2 September 2002
Copyright © 2002 World Expertise LLC – All rights
reserved
A periodic electronic newsletter for engineering education leaders,
edited by Russel C. Jones, PhD., P.E.
International developments
1) Record-breaking floods in central Europe have damaged
some technical institutes – such as the Technical University of Dresden –
but have spared many others. According to an article in the 23 August issue of Science
by Gretchen Vogel, the main science institutes in Prague escaped damage, as
did the Max Planck Institute in Dresden. The Rector of the Technical University
of Dresden has made public appeals for help in the restoration of university
property – where damage estimates are $20-million (see http://www.tu-dresden.de).
Television images of flood
damage to historic cities have triggered a new interest in climatology
throughout Europe, where climate changes are suspected to be linked to global
warming due to human impacts. See http://www,sciencemag.org
2) The World Summit on Sustainable Development, being held
this week in Johannesburg, South Africa, has become the venue of political and
intellectual clashes between the have and have-not countries, and various
environmental groups. Tens of thousands of officials, environmentalists, and
advocates for the poor gathered to devise an ambitious blueprint to promote
development while protecting natural resources, according to an article by
Rachel Swarns in the August 27th New York Times. More than 100
presidents and prime ministers are attending the summit meeting to show their
commitment and to work out new pledges and plans. But many participants doubt
the sincerity of the developed nations, and are particularly critical of the
fact that President Bush – leader of the world’s biggest economy and largest
polluter – has decided not to attend. Ten years ago, the world’s leaders
left the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro with an ambitious agenda, but the
intervening years have seen mostly broken promises and squandered opportunities.
Negotiators at Johannesburg are focusing on the link between poverty and
environmental degradation, and how to spur growth in poor countries while
protecting the environment. See http://www.nytimes.com.
The August 26th issue of Time magazine contains a major
special report on “How to Save the Earth”, detailing many of the challenges
faced by the participants in the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
3) The president of a Palestinian university has condemned
the recent deadly bombing at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, according to an
article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Daniel del Castillo.
Hanna Nasir, president of Birzeit University in Ramallah, wrote in an
Arabic-language daily paper “There is no way one can consider justifying the
latest attack on the Hebrew University campus”. Noting that the attack had
followed Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets, he said, “We should in no way
respond to our oppressor’s barbaric attacks with similar actions”. His
message was intended for his Palestinian colleagues: “The Palastinian national
struggle should remain unblemished and pure, and should reflect the justice of
its cause”. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002080804n.htm
4) Chinese students who have been turned down for visas to
study in the Unites States have staged public protest rallies at the American
Embassy in Beijing, according to a note in the Chronicle by Jen Lin-Liu.
The embassy issued 16,651 student visas in the nine months ending on August 6th,
down from 18,637 during the same period in 2001 – just prior to the attacks of
September 11th. The demonstrations were not anti-American in nature,
but instead reflected the strong desire of many Chinese students to study in
America. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002081204n.htm
5) The U.S. State Department has begun performing extra
security checks on visa applications from scientists and technologists around
the world, according to an article in the August 23rd issue of Science
by Richard Stone. Delays in visa decisions by weeks have led to the
cancellation or rescheduling of several recent meetings by U.S. organizations.
