INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION DIGEST
January
2006
Copyright © 2006 World Expertise LLC – All rights
reserved
A periodic electronic newsletter for engineering education
leaders,
edited by Russel C. Jones, Ph.D., P.E., and Bethany S.
Oberst, Ph.D.
CONTENTS
1 - International developments
·
Korean
stem cell research confirmed as fake
·
EU budget includes big cuts for research support
·
Mexican
lawmakers to root out “junk universities”
·
Indian call centers at center of social changes
·
Science
foundations: a novelty in
Russia
·
New impetus for creation of European version of MIT
·
Moving from BPO to KPO in
India
·
Corruption continues in former Soviet countries
·
Conference proposed to examine scientific fraud
·
Scholarships
lift Saudi enrollments in the
US
·
International consortium to go beyond traditional
collaboration
2 -
US
developments
·
US
R&D budget set
·
US
University Presidents Summit on International Education
·
US
administration proposes National Security Language Initiative
·
States
boost budgets for colleges
·
US
judge says intelligent design is not science
·
U.
of
California
retains management of
Los Alamos
·
US
engineers proud of
Iraq
reconstruction
·
National
Academy
of
Engineering
Awards
·
NAS
Medal to Augustine
·
U.
of
Albany
lands major center for nanotechnology
·
US
Commerce Department backtracks slightly on new research regs
3 - Technology
·
2005:
Year in Review
·
EU launches commercially oriented GPS system
·
Inventing an open-source model for tech transfer
·
Life
after silicon
4 - Students, faculty, education
·
US
engineers hold their own
·
Women students more scarce in US computer science programs
·
Former Harvard prez urges improved teaching practices
·
Independent study links money, performance, in
US
higher education
·
Panel created to propose new canon for entrepreneurship
education
·
Peace-oriented video captures the world’s interest
·
B.A.
degrees in engineering
5 – Employment,
competitiveness
·
Senator
says offshoring is a fact of life
·
What
happened to American innovation?
·
In
defiance of creativity
·
India
vs.
China
·
India
’s
skill shortage
6 – Journal
·
Issues
in Science and Technology
7 – Meetings
·
E-conference
call for papers
·
ICEE
2006 call for papers
1 - International developments
Korean stem cell research confirmed as fake – A report
released by the
Seoul
National
University
panel investigating the work of Dr. Hwang Woo Suk has concluded that the
researcher who claimed to have cloned human cells fabricated evidence for all of
his research. As reported in the Times of India on January 11th by Nicholas Wade and Choe
Sang-Hun, the findings strip any possibility of legitimate achievement in human
cell cloning from a researcher who had been propelled to international celebrity
and whose promise to make paralyzed people walk had been engraved on a Korean
postage stamp. The panel did say that his one legitimate claim was to have
cloned the dog he named Snuppy. Prosecutors said they will launch a criminal
investigation. (See http://www.timesofindia.com)
EU budget includes big cuts for research support –
Between 2007 and 2013 the European Union will cut its spending on research from
$157.6 billion to $85.6 billion, writes Aisha Labi in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The money instead will go to farm
subsidies and development in the ten newest EU member countries.
This budget news came after earlier announcements about plans for
creating new European Research Council with a $1.8 billion a year budget to
function along the lines of the US National Science Foundation in supporting
research. (See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i18/18a05303.htm)
Mexican lawmakers to root out “junk universities” – Responding
to concern over the lack of quality controls over higher education, the Mexican
Senate has passed legislation that would require all Mexican universities to
undergo external evaluations or lose their operating licenses. According to an
article in the January 4th Chronicle
of Higher Education by Marion Lloyd, the bill would for the first time make
accreditation mandatory for all college-level programs. Currently only 82 of
more than 2000 institutions of higher education in
Mexico
have accredited programs, and most of those are public universities. The bill
is a response to growing concerns over the proliferation of “junk
universities”, which critics say make up the majority of the more than 1800
private universities. The problem has its roots in the government’s failure to
meet the rising demand for college degrees. While college enrollments have
nearly doubled since 1993, from 1.3-million to 2.5-million, government spending
on higher education has remained stagnant. So private institutions have filled
the void, increasing their share of enrollments from 15% in 1985 to 33% today.
