and what areas of service are also valued by Union College administration. The confusion and worries that faculty expressed about the Faculty Review Board process suggest lack of clear systems to know what they need to insure their performance will lead to desired outcomes like promotion, tenure, and salary increases. The faculty also revealed that there is not a system to encourage proactive development and discussion of plans for individual faculty member’s performance and development for the upcoming year. All of these "problems" are actually symptoms of a deeper, double-edged problem.

One edge of the problem is the fact that the standards of acceptable performance for faculty at Union are changing as a result of pressure in the external environment. This is a challenge shared by faculty at every college and university in the United States, and many people in other professions as well. The world is changing in unpredictable ways, and everyone is being asked to do more, faster, and more effectively with fewer resources. While we understand the faculty’s discomfort, what is the appropriate response? In a world of increasing economic uncertainty, and worries about a potential recession, where layoffs and downsizing are commonplace, even the higher education industry is feeling Darwinian pressures to do more with less. The changes in the environment are beyond the control of the faculty, the President or Union, or any leader. We believe that the best response for Engineering Division faculty is not to complain about and resist the changes dictated by these environmental realities, but to embrace the changes as a necessary part of life.

The second edge of the problem is the fact that there are not mechanisms in place for individual faculty to communicate with those responsible for guiding their efforts: the Dean of the Engineering Division and the President and Dean of the Faculty of Union College. Many organizations lack effective systems for career planning and performance management. Unlike environmental changes, this is an area that is within the power of the leadership of Union College to improve. However, we believe that a decision to implement a career planning and performance management system is best done at the level of Union College, not an individual division.

The overarching strategic initiative that Bob Balmer and his team have created to meet the needs of the 21^st Century is entitled Converging Technologies for a Changing World. We believe that the Converging Technologies for a Changing World can be a beacon for Engineering at Union that will meet the needs of the 21^st Century.

IV. Reality Test: Risks of implementing leading alternatives, and how to manage those risks

We fully support the alternatives that Bob Balmer, Christie Sorum, and Roger Hull have proposed in the Decisions section of this document. The purpose of the Reality Test section is to pinpoint the implementation risks for each major decision and suggest ways to manage the risks.

Exhibit 11 identifies several risks related to each of the major recommendations, with suggestions about how Union might either avoid the risk, or to respond if it materializes. Exhibits 7 — 10 provide some quantitative evidence to support our risk assessment.

The main risk to the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy is that Bob Balmer may not be able to mobilize the financial resources necessary to execute it. So how best to embark on a fund raising campaign that does not conflict with Union College’s other fund raising initiatives?

We believe that a concerted campaign to corporations who rely on converging technologies themselves, and want to hire Union engineering grads, will yield the best results on the fund raising side. A senior executive at IBM has already indicated interest. How might we leverage this one relationship into a family of corporate Sponsors?

The purpose of the cross referencing is to identify an ecosystem of companies who would enjoy working together with Union’s Engineering Division to showcase some interesting applications of converging technologies that will create value for their customers. This is viral fundraising at its best, and can result in faster commitment of funds than will be possible with attempts to woo unrelated potential sponsors.

We have previously discussed the second major risk to the CTCW strategy - that a faction of the Engineering faculty may actively resist the initiative. We have also suggested that some of the actions that will reduce faculty resistance are not within Bob Balmer’s sphere of influence. The best way to address this risk factor is for the administration of Union College to initiate changes in the career planning system and performance management system for all faculty, and to develop a coherent message for faculty about the appropriate mix of research, teaching, and service at each stage of their careers. Improved communications about what is valued at Union should reduce the confusion and alienation that many engineering faculty currently feel, which should reduce resistance to the CTCW strategy.

By far the most controversial decision is the proposal to gradually phase out Civil Engineering, in order to reallocate faculty billets to computer science and to branches of engineering that can better support the CTCW strategy. The main risks here are the loss of financial support from Civil Engineering Alumni, the possibility of lawsuits by CE faculty, negative press, and negative impact on Civil Engineering students.

Exhibit 7 reveals that the average donation per Civil Engineering Alumnus from 1990 —2000 was $5,539, compared with average donation of non-engineering alumni of $4,932 during the same period. A related statistic is that Civil Engineering Alumni gave a total of $5.15 million from 1990-2000, almost 6% of the total alumni giving during that period. Phasing out Civil Engineering has the potential to disrupt a significant source of alumni donations.

