To a considerable degree, technical expertise has become a commodity, available elsewhere in the world at costs lower than those in the U.S. Increasingly, products are being designed in India and manufactured in China, with emphasis here shifting more toward innovation, entrepreneurship, management, marketing, and the "softer" sides of engineering. Every College of Engineering in the U.S. is wrestling with this paradigm shift.

In 2005, our College Executive Advisory Council, comprised of some twenty-five top-level engineering and business executives, primarily from the FAU service area, undertook the task of advising us on the strategic changes we should consider to help assure that our graduates are prepared for the workplace of tomorrow. They engaged a marketing specialist to lead them in a year-long planning process that utilized research, surveys, personal interviews, and focus groups to engage faculty and business, education, and community leaders locally and across the country.

Underlying this effort by the Council was their understanding that the State of Florida cannot provide the level of support required for us to produce the kinds of graduates they seek to hire. They were fully willing to help, but we had no effective management mechanisms to facilitate these interactions. The Council addressed this need through proposed creation of a Center for Innovation Leadership. We currently are working to establish this Center and to raise private funds for construction of a facility to house its activities.

The Council recognized the technical strengths of our existing curricula and wanted to maintain these. But they also wanted to provide a select group of students enhanced background and training in innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership, and communication. Realizing that curriculum change is exceedingly difficult to accomplish, they proposed that this additional background be accomplished through an "overlay" to our existing curricula.

Innovation Leadership Scholars will complete both the degree requirements of their selected major and the special requirements of the ILHP. These requirements consist of a combination of existing and new courses, a Leadership Development Workshop series, and special enrichment activities. The ILHP will also provide its students with invaluable practical experience and access to industry leaders.

Students are invited to apply for acceptance to the program based on their academic accomplishments. The final selection of applicants for the ILHP will be based on student's cumulative evaluation of their leadership skills, innovative capabilities and academic performance as evidenced in their application documents, recommendations, interview, standardized test results, and/or cumulative grade point average.