Evaluation of engineering management graduate curriculum: Content in the reduction of uncertainty

Engineering education curriculum development is critical to all disciplines of engineering education. Most disciplines of engineering (civil, chemical, electrical, industrial, mechanical, etc.) have well established undergraduate, and fairly well developed graduate curriculums. This core set of courses and basic philosophical and technical underpinnings establish the identity of each discipline. Although the core courses and technologies of each discipline undergo scrutiny and revisions on an almost continual basis, there is no doubt that the identity of each discipline is established. This cannot be said about engineering management. The identity crisis with which engineering management has struggled with in the past and continues to combat will not begin to dissipate until the core set of courses, philosophies, technologies, and one might even say values is somewhat established. The reality is that in Engineering Management we lack a defining culture. This paper presents, discusses, and analyses these issues not to present a solution so much as to raise the challenge and initiate the debate. For too long Engineering Management faculty and scholars have avoided this problem. This paper presents some ideas as strawmen for the engineering management community to debate.