Exhibit 8 shows that Union College’s total revenues from 1990-2000 grew from $60 million to approximately $80 million per year. If there were a $500,000 shortfall on a base of $80,000,000 revenues each year in the future, Union could survive. However, it would be better to mitigate the risk of lost alumni donations by communicating to Civil Engineering Alumni how the CTCW strategy is in their best interests.

In addition, Exhibit 7 reveals that Mechanical Engineering Alumni have given well below the average for Union College. Many of the CTCW initiatives marry Mechanical Engineering (ME) with Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. We believe that a concerted effort to increase giving by the ME alumni, using CTCW as the rationale, and with a Dean of Engineering who is a Mechanical Engineer, as the spokesperson, might yield some excellent results.

Exhibit 9 shows that the number of ME, Computer Science, and Computer Systems Engineering graduates is increasing, while the number of CE graduates is decreasing. If these trends continue, then the focus for future fund raising among alumni would shift to these populations anyway.

Exhibit 9 also reveals that the overall number of engineering graduates has declined from between 80 — 100 students per year in the early 1990s to under 60 graduates in 1998/99. Exhibit 10 shows that there were fewer overall graduates for Union College in 1998/99 as well. These data, coupled with the data in Exhibit 7 that shows Union’s Engineering alumni made larger cumulative contributions per alumnus on average than did Liberal Arts alumni, suggest that something ought to be done to insure that the proportion of Engineering students returns to historical levels. That will spread the fixed costs of the faculty over a larger tuition base, and increase the number of alumni that can help to support Union College in the future.

One way to reduce the negative impact on alumni giving is to avoid rancorous lawsuits and negative press with quotes from unhappy Civil Engineering Faculty and students. While it appears that a decision to phase out a department has a high risk of these side effects, we believe that the leadership of Union College has identified ways to mitigate most of them in their proposed plans.

To successfully implement a phasing out of Civil Engineering, it is critical that the leadership of Union College and the Board develop answers to the following questions:

The objective in having the Board work with Union’s leadership on these questions is to insure that when the inevitable negative reactions occur, the board will be comfortable that Union has taken appropriate proactive steps. This should enable individual Board members to do their part to support the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy and related decisions as the need arises.

Reality Test of recommendations that the leadership of Union College: 1) examine priorities about balancing research and teaching; and 2) enhance the career planning and performance management systems for Union College faculty.

The remaining two decisions in Exhibit 11 are not particularly controversial, and the potential negative consequences associated with the risks are not as high as the decisions already discussed above. As a result, we will limit our discussion here, and ask the leadership of Union and the Board to review Exhibit 11 and let us know if you have questions.

In fact, failing to take action on these two decisions will actually increase the risk that the CTCW strategy may fail, and may also increase the risk of lawsuits or other adverse reactions to the decision to phase out Civil Engineering.

Exhibit 2: Union College’s ratings in U.S. News and World Report as compared

	The State of Engineering at Union College
Strategy	In October 2000, there was no shared vision of where Union Engineering was going, or how to be excellent. By February, 2001 there is growing support for Bob Balmer’s new strategic initiative: *Converging Technologies for a Changing World.*
Structure	The allocation of faculty across the current structure in engineering will not support the teaching load of the current curriculum, nor the new strategic initiative. Given the constraint of no new tenure track faculty, the allocation and structure must change.
Systems	The Faculty Review Board, Fundraising and Accounting systems are not well understood by most engineering faculty.
Style of Leaders	Some Engineering faculty perceive a rift between themselves and the administration. Some also perceive that Roger Hull may have hidden agendas with respect to engineering. The majority of engineering faculty respect and appreciate Bob Balmer’s leadership style.
Shared Values	Engineering faculty perceive that liberal arts students, faculty, and the administration do not value engineering as a discipline.
Staff	There is a lack of motivation, lack of focus, and lack of trust among some Engineering faculty. There are not enough tenure track faculty to teach all current courses and undertake the *Converging Technologies for a Changing World* Strategy.
Skills	Most of the Engineering Faculty appear to have the skills to undertake the *Converging Technologies for a Changing World* Strategy.