(See http://chronicle.com)
Indian call centers at center of social changes –
The social impact of
India
’s success in running call centers has caught the attention of observers
inside and outside of
India
. S. Mitra Kalita, writing on
December 27, 2005
, in the Washington Post, describes the young generation of call center
agents who are earning good salaries and adopting the behaviors of their peers
in the
US
, including shopping, hanging out with friends at clubs, and dating freely.
Critics worry that they are turning their backs on family traditions and
values. Others point out that in the
past year the prestige factor originally attached to working at a call center
has disappeared, with agents now being seen as greedy.
It is true that some agents have job hopped frequently in order to get
better salaries. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com)
Inevitably, such a social phenomenon is reflected in literature.
One of the top selling books in
India
now is One Night @ The Call Center by Chetan Bhagat.
The characters, call center agents, reflect the down side of call center
work, with young people adopting fake American names and accents.
The author believes that call centers are sweatshops and rejects the
notion that this is the best work India young people can do, writes Parul Gupta
in an article appearing on December 30, 2005, in the Gulf News. (See http://www.gulfnews.com)
Science foundations: a novelty in Russia – The fall of the
Soviet Union and the attempted creation of democracy and a free economy have led
to a great debate in Russia over how science should be organized and funded. One
result of the debates has been the creation of both government and private
Russian foundations financing science. A comprehensive article in the December
16th Science by Irina
Dezhina and Loren Graham describes the history of development of both public and
private foundations in support of scientific research in
Russia
, and their current status. The authors note that such foundations play a very
large role in the hopes and aspirations of Russian scientists. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)
New impetus for creation of European version of MIT –
The leaders of the European Union are planning to discuss the establishment of a
European MIT in order to slow brain-drain to the
USA
, writes Paul Ames in an article in the on-line version of The Boston Globe
on January 13. French Prime Minister
Dominique de Villepin has proposed starting the institution in
Paris
with a $360 million budget. Some
are arguing that the “EIT” should not be patterned on MIT, for starters just
because the established European research institutions do not want a new rival.
One proposal is to make the EIT into a network connecting universities
and industry to facilitate technology transfer.
Current data show that
Europe
has not yet made any progress in becoming more innovative as compared with the
US
. (See http://www.boston.com)
Moving from BPO to KPO in India –
Responding to criticism that jobs in business process operations (BPO) such as
Indian call centers are monetarily rewarding but not professionally or
intellectually challenging, India is now looking at KPO, knowledge process
outsourcing. While BPO involves
customer care and technical support, KPO focuses on areas requiring specialized
expertise, such as patent filing, investment research, legal claims, etc.
In an article appearing on
December 20, 2005
, in the on-line version of the Hindustan Times, Chennai and
Bangalore
are noted as particularly attractive places for KPO because of the availability
of educational institutions. Areas
where KPO has great potential include biotech, computer-aided simulation,
engineering, and technology research. (See
http://www.hindustantimes.com)
Corruption continues in former Soviet countries –
The World Education Services recently published a substantial on-line article on
“Education Reform in the Former Soviet Union” written by Nick Clark.
