Developing a longitudinal evaluation program for a leadership minor

The Engineering Leadership Development Minor was developed to satisfy the need for engineering graduates to be increasingly competent not only in their technical skills, but also in non technical skills such as communication and teamwork. The minor does not claim to create leaders but rather to develop skills in students that we feel contribute to effective leadership. Specifically, the minor proposes to address the following skills: communication-verbal and written, teamwork, creativity, ethics, critical thinking, and the ability to work with ill structured problems. The paper proposes a plan for evaluating the effectiveness of the minor. The plan addresses several levels: 1) evaluating each minor core course; 2) evaluating the minor as a whole; and 3) post-Penn State/graduation evaluation. Only the second level-evaluating the minor as a whole-is treated fully