Exhibit 3: Using the Seven S’s to diagnose the current state of Engineering at Union

Exhibit 4: Using the Seven Stage Model to understand the Engineering division’s performance level

	*Converging Technologies for a Changing World* Strategy
	Benefits	Concerns / Risks
Strategy	Will create a beacon for engineering and its fit within Union College. If executed well, will help Union achieve recognition for excellence.	The strategy may be jeopardized if faculty resist due to problems with structure, systems, staff, skills, or style of leaders.
Structure	Eliminating one department and reallocating the faculty slots will help remaining departments gain critical mass.	Engineering needs to re-allocate faculty, and eliminate some current activities. Some faculty will resist the changes.
Systems	Engineering will need to understand and undertake fundraising to support the initiative. This should have positive impact on morale.	Faculty concerns over FRB, fundraising, and budgeting/resource allocation will create resistance to the new strategy.
Style of Leaders	Bob Balmer is taking on a more visible leadership role, and most Engineering faculty appear to support him.	Bob Balmer needs clear support from Union Administration and Board to make *Converging Technologies* successful.
Shared Values	*Converging Technologies* can foster collaboration between Engineering & Liberal Arts, to build mutual respect & trust.	Liberal Arts skepticism over Engineering Division’s value to Union is a threat to success of *Converging Technologies*
Staff	The new interdisciplinary focus and creation of courses may motivate and inspire faculty to increased teaching and research productivity.	Elimination of existing courses and faculty time required to prepare for new courses will create stress in the transition.
Skills	Interdisciplinary courses will accelerate the development of faculty and student skills that are critical to success in the 21^st century.	Some faculty lack the skills needed to teach in the *Converging Technologies* curriculum. Retraining may not be viable.

Exhibit 5: How the Converging Technologies for a Changing World strategy interacts with the 7 S’s

	Analysis of The Original 5 Engineering Initiatives Based on Union Engineering Division’ Seven S Profile (see Exhibit 3)
	Liberal Arts Minor for Engineers	International Experience	1 Year Common Core	Student Diversity	Faculty Professional Development
Strategy	This initiative aligns well with the *Converging Technologies for a Changing World (CTCW)* Strategy	Plans for increasing Engineering student participation in international programs must be integrated with curriculum planning for *CTCW*	This initiative aligns well with the *CTCW* Strategy	The exciting new programs envisioned in *CTCW* should help to recruit qualified women, minorities, and international students to Union.	Changes in skills required for *CTCW* will increase the need for proactive career planning and performance management for Engineering faculty.
Structure			May require re-allocation of faculty based on program requirements.	Elimination of a department may adversely affect gender diversity of student population	Some Engineering faculty expressed concern that their jobs may be eliminated.
Systems	What changes need to be made to existing systems for advising, and allocation of seats in high demand LA classes?	What changes need to be made to requirements for graduation to incorporate the option for international study?		What changes are needed in recruiting, admissions, and other systems to help meet goals for student diversity?	Engineering task force is looking into FRB and career planning, but it cannot address the issues unilaterally.
Style of Leaders	Bob Balmer’s leadership style has involved faculty in this initiative	Bob Balmer’s leadership style has involved faculty in this initiative	Bob Balmer’s leadership style has involved faculty in this initiative	Bob Balmer’s leadership style has involved faculty in this initiative	Bob Balmer’s leadership style has involved faculty in this initiative
Shared Values	This will increase interaction between Liberal Arts (LA) & Engineering students & faculty, and promote mutual respect and trust.	May increase interaction between LA & Engineering if more Engineering students & faculty take part in international study.	May increase shared values and esprit de corps of faculty or students across Engineering, which may reduce feelings of alienation.	Perceptions that Engineering is not valued by Liberal Arts will adversely affect Engineering efforts to recruit women/minorities.	Improvements in career planning and performance management should reduce Engineering faculty sense of alienation.
Staff	Engineering students electing Liberal Arts Minors may require more advising.	Engineering students going international require more advising or additional/make-up courses.	Common core can motivate and focus faculty. Should be aligned with *CTCW* changes to current teaching loads.	Programs to attract women, minorities, and international students require the focus of faculty and administration.	Improvements in FRB process and career /performance management may motivate faculty.
Skills	Engineering Faculty may not know how to advise students in LA minor. There is an opportunity for Engineering and LA faculty to jointly advise students, increasing mutual respect and trust.	What new skills might Engineering Faculty need to effectively participate in international research and teaching?	Depending on the courses, some faculty may need additional skills.	Faculty may need additional training to learn how to more effectively manage gender and ethnic diversity in processes for teaching/learning and research.	Improvements in Union’s faculty career/performance management systems can help faculty develop new skills throughout their careers.