The article summarizes the state of education in the newly independent
states, emphasizing that corruption remains a formidable problem, but that
reforms in the processes leading to university admission offer significant hope
at reducing the acceptance of bribes offered to and accepted by university
faculty and administrators. The article also discuses the impact of the Bologna
Process, which all the NIS have signed onto, with the exception of Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
While there are many basic reforms which have to be made in the former
Soviet system, and the NIS countries have by and large signed onto the major
goal of adopting the two tier system of diplomas, curricular reform, one of the
other tenets of Bologna reform, is lagging, due to the need to realize some more
basic changes in governance, access, funding, etc. (See http://www.wes.org/ewenr/PF/05dec/pffeature.htm)
Conference proposed to examine scientific fraud –
In the aftermath of the discovery that researcher Hwarg Woo Suk had faked his
work with stem cells,
University
of
Michigan
history of science professor Nicholas Steneck, who also consults for the US
Office of Scientific Integrity, is seeking money for an international conference
to look at fraud in scientific research. This article, which includes a
discussion of the impact of scientific fraud, was authored by Rita Rubin and
appeared in USA Today on-line on
January 11. (See http://usatoday)
Scholarships lift Saudi enrollments in the
US
– Urgently trying to improve relations with the
US
, the Saudi Arabian government is promoting a scholarship program that has
already doubled the number of new Saudi enrollments at American colleges and
universities since last year. According to an article by Joel Brinkley in the
December 18th New York Times, the
program has reversed a steady plunge in Saudi students in the
US
that started immediately after the
September 11th, 2001
terrorist attacks. The total number of visiting Saudi students in the
US
fell from 46,636 in 2001 to about 12,000 last year. The program is aimed in
part at reducing widespread hostility in the Saudi public toward the
US
. (See http://www.nytimes.com)
International consortium to go beyond traditional
collaboration – Ten leading international research institutions have
created the International Alliance of Research Universities in order to initiate
joint degree programs and joint research projects. The future might see the
Alliance
seeking support from research in areas such as ageing and health, food and
water, international migration, and security, writes Scott Jaschik in Inside
Higher Education. (See http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/17/intl)
2 -
US
developments
US
R&D budget set – Congressional support for boosting
US
academic research this year was curbed by other national priorities, such as
defense and space, and a growing demand to limit federal spending. According to
an article by Jeffrey Mervis in the January 6th Science, the National Institutes of Health suffered its first budget
cut since 1970, and the National Science Foundation got an increase that only
regains some lost ground and mocks the recent rhetoric about the importance of a
7-year doubling of its budget. NSF was headed for a 3.3% increase until final
negotiations, which reduced its increase to only 2% -- with the final
$5.58-billion budget matching what the agency spent in 2004. Basic and applied
research spending across all federal agencies inched up $1-billion to
$57-billion, with the lion’s share of the increase going to NASA for its
moon-Mars mission. Details of the final appropriations are available at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/upd1205.htm.
For the Science article, see http://www.sciencemag.org)
US University Presidents
Summit
on
International Education – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings co-hosted a summit on January 5-6 to
engage leaders of
US
higher education in a renewed partnership to strengthen international education
and emphasize its importance to the national interest. The summit was called to
initiate a dialogue on the need for the
US
government to work collaboratively with the non-governmental sector on the
future of
US
higher education in a global arena. At the opening session of the
Summit
, the new National Security Language Initiative was announced. (See http://exchanges.state.gov/university/summit)
US
administration proposes National Security Language Initiative –
At a meeting with
US
college and university presidents
US
President George Bush announced a new National Security Language Initiative
costing the government $114 million. The program would include a major
Pentagon-related effort to train military personnel in the use of critical
languages including Arabic and Chinese, presumably through the military
academies and ROTC programs. The
Defense Department would also create a Civilian Language Reserve Crops,
requiring a four-year commitment to be available to accompany overseas missions
when language assistance was required. Also
mentioned was the creation of “immersion centers” abroad, where
US
college students studying languages could go for intensive exposure.
One of the concerns expressed about these initiatives was that so much of
the money would come through the Pentagon and the Defense Department, thus
aligning foreign language instruction too closely with military objectives.
This review of the first day of the two day summit was written by Rob
Capriccioso and David Epstein for Inside Higher Ed. (See http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/06/foreign)
On the second day of the summit, reports Rob Capriccioso again for Inside
Higher Ed, the new International Fulbright Science Award of Outstanding
Foreign Students in Science and Technology was announced.
