LInc Talk

Date: 

Thursday, October 31, 2019, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

The Reading Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St.

PPT Presentation Slides 

Reimagining General Education: Design Thinking and Intrinsic Motivation Perspectives

Richard Miller, PhDRichard K. Miller, PhD 
President and Professor of Mechanical Engineering 
Olin College of Engineering 


 With the rapidly growing influence of AI and asynchronous learning resources, the role of general education is rapidly evolving. To an unprecedented degree, it now not only matters "what you know” but "what you can do” with what you know. Thus, experiential learning is of growing importance in all of education. This requires making sense of what you know, self-expression, and taking action. Learning only from a book (or other passive resources) is simply not enough. Ideally, a balanced general education today should enable all students to find things out (research), make sense of the world (reflection and integration), and envision what has never been while learning to do what it takes to make it happen (take initiative). Learning in this way may also address the most prominent problem in higher education today (identified by Howard Gardner at HGSE in his recent seven-year study): belonging, mental health and wellbeing. A life transforming education today should lay the foundation for flourishing throughout a lifetime, not just prepare graduates for a first job. This talk will present some lessons learned at Olin College in the last 15 years of experimentation. At Olin, all students take multiple semesters of Design Thinking, integrated with efforts to build intrinsic motivation, and complete more than 20 collaborative group design-build projects before graduation. They also work for two semesters with a corporate client who pays more than $50,000 for the privilege of setting goals for their design work. Much, if not all, of this is transferable to any academic discipline—not just Engineering.

Richard K. Miller was appointed President and first employee of Olin College of Engineering in 1999. Previously, he served as Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa, Associate Dean of Engineering at USC in Los Angeles, and assistant professor of engineering at UCSB in Santa Barbara. With a background in applied mechanics and current interests in innovation in higher education, Miller is the author of more than 100 reviewed journal articles and other technical publications. He received the 2017 Brock International Prize in Education for his many contributions to the reinvention of engineering education in the 21st century. Together with two Olin colleagues, he received the 2013 Bernard M. Gordon Prize from the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education. Recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a member of both the NAE and the National Academy of Inventors. In 2011, he received the Marlowe Award for creative and distinguished administrative leadership from the American Society for Engineering Education. Miller has served as Chair of the National Academies Board on Higher Education and Workforce (BHEW) and as Chair of the Engineering Advisory Committee of the U.S. National Science Foundation.  He has also served on advisory boards and committees for Harvard University, Stanford University, the NAE, NAS, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in addition to others. Furthermore, he has served as a consultant to the World Bank in the establishment of new universities in developing countries. A frequent speaker on engineering education, he received the 2002 Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award from the University of California at Davis, where he earned his B.S. He earned his M.S. from MIT and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where he received the 2014 Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award.