GREENSBORO Shortly after he came to N.C. A&T, engineering professor Stephen Knisley noticed that the National Science Foundation had embarked on a groundbreaking project.

The NSF, the federal agency that supports research in science and engineering, wanted universities to look for different ways to teach engineering and computer science.

Intrigued, Knisley applied for a Revolutionizing Engineering Departments, or RED, grant. The NSF in June awarded him $2 million to fund a five-year project to improve A&Ts undergraduate engineering curriculum.

A professor and researcher who has devoted his career to working with cardiac devices, Knisley will lead a team that includes professors from A&Ts engineering, education and health and human sciences colleges.

News & Record higher education reporter John Newsom sat down with Knisley on Wednesday in McNair Hall, home of the biological, chemical and bioengineering department that Knisley chairs. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Whats the goal of the RED project?

A: Its quite visionary. What (the NSF is) talking about will really change the way engineering is taught in the U.S. It will lead to a quantum increase in the competitiveness and talents and skills of our engineers, which will ultimately bleed over to economic competitivenessand competitivenessin all other areas of technology. ... The U.S. has always had a leading role (in engineering), but its a challenge to really keep up with all the other countries that are also doing well with their engineers.

Q: Whats the problem youre trying to solve?

A: Its motivation. I dont know why some students really do well in school and some dont. What I have to believe is for the most part is that engineering students are not achieving their full potential. I know some are getting close.

Our students in this department are some of the brightest ones who come to the university. I see some very high-performing, hard-working students who really are serious and they might be getting close to their potential. I see some who are getting by and are somewhere in between. Maybe theyre lacking motivation. We think maybe design activity would trigger those motivators.

Q: Design activity? What's that?

A: Design is a very integral part of engineering. . Engineers are doing things that apply their knowledge and skills to solve some problem and create some solution.

The way design is taught in most engineering programs that I've known is that it usually gets introduced to freshmen and then they go into coursework for a couple of years. Sophomores and juniors are doing engineering science and engineering analysis types of courses without much design. Then they come back in their senior year and do a very significant design project.

Theres a big gap in the middle where design isnt really emphasized ... The way it is now, (design is taught mostly) in the senior year, which really is maybe too late to really have the big impact on these students.

Q: Why do you think design is the key?

A: Part of the reasoning is based on some very compelling scientific literature that talks about why people want to learn things. (What) made the most sense to me was about certain features of the material that will become motivators to learn. One of those is value. If a student believes that what theyre about to learn has value, that will make them want to go in the class and learn it.

If youre working for an engineering firm thats making new bolts or something for companies that use them to manufacture lawn chairs or something like that, its hard to get the feeling for how youre impacting people with that.

But when youre creating a solution like this for people who have sore backs [motions behind him to a poster about a lumbar device designed by A&T students] you think, wow, if that works, then all these peoples grandmas and uncles are going to feel a lot better. Thats really a positive thing and they get real excited and they want to get up in the early in the morning and want to work late at night. Ive seen it time and time again because theres a social human impact piece in those disciplines.

What were doing now is looking at our curricula (in his department) and planning changes that were going to try to implement as soon as we can that will add design labs and design principles into the coursework for freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors.

One of the things were aiming to do is to decrease lecture content and add lab content where (students) can do these design activities, which will include hands-on activity. Some of that lab time is spent understanding the user and their need requirements looking at the market, looking at existing solutions, looking at gaps those solutions have. Its a similar process that entrepreneurs go through when they start a project.

Q: Why are you taking an entrepreneurial approach?

A: It emphasizes the need first and then the solution. What struck me about it was, of all the professors I had known over the years at universities, almost never does it happen that way, at least in my experience. The professors work in their lab and come up with a solution and sometimes theyre going after a need. After theyve discovered the molecule or the solution or the phenomena, then theyre saying, I wonder if this can be used for that problem or that problem or that problem? ...

The entrepreneurs never do that. They always have a need first looking for a solution. It was the flipping of an order. I thought that was kind of revolutionary, just that whole concept. Thats basically the way were doing our design now need first, then the solution.

Q: So if it works?

A: A lot of this is revolutionary stuff. If it works the way we think, its going to be steering us in a better direction toward producing more highly competitive engineers.

Contact John Newsom at (336) 373-7312 and follow @JohnNewsomNR on Twitter.

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Higher ed Q&A: Stephen Knisley, bioengineering professor at NC A&T - Greensboro News & Record