The central focus for the Gateway Coalition is the development of students as emerging professionals. This broad statement emphasizes ideas that have been subordinate to the delivery of technical content and the corresponding increase of student technical knowledge and technical problem solving capability. In addition to these more traditional goals the Gateway Coalition affirms the importance of: leadership; teaming; organization; historical, social and political contexts; as well as business, science and technical pedagogy.
In accordance with the above over-arching goals, the Gateway Coalition innovations emphasize the following "core" skills: analytical skills, communication skills, creative problem-solving, life-long learning, research skills, project management, systems thinking, teamwork skills, and technical competency. The Faculty survey tool available from the links above is an example of how many of the Gateway institutions collect feedback from their faculty as to what extent a course taught by the faculty member has succeeded in providing students with opportunities to learn and practice certain ABET 2000 - related competencies. The survey provided here is what Poly Tech uses to assess the impact of Gateway innovations in targeted courses.