This would be a worldwide competition for highly qualified foreign
students with funding provided for several years of graduate study in the
US
. Another new program would
emphasize interaction between universities and primary and secondary schools to
offer more and better foreign language training in the early years.
A third initiative would endorse SMART grants for college students
studying math, science or critical languages.
(See http://insidehighered/news/2006/01/09/language)
States boost budgets for colleges – States have put more money
into higher education this fiscal year in the biggest increase since 2001,
according to an article in the January 19th Wall Street Journal by Anne Marie Chaker. Budgets for higher
education have increased by 6% for the year ending June 30th,
compared with a 3.8% increase for FY 2005 and a decline of 2.1% in FY 2004. As
governors announce their budget proposals – particularly in states where they
are up for reelection – education experts are predicting more funding for
colleges and universities on the horizon. It is clear that college affordability
in on the public’s mind, and the politicians are courting middle and upper
class families who show up on election days. (See http://www.wsj.com)
US judge says intelligent design is not science –
A US federal judge ruled in December that “intelligent design” is not
science but a religious view and thus cannot be taught in public schools under
the rule of separation of church and state, writes David Epstein in Inside
Higher Education. ID holds that
a supernatural creator must have guided the development of life. In 2004 the
school board in
Dover
,
Pennsylvania
, placed the teaching of intelligent design into the school curriculum,
prompting a suit by a group of parents. When
the case reached US District Judge John E. Jones, he took the opportunity to
write a 139 page decision, tearing apart the notion that ID was science, calling
it a relabeling of creationism, which had already been decreed a religious
belief by the US Supreme Court. This
recent ruling is seen as an important victory for science.
(See http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/21/evolution)
U.
of
California
retains management of
Los Alamos
– The US Energy Department surprised many recently by awarding
a contract to the
University
of
California
to continue managing the Los Alamos National Laboratory write Stuart
Silverstein and Ralph Vartabedian on
December 22, 2005
, in the Los Angeles Times. After several years of management
difficulties and security lapses, in 2003 the DOE put the management contract
out to bids for the first time since the lab was created in 1943 with the
cooperation of the
University
of
California
in order to create the atom bomb. In
this round of competition, the chief rival to the UC was a proposal from
Lockheed Martin and the
University
of
Texas
. The fact that Lockheed Martin has
the management contract for the Sandia National Laboratories may have been a
drawback: if it had also managed
Los Alamos
, then one company would have had control over the design of nuclear warheads.
(See http://www.latimes.com)
US engineers proud of Iraq reconstruction -
The $18.4-billion reconstruction package provided for Iraq by the
US is peaking, aimed at completion by the end of this year, according to an
article in the January 2nd Washington
Post by Ellen Knickmeyer.
US
engineers involved in the 3600 projects being completed are proud of their work
– citing a new communications center, youth centers, fire stations, power
plants, hospitals, sewage systems, etc. International donors have yet to fulfill
their pledges for additional funds for reconstruction, Iraqis have balked at the
painful economic reforms necessary to win foreign loans to do the remaining
work, and insurgents want to destroy the work done to date. But US engineers
hope that the amount and quality of reconstruction work done so far will be a
model for the future. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com)
National
Academy
of
Engineering Awards – The
US
engineering profession’s highest honors for 2006 have been announced by the
National Academy of Engineering. The Charles Stark Draper Prize – an annual
award that honors engineers whose accomplishments have significantly benefited
mankind – will be awarded to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for the
invention of the Charge Coupled Device. The Bernard M. Gordon Prize – issued
annually to recognize innovation in engineering and technology education –
will go to the team which created the Learning Factory, where multidisciplinary
student teams develop engineering leadership skills and learn to solve real
world problems: Jens E. Jorgensen, John S. Lamancusa, Lueny Morell, Allen L.
