March 2005
Copyright © 2005 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.
5 – Employment
6 – Journals
7 – Meetings
International panel calls for large investment in
African higher education – The Commission on Africa, established by UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair, has recommended that the developed world make a
long-term commitment to Africa by infusing at least $5 billion into its
universities, reports Aisha Labi in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Members
of the panel believe that the recent emphasis on elementary education has
disturbed the balance needed to properly grow the educational spectrum in
Wolfowitz nominated for World Bank –
Indian Prime Minister backs NSF-like funding body – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has endorsed the creation of an independent agency to support basic research, according to an article in the March 11 Science by Pallava Bagla. The proposed budget would be more than three times the amount the government is now spending on basic research support. The new National Science and Engineering Research Foundation, aimed at reversing a rapid decline in Indian science, would manage its own accounts and be run by scientists. The proposed annual budget of $250-million would dwarf the $72-million now being spent by the Science and Engineering Research Council. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)
Indian government cracks down on private colleges –
Three years ago the Indian State of Chhattisgarh, under pressure to provide more
seats in universities for its population, passed a law opening the door to
private higher education, but neglecting to establish quality control
mechanisms. The result was a flood of storefront colleges offering questionable
courses. Now
India’s R&D: reaching for the top – In an essay in the March 4th Science, Raghunath Mashelkar recalls a prediction that he made while president of the Indian Science Congress: “The next century will belong to India, which will become a unique intellectual and economic power to reckon with, recapturing all its glory, which it had in the millennia gone by”. In his essay he focuses on the importance of returnees to poor countries such as India, examines how demographic shifts are creating shortages of skilled scientists and engineers in developed countries – leading to a new dynamic in human capital that is enabling some developing countries to emerge as global R&D hubs – and addresses ways in which global funding sources can be leveraged in such countries to create new knowledge devoted to the global good. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)
Maori university in
Regional universities in Mexico create collaborative group – In a significant attempt to decentralize the attraction of Mexico City, eight regional universities in Mexico have banded together to showcase their strengths and to share resources, writes Marion Lloyd for The Chronicle of Higher Education. The new group will hold other applicant institutions to the same high standards they demonstrated in the recent National System of Evaluation and Accreditation. (See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i27/27a04302.htm)
After failures, Japanese space effort gets a lift – The
successful launch and deployment of a weather satellite over the Pacific has
restored morale to a Japanese rocketry program battered by its rival in
Canadian Grants Council concerned with funding level – Research no longer carries the political clout it once did, according to Canadian science policy makers looking at the new budget recently outlined by the government. According to an article in the March 4th Science by Wayne Kondro, a government promise to double Canada’s research effort by 2010 and put science at the top of the agenda has been undermined by small increases for the country’s three granting councils. The council chairs say that the result will likely be fewer grants, smaller awards, and less support for training the next generation of scientists. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council had asked for an increase of $64-million, but is allocated only $18-million in the budget – 3.3% increase in its current $522-million budget. The political winds have apparently shifted from support for science and technology to retooling the military and tax cuts. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)
South Korean reforms would shake up Science Institute – The
Korean government was looking for fresh ideas when it hired physics Nobelist
Robert Laughlin as president of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology (KAIST) last summer. But according to an article by Mark Russell in
the February 25th Science, it
may have gotten more than it bargained for. Laughlin has floated a plan to cure
the prestigious institution of its “addiction” to government subsidies. His
prescription – more undergraduates, higher tuition, and courses that appeal to
nonscience majors – has been largely denounced by faculty members as a danger
to KAIST. Critics say that Laughlin has ignored an existing 10-year plan aimed
at achieving financial independence. (See http://www.sciencemag.com)
Hopkins physicist/engineer tapped to head NASA – President
Bush has named Johns Hopkins University physicist and engineer Michael Griffin
to serve as administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
according to an article in the March 12th Washington Post by Guy Gugliotta.