Most heavily affected have been scientists from the former Soviet Union and
China who are involved in research on weapons or other areas deemed sensitive to
national security. The visa crackdown is a late response to last fall’s
terrorist attacks, according to a State Department official. Among other areas
impacted, the changes have hampered plans by the U.S. Civilian Research and
Development Foundation to bring together select groups from the former Soviet
Union and the United States to discuss how to protect civilian populations from
terrorist attacks. See http://www.sciencemag.org
6) Iran’s supreme religious leader has warned university students in that country to be vigilant against threats from ‘enemy’ plotters, according to a note in the Chronicle by Daniel del Castillo. In a nationwide address, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei warned students that an unnamed foe was focusing on Iran’s universities: “The signs of cultural and political plots are before the eyes of the public. Faithful and aware youth can nip these plots in the bud and settle the dust when it is raised”. The Ayatollah has worked to control Iran’s potent student movements and guide them away from the influence of his chief political rival, Iran’s reformist president Mohammad Khatami. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002081605n.htm
7) Academics at the University of Cambridge in the United
Kingdom are protesting an administration plan to claim all intellectual property
generated by campus researchers, according to a note in ScienceScope in the
August 9th issue of Science. Currently the University lays
claims only to research findings generated using external funds, allowing staff
to independently patent and control ideas produced from university grants. But
the governing council has proposed that the university control all intellectual
property created after January 2003, with any patent profits to be shared among
the inventor, the department, and the university. University administrators say
that the new approach would bring Cambridge in line with most other UK
universities. Critics say the change will stifle innovation and harm the
development and growth of university-spawned high-tech companies. See http://www.sciencemag.org
8) The Educational Testing Service has told graduate schools in the U.S. that scores from students taking the Graduate Record Exam in China, South Korea and Taiwan may be inflated by cheating. Apparently some students in those countries were able to raise their scores substantially last year on the verbal part of the exam by logging onto web sites in those countries that post questions and answers memorized by previous test takers, according to an article by Jacques Steinberg in the August 8th New York Times. After uncovering the web sites and assessing their effect on scores, test administrators suspended the electronic version of the GRE – which has been taken by some 55,000 students annually since the late 1990’s. Now the tests will be given in those three countries only two days a year, in November and March, and on paper – to guard the security of the questions. See http://www.nytimes.com
9) A reading assignment for incoming freshman students at
the University of North Carolina, a book about the Koran, has raised a tempest
in that state. According to an article in the August 20th New York
Times by Kate Zernike, the assignment has led to demonstrations, courtroom
challenges, possible funding cuts by the legislature, and votes about academic
freedom by the university’s governing board. The book, “Approaching the
Qur’an: the Early Revalations” by a professor of religion at Haverford
College, was the summer reading assigned to North Carolina’s 3500 incoming
freshmen. The Chancellor of the University defended the assignment, saying that
‘”this is the first step toward understanding a culture we don’t know
anything about and to get students to ask their own questions”. Critics from a
conservative Christian group argued in court that it was ‘forced Islamic
indoctrination’. Legislative critics argued that equal time should be given to
‘all known religions’. Having earlier declined to pass a resolution
affirming academic freedom for faculty members and students, the governing board
later did take such a stand, according to articles in the Chronicle by
Eric Hoover. See http://www.nytimes.com
and http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082303n.htm
10) A series of articles on the Chronicle have
followed developments in federal government moves to better track foreign
students in the U.S. A cutoff of easy part time student access from Mexico and
Canada threatened by the Immigration and Naturalization Services has been
delayed until the end of the year, according to an article by Jeffrey Selingo. (http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002081203n.htm)
The INS has also softened the deadline for colleges to participate in the new
national database for tracking foreign students in the U.S., according to an
article by Michael Arnone. While colleges must start using the system by January
30th, they need not have entered information on all foreign students
by then. (http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082004n.htm)
PeopleSoft and other companies that provide student information systems are
scrambling to help institutions meet those deadlines, according to an article by
Florence Olsen. Final work on the software cannot be completed, however, until
the INS issues a complete set of technical and data requirements, promised for
the end of October. Major campuses have large numbers of such students – 4000
at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for example. (http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082702t.htm)
11) Science and technology groups have raised the awareness
of Congress about the critical role of research in the proposed new U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, according to an article in the August 9th
issue of Science by David Malakoff. The proposed department will be
assembled largely from existing border-control and security programs, but it is
also expected to start life next year with as much as $2-billion budgeted for
science and technology. Bills working their way through the two branches of
Congress differ considerably on how the new department, and its research
activities, should be organized. Both bills, however, call for using merit-based
competition for research funding, and encourage the new department to keep the
fruits of research unclassified. See http://www.sciencemag.org.
According to an article by Anne Marie Borrego, President Bush’s science
advisors have urged him to create a new position within the new department for
an undersecretary for science and technology to oversee research and development
for the agency. The science advisory panel also recommends that most
homeland-security research and development be performed at universities and
businesses, with the new department awarding contracts and grants to support it.