Soyster and Jose L. Zayas-Castro. The awards, which carry significant cash
prizes, will be presented at a gala dinner in
Washington
,
DC
, on February 21st. (See http://www.nae.edu/awards)
NAS Medal to Augustine – The US National Academy of Sciences
is awarding its 2006 Public Welfare Medal to Norman R. Augustine, retired
chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation. The medal honors his
contributions to the vitality of science in the
US
in both industry and government, and to a better understanding of the role that
fundamental research must play in its long term security and economic
prosperity.
U.
of
Albany
lands major center for nanotechnology – The US Semiconductor
Industry Association and the Semiconductor Research Corporation have joined with
public and private partners in creating the Institute for Nanoelectronics
Discovery and Exploration (INDEX) under the leadership of the University at
Albany
’s
College
of
Nanoscience
and Engineering. Partnering with
researchers from Harvard, MIT, IBM, Micron and others, INDEX will focus on
nanomaterials, nanochip design, and architectural integration schemes.
Total funding will reach $435 million, including support for construction
of a 250,000 square foot facility, according to a
January 2, 2006
, press release from the Office of the Governor of New York State. (See http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/06/0103061.htm)
US
Commerce Department backtracks slightly on new research regs –
The US Commerce Department announced recently that one of its proposed new
regulations will not in fact be implemented.
Earlier, Commerce had indicated that foreign students and researchers in
the
US
would be restricted in their access to certain technologies based on their
countries of birth, rather than their countries of citizenship or permanent
residency. But it appears
increasingly unlikely that university officials will persuade the Commerce
Department not to implement its regulations requiring researchers to obtain
export licensing for foreigners using equipment subject to export controls, even
though the research itself is considered basic and thus exempt from licensing.
This article was written by Kelly Field for The
Chronicle of Higher Education. (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/01/2006011701n.htm)
3 - Technology
2005: Year in Review – The US National Science Foundation has
released a summary of major scientific research achievement in 2005, in a
January 11th press release. It starts by concluding that 2005 was
another banner year in science. Breakthroughs cited include a new generation of
walking robots, understanding of how hurricanes have become stronger and more
numerous, a new era in scientific computing via the TeraGrid, and responses to
the tsunami and Katrina. See http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=105693)
EU launches commercially oriented GPS system –
The European Union launched a civilian global positioning system satellite
system called Galileo which challenges the dominant
US
military GPS system. According to Molly Moore, writing for the Washington
Post on
December 29, 2005
, the EU system will give users real-time positioning accuracy of within a
meter, an improvement to the information the
US
system makes available to civilians, currently about 16 feet.
This will enable the EU system to provide information of commercial and
social value, and enable users to switch GPS systems as easily as they switch
cell phone service providers as they move around the globe.
Galileo is expected to be operational in 2010 and will involve thirty
satellites. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com)
Inventing an open-source model for tech transfer –
A group of US research universities, including Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech,
Stanford and the University of Texas at Austin have joined with big-name
technology companies to create a new model for technology transfer, writes Scott
Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. In
this new model, universities would forego attempting to negotiate complicated
patent rights for work coming out of their labs, and instead would look for
other ways of obtaining support from companies that profit from university
research. It has become clear that
huge amounts of money are being spent by universities in negotiating patent
rights, when in fact only a few institutions have ever made substantial sums of
money from products coming from their labs.
