INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION DIGEST

26 May 2003

Copyright © 2003 World Expertise LLC – All rights reserved

A periodic electronic newsletter for engineering education leaders,

edited by Russel C. Jones, Ph.D., P.E., with Bethany S. Oberst, Ph.D.  

CO NTENTS

International developments

  1. SARS impacts on higher education
  2. Taiwan – Mainland China research cooperation
  3. Education developments in Afghanistan
  4. Turkmenistan impedes study abroad
  5. Genetically modified crops in the UK ?
  6. MIT Media Lab Asia and India ties strained
  7. Polish technology gets financial boost
  8. South Africa consolidates institutions
  9. UK academics criticize student quality
  10. Chilean university raises funds via bonds
  11. Arab – Americans divided over war
  12. Iraq universities electing new leaders

U.S. developments

  1. Major foundation grant to National Academies
  2. Civil engineers propose increased requirements to enter practice
  3. Los Alamos Lab management out for bids
  4. Pentagon promotes high speed aircraft
  5. In-state tuition for illegal immigrants?
  6. Hard times at Bell Labs
  7. Increased funds for nanotechnology research
  8. Conventional wisdom on engineering pipeline questioned
  9. Congressional debates on funding for higher education
  10. H-1B visa policy debated
  11. US visas to require interviews

Distance education, technology

  1. Internet 2 and its future
  2. Honeynet seeks to snare hackers
  3. “Made in India ” software?
  4. Digitizing library books with robots
  5. Digital copyright consensus not yet within reach
  6. SPAM is in the eye of the beholder
  7. Internet speeds information distribution in China
  8. Linux use grows on business servers

Students, faculty, education

  1. Employers seek well-rounded engineering grads
  2. Boys becoming second sex?
  3. Worst job market in 20 years
  4. Computer courses down in enrollments
  5. Math and science education for a competitive workforce
  6. Families seek lower cost colleges

Upcoming meetings

  1. International Society for Engineering Education (IGIP)
  2. Pan American Academy of Engineering
  3. World Federation of Engineering Organizations

Journals

  1. European Journal of Engineering Education
  2. ASEE Journal of Engineering Education
  3. IEEE Transactions on Education

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NOTE: An electronic conference sponsored by ASEE and WFEO is currently open at http://www.asee.org/conferences/e-conference/forum.cfm.    It contains papers written as input to the June international colloquium in Nashville , and the authors would welcome broad discussion. Click on the paper title in the left frame to read the paper, and click on the paper title or forum category in the right frame to enter discussion.

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International developments  

1) Over the past few weeks universities around the world have been teaching themselves how to handle the SARS epidemic, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Brown University (USA) quarantined a biology professor who returned from Toronto with SARS-like symptoms, according to Elizabeth Farrell.

 See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/04/2003042801n.htm

Anne Marie Borrego and Jen Lin-Liu reported that ETC testing in Beijing was temporarily suspended, and attempts were made to seal off campuses in Beijing to prevent spread of the disease.

See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/04/2003042802n.htm

The American Library Association decided to run their joint meeting with the Canadian Library Association in Toronto in June, despite earlier WHO warnings about SARS in that city.  Two international conferences scheduled for China this summer, however, were cancelled, wrote Karen Birchard.

See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050505n.htm

Will Potter’s article discusses the decision of the University of California at Berkeley to order students from SARS-affected areas not to attend summer sessions on its campus.

See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050602n.htm

Potter collaborated with Vyacheslav Kandyba in an article reporting that several US universities, including Case Western Reserve, the University of Rochester and Washington University , had decided to ask people from countries most severely affected by SARS to stay away from their commencement exercises.

See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050801n.htm

Dan Carnevale weighed in about the Berkeley situation, telling readers that the university has rescinded its decision about barring foreign students from SARS areas from the campus this summer.

See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051202n.htm

Then the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, writes Vyacheslav Kandyba, advised colleges and universities not to attempt to prevent people from SARS-affected regions from attending commencement exercises.

