A university-industry continuing education program as an enrichment model for undergraduate engineering curricula and continuing professional development

A description is given of a successful 1987 program in which the Zenith Electronic Corporation in Glenview, Illinois, contracted with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for a nine-month continuing engineering education program. The program was aimed at the middle-level engineer, the level where the engineers had some individual experience in the target areas. The electrical engineering technology training program consisting of two separate series of courses, each with its own set of learning objectives. Six different courses were taught in the analog systems series and four were taught in the digital systems and microprocessor series. Not only were company retraining needs met, but the UIUC electrical and computer engineering department professors teaching the onsite program said that they were taking back to their classrooms valuable lessons learned from the 140 engineers in the Zenith program. Program schedule and cost as well as lessons learned and the program´s future are discussed