See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002080601n.htm
12) The White House has interacted with university
representatives as it drafts new rules on disclosure of some sensitive research,
according to a note in the Chronicle by Anne Marie Borrego. New
guidelines are being drafted to limit the publication of some federal government
funded research and other data that would be classified as “sensitive homeland
security information”. This new type of information would be different from
classified military or national-security research, but would not be open to the
public. It could include information potentially useful to terrorists in
conventional or biological warfare. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082301n.htm
13) Congress has added funds to the budget of the National
Science Foundation to expand its Scholarship for Service program, according to
an article by Jeffrey Mervis in the August 16th issue of Science. The
program offers two-year full scholarships to students to earn a bachelor’s or
master’s degree in return for at least two years of government service. The
increased funding is aimed at filling a years-long shortage of scientists,
engineers and policy professionals in computer security and information
assurance – dubbed Cyberfellows. See http://www.sciencemag.org
14) The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology has drafted a recommendation asking Mr. Bush to increase federal
funds for research in the physical sciences and engineering, according to an
article in the Chronicle by Jeffrey Brainard. The action follows calls
from many scientists and engineers in academe and industry who feel that
research funding in the physical sciences has grown too slowly, compared with
the budget of the National Institutes of Health, which has been doubled in the
past five years. The council did not explicitly endorse a proposal now making
its way through Congress to double the budget of the National Science
Foundation. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002083002n.htm
15) Engineering schools around the U.S. are cutting back on
programs and handing out pink slips as states struggle with budget shortfalls,
according to an article by Warren Cohen in the September 2002 issue of ASEE
Prism. The pinch is being felt in teaching, where experienced faculty are
being lost, and in research programs. Schools forced to cut faculty size are
offering buyouts to senior faculty members. Some engineering schools are also
being forced to curtail enrollments in programs that attract and prepare
potential students. Cuts in capital budgets are leading to outdated labs and
facilities. The catch-22 is that an economy ever more dependent on high-tech
jobs may be putting its supply of quality science and engineering graduates in
jeopardy. See http://www.asee.org/prism
16) Although the overall U.S. unemployment rate fell in the
second quarter, it increased significantly for engineers and computer
scientists, according to the IEEE-USA. The unemployment rate for all engineers
increased from 3.6% to 4.0% in the second quarter, according to Bureau of Labor
Statistics data. The rate for computer scientists jumped fro 4.8% to 5.3%.
Overall employment fell from 5.9% to 5.4%. IEEE-USA is asking Congress to
investigate the impacts of increased hiring of non-U.S. guest workers, the
greater use of temporary workers, and the outsourcing of engineering work
overseas as causes for the unemployment problem, in addition to the economic
downturn. See http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/POLICY/02July12.html
17) An article in the August-September IEEE-USA Today’s
Engineer by Todd Yuzuriha asks ‘Is Discontentment in Engineering Becoming
Epidemic’. Recent articles in the Wall
Street Journal indicate that
current engineers feel frustrated and expendable. Among other concerns is that
salaries start high, but stagnate quickly, and that they are treated as
expendable labor when economic times are bad. The number of students graduating
from engineering programs with bachelor’s degrees has declined steadily for
the past 17 years, perhaps indicating a vote of no interest by some of the
nation’s brightest college students. See http://www.todaysengineer.org/Aug02/trends.htm
18) Technology
seems to be turning college teaching into a 24-hour job, according to an article
in the Chronicle by
Jeffrey Young. The growth of e-mail, course Web sites, instant-messaging
software, and online courses has forced many professors to rearrange their daily
routines and has made them more accessible to students than ever before –
morning, noon and night, seven days a week. Although critics of distance
education have worried that virtual classrooms mean less contact between
professors and students, many professors say the opposite is true. To compensate
for face-to-face interaction, students are often promised a quick response to
personal correspondence by e-mail, often pledging to answer within 24 hours.
Technology experts are divided on how available professors should make
themselves to students over the Internet. Some say that quick responses are key
to making students feel part of a virtual class. Others worry that the best
professors may avoid virtual teaching if they think it will chain them to their
computers seven days a week. The AAUP has issued guidelines calling for online
office hours to take no more time than traditional ones. See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i38/38a03101.htm
19) More colleges
are creating Web services that can be customized to help students and
professors, according to an article by Florence Olsen in the Chronicle.
