Courses help students learn business skills. The University of Western Ontario has added a new option for engineering students this year: leadership.
“It is officially on the books,” says Michael Bartlett, the engineering faculty’s associate dean of academics, of the new leadership and innovation certificate program.
Students in the undergraduate engineering program who opt to pursue the certificate will take Ivey Business School courses in their final three years to qualify.
The engineering school currently partners with other faculties to deliver dual undergraduate degrees and one offered in business and engineering is particularly popular, Bartlett says.
“That gives the graduate a really wonderful kit of tools to go into a career with — understanding the technical side and understanding the business side as well.”
Like the dual degree, the leadership and innovation certificate will employ Ivey’s case studies approach — using scenarios drawn from real business situations — as a teaching resource. But students will be able to complete their certificate program and engineering degree in four years instead of the five that it usually takes to complete a dual undergraduate degree.
Bartlett says the university’s engineering program is already doing a good job of educating students to become good engineers.
“But not only at Western but in Canada,” he said.
“I think it’s been recognized that we should be trying to do a better job to educate people who can take technically smart ideas and turn them into innovations that are successful in the marketplace.”
“The objective of the new certificate is to expose engineering students to the business strategies “they might need to make an idea successful,” he says.
The university’s engineering program currently has 1,400 students enrolled.
Bartlett did not yet have enrolment figures for the new certificate program but noted that about 65 to 80 students currently enroll in dual degrees.
The new program is being funded by a $3 million donation by John and Melinda Thompson.
Thompson is a former chancellor of the university, alumnus of its engineering program and is a past president and CEO of IBM Canada.
The funding will also assist in the foundation of the John M. Thompson chair in engineering leadership and innovation, a position that will straddle the university’s business and engineering schools.
Bartlett says the goal is to make the appointment for the new position by next July.
“That individual would have an engineering degree and a business background and would become the champion in helping to continue to build better bridges between engineering and Ivey,” Bartlett says.
The new appointment would also help develop the case studies that would be used in the certificate program.
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