The Grand Challenge Scholar at the University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee College of Engineering is the newest member of a consortium of engineering schools with an approved National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge Scholar Program (GCSP). Only six engineering schools in the country currently, in May of 2010, hold this designation.

In 2008, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) identified 14 Grand Challenges for engineering in the 21st Century. These challenges represent the broad themes at the boundary of technology and society like “Make Solar Energy Economical” and “ Provide Access to Clean Water”. NAE’s Grand Challenge Scholar Program is the companion program for engineering schools that have accepted the challenge of designing combined curricular and extra-curricular programs to prepare students to be the generation that solves the grand challenges facing society. The founding members of GCSP are Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, and the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering.

Each approved GCSP student program must include:

1. A research experience related to one of the 14 Grand Challenges.
2. Interdisciplinary coursework that prepares a student to work at the boundary of engineering with public policy, business, ethics, risk, and human behavior.
3. An entrepreneurship experience to prepare students to translate invention to innovation.
4. A global experience to build the student’s perspective of these global issues.
5. A service learning experience to deepen students’ motivation to bring their technical expertise to bear on societal problems.

The University of Tennessee’s GCSP relies heavily on the Honors Engineering Leadership Minor (HELM), which provides a curriculum template that, along with the student’s honors degree requirements, satisfies all GCSP requirements except the research experience. It is expected that most GCSP students will also be in the HELM program. Unlike HELM, though, the GCSP is not restricted only to honors students, permitting any engineering student to independently build a program that satisfies the requirements, and petition the UT-GCSP Steering Committee for approval of their plan.

Students graduating from this program will be designated a Grand Challenge Scholar, and nationally recognized with their GCSP peers from other participating schools on the National Academy website.

Follow the links on the left menu for details of this exciting program!

Contact information:

J. Roger Parsons
GCSP/HELM Co-Director
100 Estabrook Hall
jparsons@utk.edu

Christopher D. Pionke
GCSP/HELM Co-Director
COE Honors Director
102 Estabrook Hall cpionke@utk.edu

GCSP/HELM Campus Partners:

Steve Dandaneau
Associate Provost and Director
Chancellors and Haslam Honors Program
honors@utk.edu

Tom Graves
Director of Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
College of Business
tgrave10@utk.edu

Elaine Seat
Leadership Studies
Department of Management
College of Business
seat@utk.edu

Bob Kronick
Service Learning Studies
Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling
College of Education, Health, and Human Services
rkronick@utk.edu

Nissa Dahlin-Brown
Associate Director
Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy
nissa@utk.edu