International evaluation of current and future requirements for environmental engineering education

The field of environmental engineering is developing as a result of changing environmental requirements. In response, environmental engineering education (E3) needs to ensure that it provides students with the necessary tools to address these challenges. In this paper the current status and future development of E3 is evaluated based on a questionnaire sent to universities and potential employers of E3 graduates. With increasing demands on environmental quality, the complexity of environmental engineering problems to be solved can be expected to increase. To find solutions environmental engineers will need to work in interdisciplinary teams. Based on the questionnaire there was a broad agreement that the best way to prepare students for these future challenges is to provide them with a fundamental education in basic sciences and related engineering fields. Many exciting developments in the environmental engineering profession will be located at the interface between engineering, science, and society. Aspects of all three areas need to be included in E3 and the student needs to be exposed to the tensions associated with linking the three.

Developing and evaluating authentic integration between research and coursework in professional doctorate programs

Integration has always been a prominent issue debated in the burgeoning literature on professional doctorate programs. This focus on integration, however, has largely involved the integration between theoretical and practical understandings of various professions. Exploring the integration between research and coursework components of professional doctorate programs has received less attention. This article explores the character of the integration between coursework and research in several professional doctorate programs at a number of Australian research-intensive universities and universities of technology. Using a content analysis methodology, this research charted the various models for sequencing research and coursework and established whether integration was an explicit or implicit goal of the espoused curriculum. It also sought to explore whether there were differences in the levels of integration in professional doctorate programs across different types of universities or patterns of variation across disciplines.