It was structural engineering professor David Billington’s masterwork, The Tower and The Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering,¹ a book based on his popular Princeton course, Structures in the Urban Environment, that first got me thinking about the history of engineering education. Billington, a renowned scholar in structural art, a term he coined, tied the origin of engineering education to the early use of cast iron, stating, “Before then, the building materials were stone and wood, materials in which it is difficult to separate structural from architectural design.”
The National Academy of Engineering, or NAE,² offers a slightly different take, tracing the origins of engineering education to before the 18th century, when most training occurred through apprenticeships and craft guilds. Formal academic programs were featured in military-driven institutions in France in the 1700s, and this model influenced the United States, where West Point became the first major engineering school in 1802, preparing engineers for national infrastructure projects.
According to the NAE, the Industrial Revolution spurred the growth of civil, mechanical, and mining engineering programs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (founded in 1824) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (founded in 1861), where instructors blended theoretical coursework with practical applications. The Morrill Land Grant Act,³ also known as the Land-Grant College Act of 1862, expanded access to engineering education and promoted it to serve national needs.
The NAE states that following World War II, U.S. engineering education prioritized advanced mathematics and scientific theory, aligning with national defense and industrial needs. While this approach produced technically proficient graduates, the academy states that by the 1980s, employers noted deficiencies in communication, teamwork, and understanding of societal impacts.⁴,⁵
Calls for change
In response, several NAE reports⁶ in the 1980s and 1990s called for changes in how engineering was taught, moving from traditional, siloed, theoretical curricula to flexible, dynamic, and inclusive student-centered models that prepare students for a lifetime of learning and innovation. The reports revealed that engineering education had not kept pace with technological and societal developments and recommended more holistic curricula that integrated professional skills, societal awareness, industry connections, and practical applications.
Changes continued with the introduction of ABET’s Engineering Criteria 2000 in 1997, which focused accreditation on student learning outcomes and emphasized competencies in teamwork, ethical responsibility, and lifelong learning.
Calls for new approaches to traditional subjects like engineering came in 2000⁷ with the National Research Council’s publication How People Learn. The book emphasized the role of understanding in determining whether knowledge is usable, transferable, advances one’s knowledge, and can be used to solve society’s most pressing challenges.
More recently, calls to transform the culture of engineering education were rooted in a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Many of us recall our first engineering professor saying: “Look to your left; look to your right. One of you won’t be here at the end of the semester.” This often-quoted mantra reflects a tradition of exclusion, which unfortunately persists. Generally, engineering education has evolved to embrace a more inclusive and supportive approach, recognizing diversity as a moral imperative critical for innovation and excellence.
In his 2002 speech, “The Importance of Diversity in Engineering,”⁸ renowned computer scientist William A. Wulf, Ph.D., proclaimed diversity as “essential to good engineering” and “an equity issue.” An inclusive culture involves recruiting a diverse student body and creating environments in which all students can thrive and make meaningful contributions to the profession.
The history of women in engineering illustrates both progress made and ongoing challenges. While accessibility and opportunities expanded for men post-World War II, they did not expand commensurately for women. Before World War II, women’s participation in engineering was virtually nonexistent. Although growth has been slow and uneven in subsequent decades, participation has plateaued despite ongoing outreach, mentoring, and recruitment. According to research by the Society of Women Engineers, by the 2020–2021 academic year, women earned approximately 23% of all engineering and engineering technology bachelor’s degrees in the U.S. — 33,310 out of more than 145,000 total, up from 17.2% in 2011. Women are also underrepresented as engineering faculty, holding only 18.5% of positions in the U.S.⁹
New ways of thinking
Dr. Billington’s book — a powerful narrative that describes outstanding structural design as an art form —changed the way I experienced structural engineering. And its impact was confluent with my work on engineering curriculum design for children.
My grant work in precollege engineering education applied Imaginative Education (IE),¹⁰,¹¹ Kieran Egan’s theory of developmentally appropriate narrative as a cognitive tool that emotionally engages and motivates deep learning, understanding, and efficacy. In an almost 14-year collaboration with Smith College engineering and education faculty funded by the National Science Foundation, I co-led a team that developed multimedia engineering education for middle school students using story — fantasy and mystery, limits and extremes of reality, and associations with the heroic — to capture students’ imaginations and let them engage with engineering in new ways. Students using our curricula tackled relevant, challenging, open-ended problems and questions framed in stories about the Haiti earthquake of 2010, biomimicry via pet rescue and pet prosthetics, the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston, and the Apollo 13 mission of 1972.
As a result, students gained understanding, knowledge transfer, and self-efficacy on innovative assessments based on learning theory. More importantly, teachers noted that our curricula was engaging, relatable, and sparked the best discussions from their students, saying that students “could see themselves in the characters.”
Story is a powerful cognitive tool. It is congruent with how people think and engage with ideas and knowledge. It captivates learners’ imaginations and engenders motivation for deep learning. It is also communal, facilitating collaboration and discourse. Story doesn’t change the content of a course but changes how students interact with it.
Story is not just for precollege engineering education; it can scaffold learning and motivate students at any level. Story has had an impact on my courses despite the challenges posed by a traditional academic schedule and rigid curriculum requirements.
After attending one of Billington’s workshops, I created a course at Springfield Technical Community College called The Creative Art of Structures for engineering and non-engineering students. With a focus on reading, research, and writing, it’s a friendly introduction to engineering concepts for non-engineers. I use the same structural art narrative in courses like Statics and Strength of Materials and Structures. In Physics 1 (mechanics) courses, I frame concepts within the context of the Enlightenment and the conflict between figures such as Newton and Hooke. Students have told me it’s the best part of the course! After a student commented about the “wizardry” of physics last semester, I’ll add a bit of Harry Potter to my fall semester.
Story helps outside of coursework, too, as part of mentoring. Sharing my story resonates with students and supports relationships. I encourage students to share their stories in WE conference presentations, in SWE affinity groups, including publications by the Community Colleges affinity group, on social media, and via local STEM networks and gatherings.
Conclusion
Engineering education is evolving. New approaches make engineering more relevant and human-centered, sparking broader interest, encouraging diverse participation, and creating a better-prepared engineering workforce.
References
1. Billington, D. P. (1983). The Tower and The Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering. Princeton University Press.
2. National Academy of Engineering. (2017). Building America’s Skilled Technical Workforce. The National Academies Press.
3. Morrill Land Grant Act www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/civil_war/MorrillLandGrantCollegeAct_FeaturedDoc.htm
4. National Academy of Engineering. (2012). Assuring the U.S. Department of Defense a Strong Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce. Washington, D.C: The National Academies Press.
5. National Academy of Engineering. (2005). Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century. Washington, D.C: The National Academies Press.
6. Wulf, W. A. (1998). “The Urgency of Engineering Education Reform.” The Bridge, Journal of the National Academy of Engineering 28(1). Spring 1998.
7. National Research Council. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (Expanded ed.). National Academies Press.
8. Wulf, W. A. (2002). “The importance of diversity in engineering.” Diversity in Engineering: Managing the Workforce of The Future (pp. 8–16). National Academy of Engineering. National Academies Press.
9. Research, Society of Women Engineers. (2025). U.S. Degree Attainment.
10. Egan, K. (2005). An Imaginative Approach to Teaching. Jossey-Bass
11. Egan, K. (1997). The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding. University of Chicago Press.
