Engineering Education and Practice in the United States Foundations of Our Techno-Economic Future (1985) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-18
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From page 1... ...
Its findings indicate that the situation was indeed critical in many schools, primarily because of a tremendous increase in enrollments in the face of faculty shortages. In many schools the capacity to cope was and still is being strained severely, but the educational system is managing {albeit with varying 1
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The faculty shortage is proving particularly hard to redress because too few students choose to go into graduate study for the Ph.D end because too few of these have wanted to take faculty positions. Increases in current doctoral enrollments provide hope for at least some improvement in this area especially because undergraduate enrollments seem to have leveled off and because schools are now making stronger efforts to improve faculty compensation and the academic work environment.
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Essential nontechnical skills such as written and oral communication, planning, and technical project management {including management of the individual's own work and career) are not sufficiently emphasized.
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The traditional sources of early work experience are cooperative education and summer employment. Cooperative education has some traditional problems: inconsistent support by industry, high program management costs to the schools, and faulty design of programs from the standpoint of industry are among those most often mentioned.
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engineers. {It should be noted that this is roughly equivalent to the portion of the overall GNP generated by the federal government)
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However, the committee believes that effective continuing education throughout a career holds great promise for keeping engineers professionally flexible enough to anticipate and avoid harm from technological obsolescence and changing demand. The educational services offered by technical and professional engineering societies are important in this regard and should-be supported and used by a greater proportion of the engineering community.
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Enrollments of blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians increased steadily throughout the 1970s but have recently leveled off or declined somewhat. The one exception to this pattern has been Asian Americans, who continue to study engineering at increasingly high rates.
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College administrators should make a candid assessment of the attractiveness of academic life for women in their institutions, and if negative aspects such as these are found, they should take firm steps to eliminate them. Another area needing attention is the precollege education of women and minorities in both science and mathematics.
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Under such conditions, they will have to be adaptable as changing market and economic conditions force them to shift into new areas of work. Through better grounding in engineering fundamentals, more structured programs in continuing education, and greater preparation for managing engineering work and an engineering career, there may be a great increase in the self-directedness of engineers in general.
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Will the engineering enterprise in the United States retain its basic health in the absence of action? " The committee concluded that inaction would pose risks that should not and need not be taken.
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1. Engineering institutions, such as industrial concerns and engineering schools, have proven in the past to be remarkably adaptable, and individual engineers generally have been flexible in responding to change caused by new programs and changing technology.
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The committee recommends that extensive disciplinary specialization be postponed to the graduate level Beyond that, in~vidua] engineering schools Will have to closely examine their existing curriculum in order to ascertain how the curriculum can best be restructured to accommodate the other important educational needs {See chapter 4, pages 68-69 and chapter 5,pagesll7-120.)
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The federal government and inclus try should recognize and support innovative programs in undergraduate engineering education in the second-tier institutions, which annually supply half of the nations engineering graduates. These colleges must have access to new and additional sources of income.
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However, the lack of company reimbursement and release time is a strong demotivator for pursuing continuing education. Those companies that do not offer their engineering employees financial and work time relief for continuing education are encouraged to do so.
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, schools in some geographical areas will experience significant decreases in application rates by the early 1990s. Engineering schools should examine the impact of these factors in their area in order to anticipate steps they Will need to take to increase the flow of qualified students from their regional pool One way to accomplish this is to increase the enrollment of qualified women and minorities.
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~ 21 In view of its strong direct dependency on engineering talent for many of its most important activities, the federal government should review its compensation policies to ensure that it can recruit competitively and maintain a high-qua~ity engineering work force on a ~scip~ine-by-~scip~ine basis iSee chapter 5, pages 98-100.) 22 The committee believes that it would benefit the engineering community if a greater fraction of engineers were members of the engineering technical and professional societies.
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To this end, the committee recommends that the NAB take the initiative in creating a media institute that would pro Title centralized coordination of a nationwide network of technoJogica] information sources to respond to media requests.
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