In addition, high tech companies, which work in an environment where time
to market is critical, are increasingly turning to overseas universities to
partner research in order to avoid the lengthy and costly process of dealing
with US universities seeking financial gain. The Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation took the initiative to coordinate this new plan with the
participating universities, under the terms of which intellectual property
coming from some research projects would be made open source. Supporters of this
move say that it brings universities back to their focus on teaching and
research, rather than on corralling patents rights in hope of future financial
gain. (See http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/22/open)
Life after silicon – A handful of futuristic chip-making
technologies at the atomic scale have been added to an industry planning effort
that charts the future of the semiconductor manufacturing industry every two
years, according to an article by John Markoff in the December 29th New
York Times. A transition to a post-silicon era is forecast, with the
technology moving to nanotechnology – but probably a decade away. The urgency
in moving to molecular electronics is propelled in part by a recognition that
currently conventional technologies will not be able to sustain
Moore
’s Law that projects a doubling of computer power every two years. (See http://www.nytimes.com)
4 - Students, faculty, education
US engineers hold their own – Writing in the January 8th
Philadelphia Inquirer, Dean Kristina
Johnson of the Duke University school of engineering comments on comparisons of
engineering student numbers in the US, China and India. Reporting on a study
done by a Duke class in its Master of Engineering Management Program, she
indicates that comparing the number of US engineering graduates with the 350,000
in
India
and the 644,000 in
China
may be like comparing apples and oranges. When all relevant US graduates in
engineering, technology and computer science and information technology at all
levels are added up, the number is about the same as the similar number in
India, according to the Duke study. And the issue of quality vs. quantity needs
to be examined. Dean Johnson cites a recent McKinsey study that states that many
graduates of Indian and Chinese universities are not competitive for employment
in the global high-tech outsourcing environment. While hopeful that the
US
is holding its own in graduating well-qualified engineers, she does express
concern about the pipeline, and whether entering college students are prepared
to compete in the ever more globalized and ever more technological society. (See
http://www.philly.com)
Women students more scarce in US computer science
programs – In 1985 the percentage of computer science undergraduate
degrees awarded to women in the
US
peaked at 37%, then declined, and today remains at about 28%.
Computer science, once seen as free from the legacy of male domination,
now demonstrates some of the characteristics of older, established science and
engineering areas such as physics, writes Marcella Bombardieri in an article
published in the on-line version of The Boston Globe on
December 18, 2005
. When students were flocking to
enroll in computer sciences in the 1980s, overwhelmed departments increasingly
used introductory courses to weed out excess numbers, focusing their curricula
on highly technical aspects that would attract and retain stereotypical geeks
(mostly men) and repel students who wanted big picture approaches and applied
issues (mostly women). The misconception grew that computer science was the same
as computer programming. Today
efforts are underway to steer computer science back to an emphasis on the
excitement of the discipline, and several initiatives have begun to attract
women back to undergraduate and graduate studies.
(See http://www.boston.com)
Former Harvard prez urges improved teaching practices
– Derek Bok, the former president of
Harvard
University
, wrote on op ed piece which appeared in the Boston Globe on December 18.
In it he criticizes faculty for not taking an interest in pedagogical
research that might inform their teaching techniques.
He points out evidence that some students make little if any progress in
their writing or math skills during their college experience, that few students
take languages at an advanced level, and that critical thinking skills do not
improve greatly as a consequence of an undergraduate education.
Bok notes that US students are competing with hordes of bright,
well-educated students from around the world for jobs, as a consequence of
outsourcing, and that they deserve the best education in order to succeed.
Faculty have a responsibility to examine what teaching techniques work
and which do not, and to toss out those ineffective approaches, however familiar
and comfortable, in the interest of their students. (See http://www.boston.com)
Independent study links money, performance, in
US
higher education – The US-based
National
Center
for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) has developed a model to
examine the money that goes into higher education and the institutions’
performance in certain areas in order to determine which states are getting the
most return from their public investment in higher education.
The study shows that
Utah
,
Massachusetts
,
Colorado
,
California
and North Dakota rank the highest, and
Alaska
,
Maine
,
West Virginia
,
Hawaii
and
Vermont
the lowest. The study also factored
out performance of public research universities (where
Colorado
topped the list), bachelor’s and master’s institutions (where
Washington
was ranked highest), and community colleges (where
South Dakota
had the highest score). Academic leaders were ambivalent: being listed at the
top could persuade state legislators to be increasingly parsimonious since their
state’s institutions seem to be performing so efficiently.
The quality measures used included the number of undergraduate degrees
relative to enrollment, timely completion of degree requirements, and the number
of doctoral degrees expressed as a percentage of all degrees awarded.
Scott Jaschik wrote this article in Inside Higher Ed.
