Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Armour College of Engineering is among more than 120 U.S. engineering schools leading a transformative movement in engineering education announced at the White House on Monday, March 23. In a letter presented to President Barack Obama, IIT Armour and peer institutions committed to establish special educational programs designed to prepare undergraduates to solve “Grand Challenges”—complex yet achievable goals to improve national and international health, security, sustainability and quality of life in the 21st century. Together, the schools plan to graduate more than 20,000 formally recognized “Grand Challenge Engineers” over the next decade.

IIT Armour College of Engineering plans to continue offering unique curricular, co-curricular, and enrichment programs that integrate innovative thought, entrepreneurship, creativity and design with engineering theory, research, and practice. These include:

IIT Engineering Themes, a group of experiences that support a comprehensive multi-disciplinary education that revolves around areas of high significant and global impact. Through on- and off-campus opportunities, students explore engineering solutions to Grand Challenge with current Themes of disciplinary focus of Energy, Water, Health and Security.

Armour R&D, a hands-on research and development program based on projects and ideas developed by student-faculty teams. It consists of two programs: PURE & MIND. The Program for Undergraduate Research Education (PURE) focuses on fundamental engineering research exploring problems that face society today. Mentored INovation and Development (MIND) focuses on the development and implementation of technology based solutions.

IPRO, inter-professional projects provide IIT students with teamwork, leadership, and project management skills while contributing to the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental and societal context. Recognized by the NAE as one of 29 programs in the nation successfully “Infusing Real World Experiences into Engineering Education” in 2012, IIT Armour College of Engineering designs and implements IPRO courses with themes of disciplinary focus addressing tangible, real world issues like Urban Systems.

For details about the initiative please see National Academy of Engineering release, available here.