See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051503n.htm

2) Researchers from Taiwan and the Chinese mainland have reached across the Taiwan strait and the political border to collaborate, according to an article by Dennis Normile in the 16 May 2003 issue of Science. Involved researchers note that geographic proximity, a common language and culture, and practical reasons make working together appropriate. Overcoming financial support logistics and visa delays took perseverance, but a joint research effort in nuclear physics has been operating successfully since 2001. See http://www.sciencemag.org

3) Two articles on Afghanistan were written recently by Daniel Del Castillo for the Chronicle of Higher Education.  The Fulbright Program, administered by the US State Department, will resume operations in Afghanistan this year after a 24 year break.  The initial activity will be to bring 30 – 40 Afghan students to the US to study this fall.  State Department officials say that they are determined to run the program in such a way as to prevent brain-drain and contribute to redevelopment in that country.  (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050104n.htm)  The Afghan government also recently announced plans to open an American-style university in Kabul , with campuses in each of Afghanistan ’s four major provinces.  (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050606n.htm)

4) The well-known president of Turkmenistan , Saparmurat Niyazov (aka Turkmenbashi, or “Father of all Turkmen”) has succeeded in decreasing the number of students studying abroad by banning the purchase of foreign currency by citizens.  Many students studying abroad are thus being forced to return home, says Bryon MacWilliams for the Chronicle of Higher Education.  See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050904n.htm  

5) The commercial growth of genetically modified (GM) crops in the United Kingdom was the subject of a recent debate there, as reported by Smarayda Christoforou in the April 2003 RSA Journal. European legislation in 2001 allows commercial cultivation of GM organisms with safety restrictions, and it appears that the introduction of GM crops in Europe is inevitable. The official UK government position is that commercial growing of GM crops will only be permitted when officials are confident that they present no significant risk to human health or the environment. One prominent critic stated that genetic modification isn’t specific, safe, precise or predictable. But supporters lauded GM as the way to achieve sustainable farming. In the UK 63% of farmers support GM crops, while only 32% of consumers currently support the approach. See http://www.theRSA.org

6) Scott Carlson from the Chronicle of Higher Education writes that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( USA ) is lengthening its ties with the Media Lab Asia located in India , citing disagreements with the Indian government on how to run the program.  The MIT model called for more flexibility in projects and salaries, while the government felt more comfortable with a more rigid, top-down management.  See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050901t.htm

7) Support for Polish technology has been enhanced due to a recent $3.5-billion deal by that country to purchase F-16 fighter jets from the US , according to a note by Gretchen Vogel in the 25 April 2003 Science. By Polish law, military purchases from foreign companies must be offset by a package of investments worth at least as much as the purchase price. In this case, Lockheed-Martin has agreed to invest $7.5-billion in profitmaking projects in Poland , including support for several high tech projects designed to boost Polish technology. Projects chosen must be designed to move science from the laboratory to private commercial development. See http://www.sciencemag.org

8) The South African government recently moved to collapse its 36 institutions of higher learning into 24, and then add two new institutions where none existed before.  The result will be twenty-one presidents losing their jobs.  Reactions have been mixed.  Some presidents will reapply for their jobs, some will not, some who reapply are expected to win election, and some are not and will face either demotion or forced severance.  The change is brought about by budgetary constraints, but also by the need to better integrate historically black and historically white institutions, according to Henk Rossouw, writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051506n.htm  

9) Long serving academics in the UK have criticized the current crop of university students as the worst in living memory, according to a poll reported in the 23 May 2003 Times Higher Education Supplement. Easier access to higher education is leading to a dumbing down of courses and rising dropout rates, according to a nationwide survey. 76% of academics questioned said they had been forced to adapt their teaching techniques in response to an increasingly diverse student population. Well over two-thirds believed that students were less well prepared for higher education than in the past. Details on the poll are available at www.thes.co.uk/current_edition  

10) In a creative move, a private university in Chile has issued $23 million in bonds to raise money for capital expansion, including programs in engineering, medicine and the humanities.  While this is a common mechanism in the US , it is rarely used in Latin America .  The ability to raise money in local currency is important to shelter institutions from wild fluctuations in exchange rates.  Burton Bollag wrote this for the Chronicle of Higher Education. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051507n.htm  

11) The uneasiness of Arab-Americans over the war in Iraq is reported in the June 2003 World Press Review, which cites an article by Stephanie Chayet in the French magazine Le Point. Dearborn , Michigan is considered the capital of the Arab-American community. Several distinct generations of Arabs have settled there – Christians driven out of the Ottoman Empire, Syrians and Palestinians who arrived after WWII, Lebanese and Yemenis fleeing their civil wars, and for the past 10 years Iraqi Shiites who fled after the Gulf War. The various factions of the Arab community differ over support of the recent US invasion of Iraq – the recent Iraqis supporting it, and the earlier generations of Arab immigrants opposing it. See http://www.worldpress.org  