One approach is an institutional portal that consolidates crucial online
services and information where information can be posted for everyone on the
campus, or it can post individualized messages that appear when specific users
or members of a group log on. One benefit of consolidating official information
in one location is improved consistency and accuracy of information. No two
portals are alike, although most provide a core of common student services, such
as course registration, add/drop, grades, degree requirements, instant
messaging, and book orders. One trend just emerging is extension of these
services to pocket Web-enabled devices. See http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i48/48a03201.htm
20) Software
designed to allow continued growth of the Internet is now running on Abilene,
the Internet2 backbone network, according to an article in the Chronicle
by Florence Olsen. Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is an improved
version of the software used for packaging and routing data throughout the
Internet. The version in use on the commercial Internet today, called IPv4,
dates from the early 1970’s – before the tremendous growth of the Internet
could be foreseen. The most glaring problem that IPv6 aims to solve is the
threat of running out of public Internet addresses. About 4-billion addresses
are available under the IPv4 standard – too few to allow every individual on
earth to have at least one unique address, and many to have multiple addresses
for different sensors and handheld devices. Under the new protocol, the number
of available Internet addresses increases to 340-trillion! In addition, IPv6
does a more efficient job of routing packages of data throughout the Internet,
and offers other technical benefits such as end-to-end network security and
easier multicasting. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002081601t.htm
21) E-book
technology needs improvement before students will be willing to use it instead
of textbooks, according to an article in the Chronicle by Scott Carlson.
Researchers at Ball State University found that students had various complaints
about e-book devices. Navigating through digital texts was the biggest
complaint, with users finding moving from page to page tedious. They also found
it difficult to find specific chapters in texts and to find particular words.
Students did appreciate the ability to change font size and screen contrast, but
mostly wanted features that would allow them to use e-books the same way they
would use printed volumes – such as highlighting text. Despite student
concerns, the researchers have high hopes for the future of e-books – which
can store four or five books along with reference tools, and be refreshed every
semester. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082601t.htm
22) College
officials in Connecticut are turning to Web-based expert systems to assess the
condition of campus buildings and the cost of maintaining and renovating them,
according to an article in the Chronicle
by Florence Olsen. State officials
say they invested in the expert systems technology to help the state’s
colleges get better data for their capital budgets, and to help them set
maintenance priorities in an orderly fashion. To date engineers using the
computerized system have identified $141-million worth of building maintenance
that has been deferred for lack of financing but that should be done within five
years to prevent more costly repairs or replacement in the future. The
Connecticut system calculates a “facility-condition index” for each of the
buildings it assesses. North Carolina officials say they used a similar system
to provide data that helped persuade voters to pass a $3.1-billion bond issue
for a construction and renovation program for 16 public universities and 59
community colleges. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082901t.htm
23) A distance
education alliance backed by Oxford, Stanford and Yale will be offering courses
to the public, as reported in the Chronicle
by Scott Carlson. Previously
offering courses only to alumni, ‘AllLearn’ will now offer courses to
lifelong learners among the general public. About 50 courses in a dozen
disciplines will initially be offered, at a tuition cost of $250. Each five to
ten week course will include interactions with the professor who created the
course, or with another expert on the subject. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082201t.htm
24) Beloit College
has released its annual guide for understanding a new group of freshmen, as
reported in the Chronicle. Most
freshmen enrolling straight from high school this year were born in 1984, and
the annual ‘mind set’ list is intended to help college faculty and
administrators understand their new students. This year’s freshmen remember
only Southerners as presidents, have grown up with Fox television, and never
experienced AT&T’s telephone monopoly. High on the list of 50
characteristics: South Africa’s policy of apartheid has not existed during
their lifetime; cyberspace has always existed; Afghanistan has always been a
front-page story; China has always been a market-based reforming regime; and a
‘hotline’ is a consumer service, rather than a phone used to avoid
accidental nuclear war. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082806n.htm
25) College
students are turning away from bits and bytes, according to an August 27th
article in the Washington Post by
Ellen McCarthy. The number of undergraduates majoring in computer science fell
1% in 2001, according to a report by the Computing Research Association, and the
trend seems to be accelerating. The Labor Department predicts that software
engineering and related fields will be the fastest growing occupations between
2000 and 2010, but that growth may be slowed as students choose other paths. The
tech industry’s financial problems appear to be instrumental in such student
choices. See http://www.washingtonpost.com
26) Enrollment in
degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the U.S. is projected to increase
to 17.7 million in 2011-12, up from 15.3 million in 1999-2000, according to a
note in the Chronicle. The
projections made by the U.S Department of Education for this time period also
include the following: the number of high school graduates will rise to 3.1
million, a 9% increase; the number of bachelor’s degrees will rise to
1,437,000, a 16% increase; and the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to
women will rise to 850,000, a 20% increase. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082205n.htm
27) A coalition of
higher-education associations has announced the creation of CampusCares, which
will seek to promote community-service activities by college students and to
publicize such activities. According to a note in the Chronicle
by Richard Morgan, the organization will initially highlight up to 50
college programs that serve as examples of volunteerism and civic engagement.