(See http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/17/states)
Panel created to propose new canon for
entrepreneurship education – The newly appointed Kauffman Panel on
Entrepreneurship Curriculum in Higher Education has been charged with creating a
framework for the expansion of entrepreneurship programs in
US
higher education, according to an online article posted on January 17 by
Ascribe, the public interest newswire. It will review best practices and develop
a set of common skills and principles that would form the basis of a curriculum.
The panel will be chaired by Richard Newton, Dean of Engineering at the
University
of
California
at
Berkeley
, and will be sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
One goal will be to expand entrepreneurship education outside schools of
business, noting that fewer than 18% of the founders of the 2002 Inc. 500
companies had MBAs. (See http://newswire.ascribe.org)
Peace-oriented video captures the world’s interest –
In an unlikely development, a peace-oriented video game, offered free on the
Internet, has become a cult favorite. “Food
Force” was designed by the UN World Food Program for a cost of $350,000 and
introduced in April 2005. The game
requires players to tackle such challenges as airdropping food to a stricken
island, piloting a helicopter, navigating a truck through land mines,
coordinating shipping and prices on the world market, and designing appropriate
menus for the hungry. Since being
launched, it has been downloaded (www.food-force.com)
over 3,000,00 times: it now is being translated from its original two languages,
English and Japanese, reports Tina Rosenberg in the December 30, 2005, on-line
version of The New York Times. (See
http://www.nytimes.com)
B.A. degrees in engineering – An article in the December ASEE
Prism by Anna Mulrine describes a Bachelor of Arts in Engineering degree at
Johns Hopkins University, aimed at people who want to be conversant in
technology but not necessarily engineers. The degree program, which has been in
place for nearly a decade, attracts students who want to be more technically
literate while pursuing interests in other fields as well. The B.A. engineering
students bring a depth to classes they take with B.S. students, for example
discussing ethics and regulations as they relate to engineering. Similar
programs are found at other institutions, including Yale, the
University
of
Arizona
, Texas Tech and the
University
of
San Diego
. (See http://www.asee.org/prism)
5 – Employment,
competitiveness
Senator says offshoring is a fact of life – The top Democrat
on the US Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, has said that outsourcing
white-collar jobs to low-wage countries such as
India
has become a global fact of life, and that
America
must learn to live with it. As reported by the Associated Press in the January
13th Wall Street Journal, Baucus –
traveling in India – noted that he is concerned about job loss in the US, but
that the appropriate response is to retrain its citizens to be more competitive
in the flat world of globalization. (See http://www.wsj.com)
What happened to American innovation? – Writing in the
December issue of Chief Executive, William
R Brody expresses concern about the national commitment of the
US
government to provide the sustained financial support of scientific research
and discovery across all branches of knowledge that has characterized recent
decades. He notes that at the 2005 World Economic Form at
Davos
,
Finland
– not the
US
– was named the most competitive economy. Through government and private
industry, the Finns dedicate 3.5% of their gross domestic product to R&D –
almost a full percentage point above that of the
US
, currently at 2.6%. The lesson in
Finland
is the same lesson the
US
taught the world in the last 50 years: investment in education combined with
investment in research and discovery pays enormous returns. Part of the reason
that the
US
is losing its lead is the skills race: about one-third of the jobs in the
US
require science and technology competency, but currently only 17% of Americans
graduate with degrees in science or technology. (See http://www.chiefexecutive.net)
In defiance of creativity – Protect your bright idea with
intellectual property rights and you are either the champion of individual
effort or the enemy of public progress. Writing in the RSA Journal, Kenneth Neal Cukier examines the modern system of IP
rights as seen from these two disparate perspectives. According to a recent
study, intellectual property constitutes about 45% of the gross domestic product
of the
US
. Furthermore, three-quarters of the value of publicly listed companies is
comprised of intangible assets, of which IP is a significant part. Today,
however, many people believe the intellectual property system has run amok,
providing too much power in favor of private enrichment and against the public
interest. For example poor countries argue that they are being denied access to
vital medication by western pharmaceutical firms that refuse to license the
techniques to local manufacturers who could make it more cheaply, and e-commerce
companies are granted patents on rudimentary things that block rivals from using
the technique. Cukier believes that intellectual property rights are important
as an incentive for people to invest in innovation and creativity, but that the
rules governing it must evolve to keep up with the pace of technological change.