12) Iraq’s universities, closed due to the war, have now re-opened, and Iraqi faculty are voting in free elections for their presidents and deans for the first time in almost 50 years, writes Daniel Del Castillo for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The elections were carefully scrutinized by US officials and troops, and Baath Party members were barred from hold important academic positions. The US State Department will have final word on who is permitted to serve.  The Baath Party has been accused of academic cronyism which elevated the select few to positions of power while reducing other faculty to driving taxicabs after hours to earn money.  The disadvantage of such stringent measures to rid universities of residual political influence is that these measures may also leave the fate of the re-opened universities in the hands of only the young and inexperienced. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051903n.htm

 

U.S. developments

13) The National Academies have received a $40-million gift from the W. M. Keck Foundation to run a grant program for interdisciplinary research, according to a note by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee in the 25 April 2003 Science. The National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Science and the Institute of Medicine will run a 15-year program with the funds, centered on an invitation-only biannual conference at which researchers will generate ideas for research initiatives. Four $200,000 seed grants will be awarded each year, to fund proposals generated by the conferences. A broader goal of the program is to bring structural changes in funding organizations and academic institutions, to promote interdisciplinary research. The academies’ new office building in Washington DC will be named for Keck. See http://www.sciencemag.org 

14) The American Society of Civil Engineers has proposed increased requirements for professional engineering practice, according to an article by Rachel Davis McVearry in the May 2003 issue of Engineering Times. In addition to current requirements for the Professional Engineer license, ASCE proposes that a practicing engineer also acquire education credits or a body of knowledge equivalent to a master’s degree. Supporters of the initiative are concerned that many schools have reduced the number of credit hours needed to earn an engineering degree, and that curricula now must include business, management, ethics, and other aspects of engineering as well as the fundamentals. Detractors of the proposal argue that today’s engineers have unprecedented access to information and knowledge throughout their careers, and that additional requirements at the beginning will keep qualified students from choosing engineering careers. See http://www.nspe.org   

15) The Chronicle of Higher Education recently noted in an article by Anne Marie Borrego that the University of California system might not reapply to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory when its contact runs out in 2005.  Over the past several years California has been criticized for its management failures at Los Alamos , leading the US Department of Energy, which funds the lab, to decide to open bids for new management offers.  See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050101n.htm

16) An ambitious new Pentagon effort aims to boost research into high-speed aircraft, according to an article by David Malakoff in the 9 May 2003 Science. Hypersonic flight – anything over Mach 5 – has been an elusive target for aerospace engineers. But the Pentagon, in asking for $150-million for hypersonic research in next year’s budget, feels that the field is ready to soar – increasing performance by a Mach number per year, reaching Mach 12 by 2012. See http://www.sciencemag.com

17) The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia (USA), Mark Warner, vetoed a bill forbidding state-supported colleges and universities to charge only in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.  This long-simmering issue is expected to re-emerge in future sessions of Virginia ’s General Assembly, according to Jamilah Evelyn, writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050201n.htm

18) Hard times are taking a toll on basic scientific research at Bell Labs, according to an article by Dennis Berman  in the May23rd Wall Street Journal. Lucent Technologies, the parent of the renowned research facility, has been cutting back support for the Labs as part of a $2.1-billion cost saving and reorganization program. These moves have shrunk the Labs’ pure research staff to just over a third of its 1996 level, and narrowed its focus to projects directly related to telecommunications projects. For nearly eight decades, Bell Labs stood at the summit of American technological prowess, garnering six Nobel Prizes and fostering a climate of unhampered scientific inquiry. Now, in the wake of the telecom collapse and Lucent’s flagging fortunes, Bell Labs’ research budget has shrunk to $115-million from its mid-90’s level of $350-million. See http://www.wsj.com

19) The US government has endorsed significant increases in research in nanotechnology. The House of Representatives and the White House are behind the increases, and the Senate is expected to follow suit.  It is not clear, however, whether the growing budget deficit in the US will permit these bills to be funded, according to Dan Carnevale for the Chronicle of Higher Education. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003050801t.htm

20) US students are avoiding engineering and science degrees, industry is worried about filling high-tech jobs, and graduate programs are overflowing with foreigners, according to current conventional wisdom. But in an article in the 16 May 2003 Science, Jeffrey Mervis explores how true these notions are. The author cites figures form the National Science Foundation and other authoritative sources to paint a much more nuanced picture of the US scientific workforce. For example, the Engineering Workforce Commission reports that the number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering have changed little in a decade --  65,001 in 1993, compared with 68,648 in 2002. Moreover, first year enrollments in engineering jumped by 14% between 1999 and 2001, suggesting that the number of degrees is likely to rise in the next few years. But there is a consensus that pre-college preparation for prospective scientists and engineers needs to be improved, and that minority students are seriously underrepresented among those pursuing S&E degrees. And statistics show that in some fields, such as computer science and engineering, almost half of the graduate population is foreign born. Over the next few months, top government advisory groups will offer their analyses of the situation. See http://www.sciencemag.org

