Frontiers of Engineering: Reports on Leading Edge Engineering from the 1999 NAE Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering (2000)

At the 1999 Frontiers of Engineering meeting, a new element—break-out sessions—was added to the program. On each of the first two days of the symposium, one-hour break-out sessions were held, and on Saturday there was a plenary session to discuss selected break-out session topics. The goal of the break-out sessions was primarily to give an opportunity for participants to talk in smaller groups about engineering issues of importance to them. However, after the first day, it became evident that the results of the sessions also could provide input to the format for next year's sessions, perhaps by providing a narrower focus to the topics discussed, or could guide the selection of the dinner speaker. The outcomes of the break-out sessions are summarized here.^*

Participants were assigned to groups of approximately 15 members. Attention was paid to ensure that each group was diverse in terms of the kinds of work institutions and engineering fields represented. Participants were asked to answer one of these questions:

• What are the three most significant issues facing engineers today?

• What will be the three most significant issues facing engineers in the next 10 years?

Responses were as follows and are not necessarily in priority order:

Q1: What are the three most significant issues facing engineers today?

Red Group:

1. Funding

   • The need for better industry and academic partnerships especially relating to commercialization of intellectual property

   • The need to extend the payback period on research investment beyond the short term

2. Interdisciplinary nature of engineering research

   • The multidisciplinary education required by engineers today results in greater need of interdisciplinary communication

3. Communication

   • The communication gap between engineers and the general public results in poor policy based on uninformed or irrational information

   • The public does not appreciate engineering and often makes uninformed decisions

   • Engineers need to communicate better with policymakers

Dark Blue Group:

1. An increasingly broad skill set is required to avoid commodification (work being outsourced). This means education of engineers needs to be changed to supply students with these skills, and practicing engineers need to maintain and broaden their skills.

2. Fostering two-way communication between the engineering community and the "rest of the world" in order to increase respect, improve public perception, and foster responsibility to the community, with emphasis on ethical issues.

3. Instilling in students and new engineers solid engineering judgment, understanding of fundamentals, and value-added proposition in the context of changing technology. Defining the technical challenges of the knowledge age. Developing the tools and technologies needed in the new knowledge age.

Green Group:

1. Lack of influence by engineering on public policy

2. Keeping up with current information

3. The gap between theory and practice

Pink Group:

1. Professional/continuing education-keeping pace with technology, functioning on multidisciplinary projects

2. Business aspects of engineering/globalization

3. Education-quality of science and engineering education in the United States (secondary and college)

4. Supply and demand of engineers/women in engineering

Q2: What will be the three most significant issues facing engineers in the next 10 years?

Brown Group:

1. Engineering policy

   • Advocacy for the profession

   • Continuing support for long-term/basic research

   • Public education and awareness, improved visibility

2. Professional renewal

   • Continuing education

   • Maintaining interdisciplinary knowledge, individually and in groups (to counteract overspecialization)

   • Teaching critical thinking rather than just handling facts and formulas

3. Handling data

   • Management of information sources

   • Interpretation/utilization of existing knowledge bases

   • Processing of data. Information → knowledge

Yellow Group:

1. Improved education in the face of rapid change

   • Effective teaching of scientific fundamentals

   • Effective teaching of breakthroughs at the interface of traditional disciplines

   • Effective continuous life-long education

   • Effective scientific/engineering immersion at K-12 by impacting teacher/guidance counselor training including continuous involvement with the engineering community

2. Ethical issues

   • Global environment

   • Integrity

   • Human/technological interface

   • Protection of privacy

3. Increasing complexity

   • Managing the information explosion

• Verification of complex systems

• Interdependence of technologies

• Security issues

Light Blue Group:

1. Education

   • Addressing the need for interdisciplinary knowledge while retaining expertise

   • Clarifying the mission of engineers to society as a whole → increasing the draw of American citizens to engineering education

   • Increase visibility of engineering role models

2. Communication

   • Being able to effectively communicate to peers, superiors, public, etc.