Exhibit 6: How the original 5 engineering initiatives affect and are affected by the 7S’s

Exhibit 7: Average amounts donated by Engineering and Liberal Arts alumni from 1990-2000

Exhibit 9: Trends in Engineering Degrees Awarded by Union College: 1990-1999

Decisions Proposed by Leadership of Union College Engineering	Risks Related to Union’s Proposed Decisions	How to Mitigate or Manage the Risks
Implement *Converging Technologies for a Changing World* as the strategic initiative to transform Engineering at Union for the 21^st Century	There are insufficient financial resources to implement *CTCW*. Engineering Faculty resist the proposed changes.	Give Engineering responsibility and power to raise funds from corporate Sponsors. Implement changes in FRB, Career Planning, and Performance Management so faculty have clearer understanding of expectations about their performance.
Reallocate Engineering faculty resources by gradually phasing out the Civil Engineering Department	Loss of support of Civil Engineering Alumni Lawsuits by Civil Engineering faculty over loss of their positions	Communicate clearly to CE alumni how the *Converging Technologies* initiative will benefit them as Union Alumni. Provide new teaching assignments for tenured CE faculty until they retire.
Examine Union College’s balance of priorities across teaching, research, and service	The process will consume time and energy and could create controversy among faculty and alumni.	Use new career planning and performance systems to proactively signal and reinforce changes in priorities that inevitably occur.
Initiate changes in career planning and performance management systems across all of Union College.	The process will consume time and energy of Liberal Arts faculty because of concerns raised by the Engineering Faculty.	Proactively consult with both Liberal Arts and Engineering faculty to insure you win their support. Involve both liberal arts and engineering faculty in a pilot to test new systems before undertaking any major changes.

Exhibit 11: Risks related to Engineering’s decisions, and how to mitigate the risks

"Converging Technologies for a Changing World" 21^st Century Engineering Education at Union College

There has been something missing in everything we have been doing with the engineering curricula. A piece of the puzzle was missing - we needed something that linked all the ideas we have been working on together into a single new, modem, structure that defines the cusp of engineering education in the 21 century. Now I have found it. I call it – "Converging Technologies for a Changing World."

The concept of Converging Technologies (CT) is most frequently used today in reference to the telecommunications industry, but it really applies to a wide variety of industries and technologies that are coming together to create new products and solve new problems. It is a phenomenon that is going to continue to define the world of tomorrow for the foreseeable future. By embracing this concept here at Union, we will be the first engineering school to acknowledge the impact of interacting technologies on a global basis, and we will lead the way for others. We can launch such a daring concept because we are small, flexible, experienced with change, and because we are already moving in that direction.

It is what we unwittingly used to construct the theme for the freshman engineering this past fall ("smart cars" - a discussion of converging technologies in the automotive industry). It is the reason why we find it so difficult to explain to freshmen what engineers do in the different majors - they don’t just do one set of tasks any more. It is even consistent with the convergence of math and physics into the Integrated Mathematics and Physics (IMP) courses.

It fits all the activities and directions that CORE subcommittees are currently engaged. It is what the Feigenbaum’s have been talking about all along (CT eliminates silos by merging them), and it is a recognizable concept to many parents and potential students.

Converging Technologies for a Changing World is also aligned with President Hull’s strategy for Union College as a place where students and faculty discover innovative ways to harness technology to improve the quality of life around the world in the 21^st century.

In engineering education "Converging Technology" (CT) means creating courses and programs that mix students from all engineering majors (thus converging technologies) so that they graduate with a broad technical background that goes beyond that provided by their traditional engineering major.

The new fields of bioengineering, mechatronics, intelligent systems, smart structures, and intelligent transportation systems are all examples of converging technologies. Even our own Computer Systems Engineering program is an example of a converging technology since it combines traditional fields of computer science and electrical engineering. Even the new field of "distance learning" is a result of the convergence of telecommunications and educational technologies.

We are neither too small nor too large to champion the CT paradigm in engineering education. Our position as an established engineering school with a historical role in educational innovation that begins with Eliphalet Nott gives us the credibility we need to define this paradigm and put it into practice.

Converging Technologies would include more than just a melding of traditional engineering technologies. It could include various skills and disciplines across the campus. For example, one might explore combining the ideas of a computer scientist with the needs of a graphic artist or television or movie director. In order to use multimedia technologies to their upmost, one must know how to properly convey ideas or information so as to instruct someone or sell a product.