Going beyond ‘alternate spring break’ service activities, the group will
spotlight year-round activities that illustrate what millions of college
students and employees are doing to serve their communities. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082204n.htm
28) Higher
education experts have noted in recent years that women have begun to outpace
men in college enrollments, according to an article in the Chronicle
by Jamilah Evelyn. More girls than boys in junior high school expect to
attend college later, according to a new survey by researchers at Florida State
University, and the differing expectations contribute to the growing gender gap
in college enrollments. 56% of college students were women in 1999, compared
with 41% in 1970. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002082705n.htm
29) Professors of
law, financial management, and chemical engineering were the best-paid faculty
members in 2002-02, according to a recent survey reported by Sharon Walsh in the
Chronicle. The
average salary for all fields was $60,893 at public institutions, a 3.6%
increase over the prior year, and $60,298 at private colleges, an increase of
3.7%. The survey does not include medical faculty. Chemical engineering faculty
were paid an average of $85,577 at private colleges and $84,748 at public ones.
See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/08/2002081201n.htm
30) A new daily
radio program will air engineering ‘voices of innovation’, according to an
article in Engineering Times. A
new two-minute radio program designed to inspire awareness about the engineering
profession through the voices and stories of engineers is making its debut this
September through the efforts of the American Association of Engineering
Societies. The AAES program is in response to a 1997 survey that indicated that
the public thinks scientists rather than engineers add to the quality of life,
and ranked the prestige of engineers about midway in a list of 20 professions.
See http://www.nspe.org. To hear audio
segments, visit http://www.voicesofinnovation.org/demos.htm
31) Some
universities have begun offering faculty members increased compensation as an
alternative to tenure, according to an article by Jennifer Jacobson in the Chronicle.
A typical pattern might offer a five-year renewable contract that would
pay an extra 15% rather than have a faculty member go up for tenure. Other
patterns allow faculty to choose between tenure and a contract system that
allows them to apply for more frequent sabbaticals. Critics of such approaches,
such as the AAUP, claim that such patterns endanger academic freedom. Other
critics worry that quality may be sacrificed, if long-term faculty are not
subjected to the rigorous tenure process. See http://chronicle.com/jobs/2002/08/2002082901c.htm
32) The annual
meeting of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) is about to
take place in Florence, Italy. SEFIrenze2002 is scheduled to take place from
September 8th to 11th, with a theme of “The Renaissance
Engineer of Tomorrow”. Full information on the extensive program is available
at http://www.sefirenze2002.unifi.it.
One session of interest is a Monday evening plenary session, “Are Engineers
Employer’s Commodities”, a panel chaired by the editor of this Digest.
33) Also upcoming shortly is the ASEE/SEFI/TUB
International Colloquium “Global Challenges to Engineering Education” to be
held in Berlin on October 1st through 4th. Three
conference topics are featured: Educating engineering students for
entrepreneurship, National accreditation/global practice, and Technology and
learning systems. For details see http://www.asee.org/conferences/international
34) The ASEE Journal of Engineering Education has
published its July 2002 issue, containing 14 peer reviewed archival papers, plus
a book review on Team Teaching. Topics covered include the use of
video-streaming technology in teaching, assessment of online engineering
courses, design adventures for middle-school students, socially relevant design,
and engineering writing. See http://www.asee.org/publications
35) The International Journal of Engineering Education has issued a special issue on Women in Engineering, with 11 articles on the theme topic. Papers include attraction of women to engineering education, experiences of women in the engineering workforce, and discussions of what can be done to improve both situations. In addition, this issue of IJEE includes three papers on engineering education, assessment and research. See http://www.ijee.dit.ie
36) The August-September issue of IEEE-USA’s Today’s
Engineer is live on its website, http://www.todaysengineer.org.
Several article focus on building careers, and several more on shaping public
policy.
37) The September-October issue of Change magazine
is dedicated to a review of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary
Education: “FIPSE – 30 Years of Making a Difference”. Articles include one
on reforming science and mathematics teaching, and one on learning anytime and
anywhere. See http://www.heldref.org
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