3. Ethics

   • Engineers' ability to address ethical issues related to technology advancement, e.g., privacy issues in computer software/communication and bioengineering

4. Interfacing multiple systems and managing complexity and unintended consequences

5. Public policy

   • Implications of technology and society

   • Engineering talent from foreign countries

   • Technology investment

Gray Group:

1. Predicting and coping with the ethical and social impacts of new and expanding technologies

2. Pressures on the engineer to keep up with changes in the workforce and rapidly expanding technology

3. Understanding and managing engineering innovations as applied to complex systems, e.g., environmental, public health, economic, and sustainability issues

Not surprisingly, there was no discernible difference between the responses given to the first question (challenges facing engineers today) and responses given to the second question (challenges in the next 10 years).

For this day's break-out session, the previous day's responses were evaluated. It was determined that the responses tended to coalesce around three significant issues, each with several subpoints. These issues were:

Issue 1: Engineering Education in the 21^stCentury

• Lifelong learning

• Ethics

• Increasingly interdisciplinary nature of engineering

• Preparation at the K-12 level for engineering careers

• Teaching and learning engineering fundamentals and critical thinking

Issue 2: Engineering and Public Policy

• Communication between engineers and the public and engineers and public policymakers

• Advocacy by the engineering community

• Support for R&D (short-term vs. long-term objectives)

• Ways to avoid uninformed public policy decisions

Issue 3: Managing Complexity/Information Explosion

• Implications for education

• Need for a systems perspective/multidisciplinary approach in engineering

• Effect of globalization

• Industry-university partnerships

Groups were given one of the issues with at least two of its related subpoints and asked to discuss concrete steps that could be taken to address them.

1.1 Lifelong learning

• Need formal accreditation or other reward mechanisms for short courses

• Companies should freely support continuing education

1.2 Increasingly interdisciplinary nature of engineering

• Students should be involved in interdisciplinary teams in introductory engineering courses, senior-level project courses, graduate-level projects/courses

• Use case studies of post-hoc analysis of failures/disasters to illustrate key issues: There is a need for many disciplines (within and outside engineering) in order to understand a problem. Illustrate ethical issues in decisions affecting the outcomes of the disaster, e.g., cost vs. safety, adherence to procedures

• Support collaboration among universities, professional societies, industry, etc. to develop modules or case studies for integration into curricula

• Internships/co-op programs: While generally valuable to students and employers, the quality of the experience varies. Require students to have at least two different experiences

• Create internships with faculty members, involve undergraduates in research

• Faculty could serve as role models by doing interdisciplinary work

• University curriculum issues: Require/reward interdisciplinary teamwork. Offer more broad-based core courses across disciplines. (But what to eliminate? 5-yr program?)

• The burden should not all be on the university and formal education

• Require one major interdisciplinary team project as undergrad

• Encourage teamwork even within discipline

• Change the tenure value system, which discourages interdisciplinary work

• In industry, expose young employees to several areas of the business early

• Promote continued learning on the job

1.3 Preparation at the K-12 level for engineering careers

• Problems

  • Many science teachers do not know science well enough to teach it adequately—perhaps doing more harm than good

  • Guidance counselors are inadequately informed about engineering careers

  • US education system is oriented towards common denominator, passing everyone (unlike some in Europe, for example)

  • Media lacks positive (any?) portrayal of engineers or engineering

  • Teamwork and communication skills are essential to learn at the high school level

• Proposals

  • Encourage the media to show engineers and engineering positively—TV, cartoons, web

  • Distribute informational packages to teachers

  • Educate guidance counselors about engineering careers

  • Institute more stringent requirements for students

  • Encourage volunteer activities (industry, academic, and personal initiatives)—help at schools, talk to classes, talk to guidance counselors

  • Encourage retiring engineers/professors to teach in high schools

  • Start before college to bring new people into our profession. Answer the following for high school students: What is engineering about? What preparation is needed in order to be an engineer? What is a typical day in the life of an engineer? Include examples that touch upon ethics and

consequences of engineering activities and upon multidisciplinary consideration.

• Develop a framework for interaction, e.g., institutional relationships

1.4 Teaching and learning engineering fundamentals and critical thinking

• Educational Needs Assessment

From an industry perspective, the graduate needs a strong background in a fundamental area, appreciation of other fields, ability to be open and communicate, job-specific skills, ''drive." At the graduate level, expect person to be able to step in more readily as a "design leader."