21) Wrangling in the US Congress over the funding of higher education looked strikingly similar to fights in the past couple of decades over funding of primary and secondary schools.  Republicans were attempting to link funding with accountability for learning outcomes, and Democrats were fighting for access and against Big Brother intervention, according to a report by Stephen Burd in the Chronicle of Higher Education. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051401n.htm

22) The law that raised the number of H-1B visas to 195,000 a year is set to expire on September 30th, reverting the allowance to the 1999 level of 65,000, according to IEEE-USA. A heated debate is brewing over what number should be allowed going forward, with proponents of a small number citing joblessness among US electrical engineers – which has now grown to 7%. But high-tech employers want to maintain a high quota as they have come to rely on the accessibility of cheaper imported labor. For more background on this issue, see http://www.theworkcircuit.com/story/OEG20030414S0055  

23) The US State Department is expected to issue a policy requiring all applicants for visas to be interviewed by a member of the consular staff, according to Michael Arnone, writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education.  While this is nothing new for student visa seekers, the application of the requirement to business and tourist groups would increase the workload at local consular offices to a point where it would be nearly impossible for foreign students and professors to come to the US in time for the opening of the 2003-2004 academic year.  No new monies were expected to be added in support of the implementation of this policy.  This information compounds the confusion already faced  by US institutions struggling with the new Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) which the Homeland Security Department is using to track foreign students.  See http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051901n.htm

 

Distance education, technology

24) The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published a set of articles and side-bars by Florence Olsen which, taken together, constitute a comprehensive review of Internet2 and its future. Internet2 is a consortium of 203 research institutions and 26 state education networks connected to a high-speed backbone network called Abilene . Researchers, faculty and students connected to Abilene have access to computing power most advantageous to science and engineering work, and to digital videoconferencing of such quality that it gives new possibilities to distance education initiatives.  A non-profit group called the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development run by a board consisting of university presidents, operates Abilene .  The group collaborates with similar research networks around the world.

At issue these days are questions about cost, speed and usefulness.  Membership and participation fees are currently $46,250 per year.  Institutions must also pay connection costs related to the speed of access they require.  These can range from $110,000 - $490,000 per year.  And the local campus backbone network must be upgraded to take advantage of the high speed capacity.  Campus authorities have to think carefully whether the capabilities of Internet2 are required for the types of teaching and research being carried out on their campuses before they agree to assume such costs.

But at the same time as individual organizations and campuses are grappling with the high costs of Internet2, other members are faced with a dilemma: whether to invest in improving and perfecting the existing network, or to expand its speed by the purchase of “dark fiber,” unused optical-network capacity resulting from the telecom industry’s overexpansion in past years.   Videoconferencing, at the present state of Internet2, still remains a big challenge: much needs to be done to make it a reliable and routine resource. 

The US National Science Foundation recently published a major report on what needs to follow Internet2 in order to take advantage of data now being captured by sensors in space and on the earth.  While some scholars have yet to take advantage of Internet2, others are about to test its limits.  But advances beyond the current capabilities will come at a cost: $1-billion are needed each year, according to the NSF, to develop a “cyberinfrastructure.”

Another consideration is the decision by some regional networks to purchase independently more “dark fiber” for their own use, a move which could threaten the role of Internet2 as an organization.  See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v46/i36/36a03201.htm

25) The Honeynet Project is an organization aimed at gathering information about computer hackers, utilizing networks that are designed to be compromised, in an effort to defend against their inroads. As described in an article in the IEEE Security and Privacy magazine by Lance Spitzner, the Honeynet Project lures hackers to a computer system then records and analyzes their activities from the start – then allowing defensive actions to be taken. This approach is intended to complement other well-known intrusion detection and prevention technologies. See http://www.computer.org/security/v1n2/j2spi.htm

26) Has the time come for “Made in India ” software products to enjoy their own day in the sun, rather than simply becoming portions of code sold in an American or European wrapper? An article in the 8 May 2003 issue of The Economist suggests that the software industry in India may be ready to move from being techno-coolies to having its own software brands. The article cites an Indian product for the bank back office, which has become the best selling banking software product in the world, as an example. But much of the software written in India is done by divisions of the big software brands – Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, SAO, Sun, etc.  Can independent competition be conducted without souring those relationships? See http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1772468

