Jim Duderstadt, President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan on “The Globalization of Higher Education”
Newt Gingrich, Author of Winning the Future: A 21st-Century Contract with America
“The coming revolution in science”
Michael Curtin, Professor of Media & Cultural Studies, Director of Global Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison on “Global Screen Industries”
Klaus Hoehn, Vice President, Advanced Technology and Engineering, Deere and Company
“Globalization and Technology - Challenge and Opportunity for Future Engineers”
Governor Tom Vilsack on “Globalization - Threats and Opportunities”
Recently, several articles have expressed concern for the low number of women in computer science. This is nothing new except, rather then blaming male and female stereotypes that may influence female’s decision to go into the field or emphasizing the lack of female professor role models, new ideas are challenging the way computer science is taught.The thinking here is that currently computer science courses, especially introductory ones, place too much emphasis on computer programming and technology rather then design and other problem solving aspects of the curriculum.There is hope that new classes being introduced at Universities will bring more women into the field.
According to an article this past January in the New York Times, entitled Global Advances Challenge U.S. Dominance in Sciencethe United States is lagging behind the rest of the world in the development of new S&T talents.Thanks to globalization, Americans have become reliant on “foreign-born workers to fill technical jobs” with no end in site since efforts to fill student achievement gaps early on are not working.Many students and even adult Americans remain scientifically illiterate.
However, a new report released by the RAND Corporation reads the same statistics somewhat differently, putting a positive spin on globalization. The report, U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology (pdf here) looked at factors such as, R&D spending, triadic patents, publications, investment in science and math education and the science and engineering workforce to determine if the US was really falling behind. What it found is that in almost every area the United States is leading the way, contributing to about 40% of R&D spending and triadic patents worldwide. Additionally, the report noted that while “U.S. investments per student in elementary and secondary education are on par with those of other industrialized nations” its investments in post-secondary education are nearly double that of other countries.
As far as the S&E workforce is concerned, RAND was not too concerned, noting that growth in this area has been steady since 1980, largely due to foreign-born workers who “have helped enable” this trend.
So globalization seems good.Increase in foreign-born workers in the United States should already indicate how the U.S. has benefited from integration into a world-wide society. RAND also speculates the US can profit from it economically as well if Americans can embrace foreign gadgets.
The U.S. should not take S&E light- heartedly, but instead continue to try and counteract “exaggerated claims of the demise or success of U.S. science and technology”, RAND adds in a final statement. The article recommends three policy strategies that United States could adapt to continue going strong into the future, including, “establishing a centrally coordinated, independent body to monitor and evaluate U.S. performance in science and technology over the long term, facilitating high-skilled immigration to allow the United States to continue to benefit from employing foreign S&E workers and increase U.S. capacity to interact with science centers abroad and capitalize on the scientific and technological advances being made elsewhere.”
“America faces the very real prospect of losing its engineering competence in an era in which technological innovation is the key to economic competitiveness, national security and social well-being,” said Duderstadt, who is president emeritus of the University of Michigan, where he is a professor of science and engineering.
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In an address titled “Engineering for a Changing World,” Duderstadt pointed to warning signs of daunting challenges for engineering.
He cited the off-shoring of engineering jobs, inadequate investment in long-term engineering research, inadequate innovation in engineering education and declining interest among students in careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
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Even more, it must expose engineering students to varied aspects of a well-rounded liberal arts education. More education in the humanities and social sciences is necessary to produce young engineers with a deeper comprehension of the cultural and historical forces within which scientific and technological advances have emerged.
Such an expanded educational horizon will provide students with the ability to see their engineering pursuits as part of a larger picture of the sociological, economic, political and environmental dynamics that are shaping the 21st century.
Giving students an understanding of the impact of science, engineering and technology on shaping the quality of life in the world will “infuse them with a new spirit of adventure” for engineering research and practice, he said.
Duderstadt said the nation’s universities must be committed to “creating a new breed of engineer that is better able to respond to the incredible pace of intellectual change” and to thrive in the modern global knowledge-based economy.
For the United States to maintain an edge in engineering innovation, it’s also critical to “elevate the status of the engineering profession,” he said. That will require engineers to take on more visible roles in influencing public policy through leadership in government and business.
The proposal, which will go before the UW Board of Regents next week, would eventually raise tuition by $1,400 per year in the College of Engineering. The money would go toward hiring more faculty and improving academic programs.
The School of Business was the first undergraduate school at UW-Madison to bump tuition higher, a practice known as differential tuition, when it required students to pay $500 more per semester this past school year.
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An engineering student group, the Polygon Engineering Student Council, voted last year to approve the measure.
In the other direction, Sen. Max Baucus has proposed: “free college tuition for math and science majors as part of a $25 billion education incentives package”
Just two years after the University of Wyoming reinstated an undergraduate degree program in petroleum engineering, 12 students will receive bachelor of science degrees in the discipline. Commencement is scheduled May 10.
