The format of the plenary session featured a Socratic panel of eight experts in the field of engineering education research. Led by moderator Joe DiGregorio of the University of California, Riverside, the panel included: Norman Fortenberry, National Academy of Engineering; Gary Gabriele, National Science Foundation; Jeremy Noonan, Purdue University; Jim Pellegrino, University of Illinois-Chicago; David Radcliffe, University of Queensland-Australia; Juan Rivera, Northrup-Grumman; Elaine Seymour, University of Colorado-Boulder; and Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University. The lively session debated ways in which rigorous research principles could be applied to engineering education to develop best practices for educating the global engineer of the future.

Pursuant to the 2006 ASEE conference, special sessions are being planned for the 12 ASEE geographic section meetings to be held in fall 2006 and spring 2007. The objective of these special sessions is to engage a broad sector of ASEE membership in discussing and defining the “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Engineering Education.” The dialogue will hopefully result in an ASEE-wide consensus on what constitutes scholarly research in engineering education, what is the scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering education and what are the best practices for teaching engineers of the future.

A Year of Dialogue blog is in the works for ASEE’s Web page with initial postings reflecting the Chicago main plenary discussion. All members will be able to continue the dialogue online.

It is hoped that the areas of focus at section meetings and ASEE technical divisions will include the following topics:

1. Advancing scholarly research in engineering education—making sure it is well done, recognized and rewarded. While such research is well recognized and accepted at some institutions, it is not at others. At many research-oriented universities, faculty members conducting educational research often struggle to have their work recognized for promotion and tenure.

2. Implementing the best practices from this scholarly research. While we have learned from the scholarship of teaching and learning, that knowledge is not always applied. We need to find ways to persuade engineering, math and science professors to use this knowledge to improve teaching.

3. Engaging in the scholarship of teaching—improving our practices for peer evaluation, the delivery of instruction and the art of teaching and articulating the best methods for the formative and summative evaluation of teaching. While universities have accepted procedures for evaluating scholarship in the form of research, mainly through peer-reviewed publications, we do not have accepted or widely used procedures for evaluating scholarship in the form of teaching.

At the end of this year of dialogue, it is expected that ASEE’s role as the voice for engineering in America will become clear. An ASEE zone leadership committee consisting of past and current zone chairs has been formed to spearhead this YOD effort. The committee is chaired by ASEE’s vice president of member affairs, J.P. Mohsen. Contact your zone chair if you wish to participate in these YOD activities in your section.

Ronald E. Barr is immediate past president of ASEE.