(See http://www.theRSA.org)
India
vs.
China
– The economic race between
China
and
India
is changing the way the world does business, according to an article by Diana
Farrell in the January/February Foreign
Policy. It is estimated that by 2050 these two countries will account for
nearly half of the world’s gross domestic product, up from only 6% today. But
whose model is better –
China
’s low cost factories or
India
’s low-cost financiers? In the judgment of the writer, for all the benefits of
China
’s swift rise,
India
’s brain power will finally give it the tools to catch up. According to a
survey of local recruiters, only 10% of
China
’s engineers have the skills necessary to work in a multinational corporation,
compared to 25% of engineers in
India
. By 2008,
India
’s total pool of qualified graduates will be more than twice as large as
China
’s. (See http://www.ForeignPolicy.com)
A contrasting analysis is presented by an article by Nicholas D. Kristof,
printed in the January 18th issue of The
Asian Age. This author notes that the boom in
India
has added few jobs, leaving the country’s poor behind, and that
India
has been pathetic in upgrading its infrastructure – compared with
China
. His overall bet is that
China
will grow faster and win the race of the century – and he is advising his
kids to keep studying Chinese rather than switch to Hindi. (See http://www.asianage.com)
India
’s
skill shortage – In a pair of articles in the Wall Street Journal - by John Larkin on January 4th and
by Salil Tripathi on January 5th - writers note that
India
is having an increasingly difficult time finding qualified workers to fuel its
booming services sector. The crunch is particularly worrisome in the technology
industry, where wages are rising at 15% a year as call centers and software
firms throw money at an increasingly shallow pool of youngsters who can hit the
ground running. The emerging talent deficit is giving rivals such as
Russia
space to compete with
India
for high-end outsourced work such as software design and solutions, and allows
aspirants such as the
Philippines
– where English is widely spoken – to better compete for call-center
business. Unless
India
aggressively deregulates higher education and boosts the skills of prospective
outsourcing workers, it risks facing looming shortages that will shatter
expectations of an inexhaustible pool of talent there. (See http://www.wsj.com)
6 – Journal
Issues in Science and Technology – The Winter 2006 Issues
in Science and Technology focuses on New Horizons for a Flat World. Four
papers on that theme are: Will Government Programs Spur the Next Breakthrough,
Is the Next Economy Taking Shape, A Forgotten Model for Purposeful Science, and
Collaborative Advantage. Additional featured papers cover rebuilding
New Orleans
, restoring rivers, and distributed electric power generation. (See http://www.issues.org/issues/)
7 – Meetings
E-conference call for papers – An exclusively electronic
conference will be conducted in conjunction with the 5th ASEE Global
Colloquium on Engineering Education – scheduled for October 2006 in
Rio de Janeiro
. The e-conference will be conducted through web posting of papers, followed by
electronic interactions between participants over a two month period in the
summer and autumn of 2006. Posted papers and subsequent discussions will be
summarized at a major plenary session at the
Rio
colloquium. Abstracts are due by April 30th, with accepted papers
due by August 1st. Engineering educators in developing countries who
seldom have the opportunity to participate in face-to-face conferences are
particularly encouraged to participate in this e-conference. Submit all
inquiries and abstracts of up to 500 words (in English) to e-conference@engr.colostate.edu
ICEE 2006 call for papers – The 2006 International Conference
on Engineering Education will be held in
San Juan
,
Puerto Rico
from July 23 to 28. Abstracts are being accepted through February 28th.
Information on topics and abstract submission can be found at http://icee2006.uprm.edu
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