“That (reinstating the B.S. degree) was a good decision,” says H. Gordon Harris, who heads the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “All of the graduating students have been offered positions in the oil and gas industry.”
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“We (UW students) have opportunities to learn about all phases of drilling and production,” he says, adding that he really appreciated learning from Jack Evers, a UW professor who came out of retirement to teach in the program. Brinkerhoff has accepted a position with EOG Resources in Vernal, Utah, and will start work for the company later this month.
Brian Towler, who was the department head when the degree was reinstated, says about 10 students in the petroleum engineering program are from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, where they earned two-year associates degrees and then came to UW to complete their four-year degrees. He says the university has had a long history recruiting Canadian students to finish their degrees at UW.
“We find ourselves at this moment in history with the number of engineering graduates at one of its lowest levels of the past 20 years, and yet a time when the demand for young people prepared to work in America’s high-technology industries has never been higher,” wrote John Brooks Slaughter, president and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, which sponsored the report through a grant from the Motorola Foundation.
Confronting the “New” American Dilemna, Under-Represented Minorities in Engineering: A Data-Based Look at Diversity has not been made available online. Remarks on the report by Lisa M. Frehill.
The National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program aims to ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and to reinforce its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in the relevant science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees.
This year NSF awarded 913 fellowships: which come with a stipend of $30,000 and $10,500 cost of education allowance. On our Science and Engineering Fellowship blog we are highlighting awardees including: Julia Kamenetzky (in photo), physics major at Cornell College; Andrej Lenert, mechanical engineering major at the University of Iowa; Jennifer Robinson, computer science major at North Carolina State; Jeremy Freeman, neuroscience major at Swarthmore; and Mariela Zeledón, biological sciences major at Carnegie Mellon University.
This “Engineering the Future” class is one of several efforts across the country to introduce engineering to elementary- and secondary-school pupils. The programs, which are growing in number and in some cases being established on a statewide basis, come in response to countless studies over the years that show if students encounter engineering early on in school, they are more likely to choose it as a career.
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While 37 states include some form of engineering or technology education in their curriculum standards, only Massachusetts has designed a statewide assessment in technology/engineering similar to exams now administered in biology, chemistry and introductory physics.
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Early returns suggest that K-12 engineering programs like those offered by the Museum of Science seem to be having the desired effect of boosting interest in engineering careers. Take the results from Project Lead the Way, a nonprofit group that has developed an engineering curriculum for more than 1,700 middle and high schools in 46 states and the District of Columbia. A survey of 3,700 students in the program in 20 states found that 80 percent intend to enroll in college (10 percent higher than the national average). And 60 percent of them plan to study engineering, technology, math or science (about double the national average).
Indeed, an analysis of 100 college transcripts from Project Lead the Way participants who graduated from high school in 2005 or before showed that about 75 are studying engineering or technology. Moreover, they averaged a B or better in calculus, physics and chemistry.
You cannot look into the eyes of a child who is dying from a disease caused by drinking dirty water — something that rarely, if ever, happens in the United States — and not feel changed. You cannot stand before her parents without thinking, “I’m an engineer. There must be something I can do.”
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A year later, I returned with 10 engineering students from the University of Colorado. We devised a rudimentary pumping system, bringing water to the people of San Pablo. Today, the village’s young girls go to school and are healthier.
That trip was a transforming experience, not just for the villagers, but also for me. Intuitively, we engineers like things big — expansive bridges, colossal dams, massive tunnels. My experience taught me that small-scale engineering can have the most impact on people’s lives.
When I returned to Boulder, I began building something else: Engineers Without Borders — USA. The organization was formed out of the conviction that engineers have a leadership role to play in addressing some of the world’s most serious problems: contaminated water, poor sanitation systems, expensive or harmful energy sources.
In a world focused on bigger and newer, there is growing recognition that small-scale engineering can play a major role in helping end the cycle of poverty that persists among almost half the world’s population. Studies by the World Bank and United Nations suggest the most basic technology is critical to bringing more than 3 billion people out of poverty.
Today EWB-USA counts more than 11,000 student and professional engineers as members and works in 43 countries on 300 projects involving water, sanitation, energy and shelter. Whether it’s combining sustainable technologies with advanced construction techniques to bring affordable housing to pockets of the world, drilling drinking water wells in Kenya, constructing fog collectors in the Himalayas to harvest fresh water or installing solar panels to provide energy for a remote hospital in Rwanda, we are healing communities throughout the globe, giving people dignity and hope for better lives.
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
About Engineering &...
Engineering &... covers developments in engineering as it relates to the world around us. It features examples of how engineering intersects with the economy, society, education, and national interests in general to the benefit of all. ASEE offers these tidbits as educational resources for policy-makers and thought leaders in engineering and related fields.
