Austin Peay State University (APSU) will launch a RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) planning effort to revolutionize how students understand and navigate between engineering and engineering technology. These fields, while distinct in approach and application, are frequently misunderstood by students, university personnel, and engineering industry. This confusion has led to misinformed decisions, wasted time, lost credits, and delayed graduation for students. APSU’s military-affiliated students, who make up nearly one-third of the student body, are acutely impacted, as GI Bill benefits have a strict timeline to graduation. Because university personnel lack resources to support students’ choice of major and lack an evidence-based framework to articulate the distinct competencies of engineering technology and engineering to the public regional industry faces difficulty identifying the right talent. This project will address these challenges by building clear, collaborative, and efficient pathways between engineering and engineering technology — helping students make better-informed decisions and giving industry a clear understanding of what engineering and engineering technology graduates will contribute to their organizations. By bringing together students, faculty, military-affiliated learners, and employers, APSU’s team will develop a model that can serve its own students and guide other institutions facing similar confusion between engineering and engineering technology. This planning project will align with the goals of NSF’s RED program by developing departmental- and college-level change that impacts students’ holistic engineering formation and collaboratively considers practices that best support student agency and mobility within the engineering enterprise.

The RED planning project at APSU will create a streamlined, evidence-based approach to student mobility and advising related to engineering technology and engineering, ensuring that students have access and agency to pursue the pathway that best aligns with their goals without unnecessary setbacks. It will also lay the foundation for future systematic research in the impact of industry/university partnerships on student retention and success; an area understudied in the academic literature. The project will achieve three goals: (1) it will use participatory and mixed-methods to understand the student experience of choosing between engineering and engineering technology as an undergraduate major; (2) it will deepen knowledge of regional industry needs for engineers and engineering technologists and industry’s comprehension of the different competencies of graduates from each of the fields; and (3) it will prepare the APSU RED planning team for submission of a Track 3 Innovation RED Grant geared towards supporting student mobility between and holistic success within Engineering and Engineering Technology majors at APSU. To achieve goal 1, the APSU RED planning team will use surveys and group level assessment to incorporate student voices in the plan of action. To achieve goal 2, the planning team will use a quantitative scoping survey of industry needs, followed by detailed focus groups to obtain qualitative insights into distinctions and overlap in engineering and engineering technology competencies, resulting in an Engineering Technologists and Engineers Competencies Framework. To achieve goal 3, the team will craft the strategic plan, with guidance from a prior RED recipient, for a RED Track 3 Innovation grant. The goal of the Track 3 proposal will be to reduce delays in degree completion, strengthen job placement outcomes, and serve as a transferable blueprint for universities across the country where engineering and engineering technology coexist.