In general, graduates need to acknowledge/appreciate what others contribute, including those in other disciplines, as well as technicians, machinists, etc.

• Length and Sequencing of Educational Activities

Can only do so much in a B.S. degree program, therefore education must be an ongoing, lifelong process. Many practicing engineers will get master's degrees and many companies provide training.

When to specialize vs. generalize? Different models may work for different people, e.g., "specialize" in traditional disciplinary program at B.S. level and expand on disciplinary grounding at graduate level or begin with a broad degree (B.A.) and then specialize at graduate level. Marketability ... will companies hire a nontraditional engineer?

• Role of Master's Level Education

It may be easier to modify master's vs. B.S. degree programs. Students already have some discipline-specific fundamentals. Convey a sense of how things fit together and interact. Have multidisciplinary teams tackle real-world projects, e.g., analyze failures.

1.5 Other Considerations

• Money talks. Funding is needed to encourage interdisciplinary education, e.g., from NSF

• Use Fundamentals of Engineering exam as a motivator for interdisciplinary study within engineering

• Bring in outside experts to address ethics and interdisciplinary issues

2.1 Communication between engineers and the public and engineers and public policymakers

• What would we say to each constituency?

  • To the public: notice and respect us

  • To policymakers: need more money and a greater voice

• Proposals-Link professional societies

  • Improve public image

  • Outreach

2.2 Advocacy for the engineering community

• No single "silver bullet"

• Encourage the emergence of an engineering spokesperson at the national political level, e.g., the next Vannevar Bush, a technology adviser to the president, a technology laureate

• Identify and emulate best practices in influencing policy, e.g., the medical community, biocommunity

• Expose people to positive aspects of engineering, e.g., the human side, require engineering for nonengineers in college, inform students at a young age, get an engineer on Sesame Street

• Heavily publicize national engineering awards

• Engage the popular press—editorials, etc.

2.3 Support for R&D (short-term vs. long-term objectives)

• Problems

  • The time necessary to generate support for R&D funding is greater than election cycles

  • A crisis is needed to galvanize support for R&D funding, and there are few of these

• Proposals

  • Articulate the importance of R&D

  • Advertise previous successes

  • Create a crisis???

2.4 Ways to avoid uninformed public policy decisions

• Identify points of contact in congressional offices and with congressmen/senators with interests in science and technology

• Prepare fast response to hot issues, e.g., cloning

• Write to representatives

• Be proactive with influential politicians

• Take a unified stand on issues among professional societies; project the voice of engineering

• Sponsor the Super Bowl—use public service messages aimed at a general, nontechnical audience

3.1 Implications for education

• Combine engineering departments

• Students follow tracks that gradually diverge

• Students take mandatory class on complex problem solving

• All students take capstone design course together

• Introduce complex simulation software packages; learn how to perform sensitivity analyses with these

• Emphasize iterative problem solving, e.g., design, test, redesign

• Real problems introduced at all levels

• Teach people to access information: Identify erroneous information and filter irrelevant information

3.2 Need for a systems perspective/multidisciplinary approach in engineering

• Cross list more courses

• Require multidisciplinary "capstone" design projects

• Return to an interdisciplinary set of core courses

• Encourage faculty collaboration across disciplines and joint appointments

• Eliminate departments

• Improve industry/university post-hiring education (courses, leadership programs)

• Require senior-level multidisciplinary design project

• Influence ABET policy (include a complexity component)

3.3 Effect of globalization

• Take advantage of communication and data sharing capabilities to work on problems with multinational teams 24 hours/day

• Teach second language and communication skills to engineers

• Use immersion programs to learn other cultures

• Design for global markets, but use mass customization to access all markets

• Promote diversity

• Increase machine translation of journals

• Utilize international/distributed design teams

• Consider global/environmental issues in design projects

• Understand human/technology interface

• Cultivate relationships for research exchange on a global level

3.4 Industry-university partnerships

• Address intellectual property issues: What is fair? Security of information. Up-front agreements

• Work towards longer-term relationships

• Create "centers" and consortia

• Increase government role in funding/mandating cooperation

• Increase the value of industrial research in the tenure process

• Get more industrial representation on academic advisory boards (and vice versa)

• Encourage industrial and academic sabbaticals