27) Putting the world’s most advanced scholarly and scientific knowledge on the Internet will require digitizing the texts of millions of books, according to an article by John Markoff in the May 12th New York Times. A new tool to aid in this conversion, demonstrated recently at the Stanford University Library, is a Swiss-designed robot about the size of an SUV. The machine can turn pages of books and bound newspaper volumes and scan them at the rate of more than 1000 pages per hour. Manual processing is less expensive for small collections, with the robot becoming cost effective on projects larger than 5.5-million pages. The size of the translation job is formidable – the Stanford Library contains 8-million volumes, and full digitization would cost upwards of $250-million. See http://www.nytimes.com

28) Digital entertainment at the fingertips of consumers remains stalled by the lack of consensus on digital copyright, according to an article in the May 2003 IEEE Spectrum by Tekla Perry. The technology is available to deliver music and movies over the Internet, but there is no agreed upon standard means of ensuring that the people who created the artistic product get their fair share of the money paid for its access. There is not even agreement on how many times a consumer should pay for artistic content – once per viewing or listening, once per person, once per household, or once for each device in a household. Meanwhile, the technology in this area is taking off – better digital compression techniques, recordable DVD drives, blue-laser discs able to hold an entire high-definition feature film, etc. Several additional articles in this issue of IEEE Spectrum explore various dimensions of the dilemma. See http://www.spectrum.ieee.org

29) Spam is in the eyes of the beholder, according to Saul Hansell’s article in The New York Times. And his interviews with seven Internet experts prove it.  Each was asked to give a perspective on spam, what it is and how to control it, keeping in mind US Federal legislation under discussion in Washington , DC .  An officer of a company which sends commercial e-mail thinks people who want to send large numbers of e-mails anonymously should have to obtain a digital certificate, which will then permit someone to shut down any company which receives a high numbers of complaints from recipients.  A spam blacklist (blocklist) has been created by a voluntary organization which claims that the vast majority of spam comes from a very small number of people.  Another organization proposes to let people set a fee for a spammer to send them an e-mail.  Microsoft’s representative advocates the use of a seal of approval for organizations that subscribe to a list of best practices. Earthlink is setting up an intricate system of filtering.  And the US Federal Trade Commission admitted that about 90% of span is untraceable, making enforcement of any scheme doubtful. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/business/yourmoney/25SPAM.html)  

30) Whatever the outcome of the Chinese government’s battle against SARS, the crisis has demonstrated that another threat seen as insidious by the government there – the spread of uncensored information through the Internet – is gaining ground. According to an article in the May 8th issue of The Economist, 82% of the people in Beijing have mobile phones and 55% of households have computers. A wealth of information about SARS on the Internet apparently helped to convince the government to publicly acknowledge the problem. See http://www.economist.com

31) Linux may be the largest threat Microsoft faces, according to an article by Robert Guth in the May 19th Wall Street Journal. The free operating system is growing in use in the server market, threatening the dominance of Windows. Linux got its start as free software on the Internet, but has quickly moved into the mainstream of corporate computing. It has eaten into the market for computers based on the Unix system, and is now backed by companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun, and IBM. The Linux system, now often packaged into software systems aimed at corporate users, offers a cheaper and apparently more secure way for businesses to run their computers. See http://www.wsj.com  

 

Students, faculty, education  

32) Educators are struggling to prepare well-rounded engineers for today’s workplace, according to the cover story in the May-June 2003 ASEE Prism by Kerry Hannon. Stimulated by the broadening required in ABET’s Criteria 2000, engineering educators have been overhauling or tweaking their curricula. But employers are complaining that change is not happening fast enough, in critical areas such as communication skills. University officials explain that many institutions are research based, and thus concentrate curricula on more theoretical work. And crowded curricula and scarcity of resources to implement changes contribute to the slow progress. Industry continues to press for soft skills, science skills, and diversity. See http://www.asee.org/prism

33) The cover story for the May 26th issue of BusinessWeek, by Michelle Conlin, identifies a new gender gap – from kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex. The article cites a widening gulf in schools: girls trounce boys in reading, are catching up in math, and dominate in extracurricular activities. Boys make up the bulk of SpecialEd students, account for most stimulant prescriptions, and are more likely to commit suicide than girls. The gender gap spans every racial and ethnic group, and is projected to get worse. Men could become losers in a global economy that values mental power over might. Women are rapidly closing the M.D. and Ph.D. gap, and make up almost half of law students. Men dominate in leading-edge industries, but many are also stuck in declining sectors. A new world has opened up for girls, but a symmetrical effort is needed for boys. See http://www.businessweek.com  

