Integrating Technical Leadership and Communications Programs at MIT: Challenges and Opportunities.

This paper summarizes the challenges and opportunities of developing, running, and synergizing four undergraduate and graduate technical leadership programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). These include UPOP, GEL, GradEL and CommLab, each of which came into existence over the last twenty years with different audiences but a common ambition to amplify the leadership abilities of MIT's graduates as future technical leaders. The benefits of integration include increased depth of student involvement, better academic integrity, as well as cross-program longitudinal assessment. Challenges of the programs under the umbrella of Technical Leadership and Communications (TLC) include organizational positioning, and convincing both students and faculty that these skills are force multipliers for increased impact. Despite tremendous progress in codifying engineering leadership and delivering impactful experiential learning to our students, these programs and their overall governance remain a work in progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]