Report aims at bringing
Engineers win US national honors –
President George Bush announced the eight winners
of the National Medal of Science (USA), a list which included John M. Prausnitz,
professor of chemical engineering at the
Critics say NIH over-funds bioterrorism research – The US National Institutes of Health came under attack recently for misplaced priorities, when 760 people – mostly from universities – signed a letter saying that there had been a huge influx of money for bioterrorism research and a corresponding drop in research into other kinds of pathogens. By comparison, 22 people became sick during the anthrax attacks, with five dying, while every year thousands of people die from diseases such as gonorrhea and tuberculosis. The head of the NIH’s research on bioterrorism, Anthony Fauci, denied that the extra money infused into his programs was out of proportion or that it was provided at the expense of other programs, writes Jeffrey Brainard in The Chronicle of Higher Education. (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/03/2005030102n.htm)
Battelle abandons
No high schooler left behind – New US Secretary of Education,
Margaret Spellings, is charged with extending President Bush’s “No Child
Left Behind” program to the upper grades, according to an article in the March
14th Business week by
Richard Dunham and William Symonds. Her plans include requiring school districts
to test high school students three times instead of the current one, adding
funds for programs to help “at risk” students meet the No Child act’s
higher standards, and eliminating or drastically reducing funding for about 50
Education Department programs to rechannel money to larger special education
grants for states and an incentive fund to attract teachers to low-income
schools. Motivation for the increased focus on high school students comes from
the business community, where leaders have been arguing that
US university pays fine for improper reporting – Florida International University (USA) recently agreed to pay the US government $11.5 million to settle claims that it improperly documented the use of faculty time in work associated with grants at its Hemispheric Center for Environmental Technology, reports Jeffrey Brainard in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The quality of the work was not in question: several people associated with the management of the grants have been replaced. (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/02/20050221505n.htm)
The real digital divide – The cover story in the March 12-18 issue of The Economist asserts that encouraging the spread of mobile phones – not plugging poor countries into the Internet -- is the most sensible and effective response to the digital divide. The digital divide is not a problem in itself, but a symptom of deeper, more important divides: of income, development and literacy. Evidence suggest that the mobile phone is the technology with the greatest impact on development, raising long-term growth rates: an extra ten phones per 100 people in a typical developing country increases GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points. Mobile phones – unlike computers – do not rely on permanent electricity and can be used by people who cannot read and write. And a new report from the World Bank indicates that 77% of the world’s population already lives within range of a mobile network. (See http://www.economist.com)
Students hack admissions computer files –
The computers of six prestigious
Companies seek to hold software makers liable – Major
technology users, fed up with spending millions of dollars to fix problems
caused by software, are seeking to press software makers to assume
responsibility for the faults and pick up some of the costs. According to an
article by David Bank in the February 24th Wall
Street Journal, the moves are aimed at making tech companies such as
Microsoft Corporation rethink the way they write and sell software. Companies
such as General Motors, AT&T, and Alcoa say that software vendors should
stand behind their products much as sellers of other products and services do.
Until now, most software makers have sold their products on the condition that
they won’t be held liable if flaws cause damage, be it from computer crashes
or from virus attacks that exploit faults. The cost of repairing such flaws, or
of reimbursing customers harmed by hacker attacks or viruses, could cost vendors
many millions of dollars. (See http://www.wsj.com)
New interdisciplinary super-computing center opens – A collaboration between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University and North Carolina State University has created the Renaissance Computing Institute, whose new director, Daniel A. Reed, wants to put super-fast computing and database mining in the service of projects ranging from the fine arts to genetics, reports Andrea L. Foster in The Chronicle of Higher Education. At one level, this is an economic development effort which will involve industry and hopefully develop products that will revitalize the region’s economy. At another level, it is one of a small group of such projects, but which differentiates itself by its broad interdisciplinary thrust. Mr. Reed is known for his ability to obtain funding. He believes that universities are fundamentally conservative, with innovation supported only at the very top and at the bottom, with impediments at the dean and department chair levels. His institute should permit really creative thinkers to realize their dreams, aided by the power of super-computing. (See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i25/25a03301.htm)
Impact of internationalization on universities
studied – The Economist recently (February 24,
2005) published a long article on “Free degrees to fly,” a discussion of the
future of higher education around the world in light of internationalization and
the resulting competition. The fact
that there are so many new options for pursuing higher learning and that
students can increasingly vote with their feet is forcing individual
institutions and whole countries to assess what they are doing and where they
will operate to maximize resources. According
to this article, a competitive university is not necessarily run on a corporate
model. But the reporter suggests
that weak institutions be left to decline, rather than being shored up by public
funds. Old-style universities in the
A click away – The March issue of ASEE Prism includes a feature article on how K-12 teachers and engineering colleges are reaching out to youngsters through an exciting new collection of web based hands-on lessons and activities. Written by Barbara Mathias-Riegel, the article describes a new K-12 Teach Engineering (TE) digital library developed with NSF funds. At www.TeachEngineering.com, teachers and students can access hands-on lessons and activities involving science and math concepts for young students. The project was developed under the umbrella of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), and involved several engineering schools under the leadership of Jacquelyn Sullivan at the University of Colorado-Boulder. TE addresses teacher’s need to have their curriculum meet state standards in math and science. (See http://www.asee.org/prism)
Who says a woman can’t be Einstein? – The cover story in the
March 7 Time by Amanda Ripley
addresses the math myth – the real truth about women’s brains and the gender
gap in science. The author states that men’s and women’s brains are
different, but cites new research that upends the old myths about who is good at
what. The great majority of scientists and engineers in the
Controversy makes the case for mentoring women – The storm
created by Harvard President Lawrence Summers’ comments about women and
science has led to much thoughtful public discussion, according to a note by
Carol Muller in Mentor-Net News. Among
other things, it has made a strong case for the need to mentor women in
engineering and science. If people believe that there are intrinsic gender
differences, they will expect less of women and question their abilities and
achievements. This does not lead to an environment where women can easily be
self-confident and flourish. Mentoring can help foster the self-confidence that
it takes to succeed. (See http://www.mentornet.net)
Study refutes some misconceptions about affirmative
action – The state of
The new SAT is bigger – is it better? – The March 12th
offering of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) unveiled the biggest change in
the test in a generation, according to an article in the March 14th US
News and World Report by Justin Ewers. The verbal section has been
dramatically rejiggered, dropping analogies and adding short reading passages.