34) This spring’s college graduates are entering the worst job market in 20 years, according to Robert B. Reich (former US Secretary of Labor) writing in the May 19th New York Times. He notes that applications for medical and law schools are up this year, as are the numbers of people taking the standardized tests for grad school – as many graduating seniors think it is a good time to get an advanced degree. Reich argues, however, that many such graduating seniors should instead get a ‘go-for’ job in an industry or profession that interests them. He argues that the market value of advanced degrees is dropping as more people pursue them, and that the alternative of a low-paying job or internship can provide useful experience while doing some good for society – and developing self-knowledge. He argues that college graduates who mature at the bottom end of the workforce, rather than getting more academic education, are more likely to find work they love when the economy rebounds. See http://www.nytimes.com

35) Empty classroom seats in computing courses at colleges are among the unmistakable repercussions of the dot.com bust, according to Katie Hafner writing in the May 22nd New York Times. Spooked by layoffs and disabused of visions of overnight riches, many undergraduates are turning away from computer science. Next fall’s computer science applications are down from the 2001 high -- 36% at Carnegie-Mellon, 40% at Virginia Tech, and 20% at MIT. In the absence of an economic recovery, opportunities in the computing industry are contracting. In 2000, Intel hired 2378 recent college graduates; last year it hired only 566. See http://www.nytimes.com  

36) The Committee for Economic Development (USA) has released a new report, “Learning for the Future: Changing the Culture of Math and Science Education to Ensure a Competitive Workforce”. The report offers recommendations in three areas: increasing student interest in math and science to sustain the pipeline; demonstrating the wonder of discovery while helping students to master rigorous content; and acknowledging the professionalism of teachers. The CED is a non-profit, non-partisan research and policy organization of some 250 business leaders and educators, dedicated to proposing policies that bring about steady economic growth. See http://www.ced.org/docs/report/report_scientists.pdf

37) The new hot colleges, from a family perspective, are those that discount costs – according to an article by Anne Marie Chaker in the May 14th Wall Street Journal. As high school seniors finalize their choices, it is clear that more families than usual are choosing colleges with their wallets in mind. Instead of gravitating toward the most prestigious schools on their lists, many are opting for the ones that charge the lowest tuition or offer the most generous aid packages. The result is that a number of schools, particularly private colleges just below the top tier, are having to scramble to fill their freshman classes.  See http://www.wsj.com

 

Upcoming Meetings

38) The International Society for Engineering Education, IGIP, is sponsoring its 32nd international symposium: “Information, Communication, Knowledge Engineering Education Today”. Contributions will concentrate on current developments in the theory and practice of engineering pedagogy. The symposium will be held 15 to 18 September 2003 in Karlsruhe , Germany . For more information, write ghd@fh-karlsruhe.de

39) The Pan American Academy of Engineering will hold a forum, “Accreditation in a Regional Context”, 9-10 October 2003, in Montevideo , Uruguay . Topics include quality control and accreditation in engineering education, globalization and development, international cooperation, and regional accreditation. For details see http://www.academiapanamericana-deingenieria.org/actividad1_ing.htm

40) The World Federation of Engineering Organizations will hold its General Assembly in Tunis , Tunisia from 13-17 October 2003. Included will be a world congress: “Engineering and the Digital Divide”. This congress is one of the recognized preparatory encounters for the World Summit on Information Society scheduled in two stages, Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005. See http://www.unesco.org/wfeo/worldcong.html

   

Journals

41) The March 2003 issue of the European Journal of Engineering Education has arrived on the desk of the editor of this Digest. Some 11 papers cover interesting topics including self and peer assessment, students recruiting students, assessment of project work, and gender issues in teaching information and communication technologies. See http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals  

42) The April 2003 issue of the ASEE Journal of Engineering Education contains some 8 papers of interest, covering topics such as the changing engineering educational paradigm (the inaugural Bernard M. Gordon Prize Lecture by Eli Fromm), courseware management tools, instructional technology, writing proficiency of international students, principles of how people learn, and the challenges of change. See http://www.asee.org

43) The May 2003 IEEE Transactions on Education is comprised of some 13 papers on topics such as computer ethics, distance learning, team projects, virtual prototyping, and a transdisciplinary approach in engineering. See http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/es/esinfo.html

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