Properly designed and sequenced ESc core courses will function as CT background courses. Adding a program requirement of one or more CT courses (bioengineering, intelligent systems, etc.) as technical electives, and a common capstone CT team-based industrial projects course completes the basic structure of the program. The integrated foreign experience is embraced via our viewing convergent technologies for a "changing world." Properly chosen GenED courses will provide the cultural sensitivity required to understand global technological changes.

Finally, we need to provide compelling examples showing how the "Converging Technologies" initiative will:

The current trend of converging communications technologies used to be science fiction and futuristic - systems enabling voice, data, and visual communication. Today, science fiction has become science fact for combining voice and data. Internet and mobile technologies are converging to form the groundwork for the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), an emerging technology that forms the basis for totally new applications. The next generation cellphones will act as email, credit card, and personal data assistants. It is projected that this will increase wireless usage by at least 35% over the next few years.

To some people the term "converging technologies" is used to refer to the merging of technologies in the communications (including telecommunications) field and in the computer and information technology field. This is occurring due to the digitization of text, voice and graphics, enabling these forms of communication, traditionally delivered by distinctly different modes of transmission, to be treated as digital streams and delivered by a range of modes. "Converging technologies" is often applied only to fields being redefined by the impact of the computer such as telecommunications or multi-media computers capable of presenting text, picture, sound and movement (as video) simultaneously. But, in fact, all forms of traditional technologies are converging via digital and computer facilitation.

It is easy to become confused by all this, because converging technologies are simultaneously both familiar and unfamiliar. For example, text and graphics have been with us for centuries, radio and television for decades, but these are viewed as separate technologies. When separate we recognize them easily, but when we see and hear them all on the same screen it is a disconcerting. They have converged, and their vocabularies are intermixed and distorted.

The tremendous convergence of information technologies recently has resulted in the blurring of distinctions between the various areas. For example, people are working with a fax server which will integrate with voice and e-mail, and can be managed entirely from the desktop.

When we begin to create using the tools provided by converged technologies we are delighted by the complexity and range of possible results. But how will we teach this, where do we begin, what parts of engineering analysis and design still serve and which need revision?

Robert A. Lutz, President and CEO of Chrysler Corporation, made the following comments to a national engineering college advisory committee in June, 1996.

"Five or six years ago Chrysler Corporation once again found itself in very serious trouble. And the reason had to do with our companies thinking. We weren’t taking a holistic approach to how we ran our business. Our functional hierarchies had become ossified-, inter- and intra-competitive; and, perhaps worst of all, self-serving, self-indulgent, and self- possessed. The name we came to give to these functional duchies within Chrysler was ‘chimneys.’ For my money, I want the holistic-thinking person working at Chrysler in today’s highly-uncertain, super-competitive global economy. So, what can all you deans and faculty do to better appeal to companies like Chrysler?

The fact of the matter is, at Chrysler we thought we were chimneyized - until we started dealing with academia. I don’t know, but maybe we were pikers compared to some schools and some programs.

We have no quarrel whatsoever with the scientific skills we see in students coming out of this nation’s engineering schools. But what we do have a problem with is their ability to see the big picture. Program management, problem solving, timing, the principles of quality these basic business principles need to be an integral part of the core curriculum. And the fact of the matter is that teams are becoming the norm out of necessity because that’s the only way we can be competitive.

Figure out ways to dramatically shorten the time it takes you to bring programs to fruition. I know its easy sometimes to say ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ But, believe me, that attitude is the exact antithesis of what excellence is all about.

"if, at the end of the day, your own chimneys, your own red tape, your own conceits or your own plain inertia is standing in the way of developing programs or curricula that are going to help prepare students as well as humanly possible for productive careers, then I think you’ve got some soul-searching to do.

Our "holistic" converging technologies view is just what he is asking for. We continue to emphasize the basics in the traditional engineering majors, and we broaden their horizons and give them the ability to see the "big picture" while merging the traditional engineering program chimneys to create high competitive engineering graduates.

Capstone CT Industrial or Research Team Project course
CT Technical Electives	Foreign Experience
GenEd and Sophomore Engineering CT Background Courses	Engineering Major Core Courses (EE, ME, CE, CSE)
Math, Physics and Engineering Freshman CT Background Courses