The math section has been changed by elimination of quantitative comparison
questions in favor of more advanced math. Stealing the spotlight, though, is the
test’s new writing component – a 60 minute section which includes multiple
choice questions on improving sentences and identifying errors in diction or
grammar, as well as a 25 minute essay. The essays will be graded on a scale of 1
to 6 by some 10,000 high school English teachers and college professors trained
to evaluate student work. The changes were at least partially precipitated in
2001 by then President of the
In praise of aptitude tests – An article in the March 12-18 The
Economist reviews the changes in the new Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and
concludes that the old version was better. The new test puts less emphasis on
abstract reasoning and more on what students have learned in the classroom –
changing the focus from measuring raw ability to a test of academic achievement.
Tracing the history of development of the SAT, the article notes that it created
an academic and social revolution by measuring student’s real ability rather
than their acquired polish – allowing poorer children to be admitted to
universities and on to the kind of jobs that had previously been reserved for a
Wasp elite. One of the greatest dangers of the new SATs is that they will end up
being more socially exclusive than the old ones – as middle class children
from high quality schools will surely have a big advantage in taking tests that
emphasize algebra and essay writing. (See http://www.economist.com)
Learning and information literacy – Writing in the March/Aril
issue of Change, Patricia Senn Breivik
states that it has become one of education’s greatest challenges to teach
students the skills needed to test the reliability, currency, and relevance of
the information they find. Today’s students live in a world where a tidal wave
of information bombards them from the time they turn on the television in the
morning until the moment they turn off the computer before they go to sleep. In
between they gather information from messages on cell phones, books, magazines,
DVDs, e-mails, chat rooms, and a multitude of other sources. But how reliable is
all that information? It is the responsibility of the education system to teach
students critical thinking skills that will help them determine where to find
information, and to test its reliability, currency, and relevance. In other
words, to be prepared for the 21st century today’s students need to
be “Information literate”. (See http://www.heldref.com)
Prominent
US Defense Department surveys academy sex assaults – One woman in seven at the nation’s military academies last spring said she had been sexually assaulted since becoming a cadet or midshipman, according to a survey of sexual misconduct recently released by the Defense Department. As reported in the Washington Post by Daniel de Vise, more than half of the women studying at the Naval, Air Force and Army academies reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment on campus – but few of those incidents, and only a third of the assaults, were reported to authorities. The survey, conducted largely in response to allegations of widespread sexual harassment and assault at the Air Force Academy in 2003, suggests a prevailing climate at the academies that worries military leaders. A new confidentiality policy for assault victims, recently released by the Defense Department, attempts to improve reporting of sex crimes on military campuses. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com)
5 – Employment
Outsourcing innovation – The cover story in the March 21st
Business Week, by Pete Engardio and
Bruce Einhorn, is a special report on outsourcing innovation. The authors
observe that first came manufacturing, then routine technical work, and now
companies are farming out R&D to cut costs and get new products to market
faster. CEO’s are rethinking their R&D operations, wondering where
mission-critical research ends and commodity work begins. Underlying this trend
is a growing consensus that more innovation in vital – but that current
R&D spending is not yielding enough bang for the buck. Companies are farming
out the design of more new products as research and development budgets account
for a smaller percentage of sales.
You can be replaced! Yes, you! According to John C. Miller, director of the Algebra Courseware Project at the City College in New York, even now there are computer programmers, probably in India, writing software which can deliver a sequential math course that will have the advantage of being entirely self-paced, thus preventing boredom at any point in the course. Since it costs an estimated $50 billion annually to teach pre-algebra through elementary calculus, mostly salaries, a well-crafted program would be very attractive to institutions interested in cost cutting, writes Jamilah Evelyn in The Chronicle of Higher Education. (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/03/2005030702n.htm)
Hiring of women in physics mirrors availability – The American Institute of Physics reports that based on their latest data, women in the US are being hired as physics professors at about the same rate as women are graduating with physics doctorates, writes Robin Wilson for The Chronicle of Higher Education. This contrasts to the situation in chemistry and the biological sciences, where hiring of women has not kept pace with the awarding of doctorates. The gender gap in physics appears earlier, in the drop off between the number of women who study physics in high school and the number who major in physics in college. (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/02/2005022302n.htm)
Women outnumber men in engineering in Gulf state –
The
6 – Journals
Journal of STEM Education – The current issue of this
electronic journal focuses on resources for pre-college education. Guest editor
Steve Watkins has assembled papers on pre-college preparation of students to
study science, technology, engineering and mathematics at the college level –
including outreach efforts in the early grades. (See http://www.jstem.org)
7 – Meetings
WFEO 7th World Congress on Engineering Education – The
Committee on Education and Training of the World Federation of Engineering
Organizations is organizing a conference on 4-8 March 2006 in
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