Work in progress — A grand challenge leadership course for engineering students

At the University of Tennessee, The Grand Challenge Scholar program operates in conjunction with the Honors Engineering Leadership minor (HELM) and emphasizes leadership training as part of interdisciplinary coursework preparing engineering students to work at the boundaries of their profession with business, entrepreneurship, ethics, and human behavior. We have formed a partnership with the Department of Management, College of Business Administration, to assist in developing this interdisciplinary leadership training for engineering students. In response to the question of how Leadership Development could be customized based on student differences by major, a brief analysis of leadership skills was conducted. This analysis includes comparison of the overall reported Master and Needs Work skills between UT-CBA and UT-COE students. Observable differences and similarities in Management and Engineering student leadership skills are discussed as well as implications for designing leadership activities for engineering students.