Page 186 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11338.html

EDUCATING ENGINEERS FOR 2020 AND BEYOND 169

to the creative, explorative, open-minded environment and spirit neces-
sary to educate the engineer of 2020.
American research universities, with their integration of learning,
discovery, and doing, can still provide the best environment for educat-
ing engineers . . . if we support, sustain, and challenge them. We must
retain their fundamental rigor and discipline, but also provide opportu-
nities for as many undergraduates as possible to participate in research
teams, perform challenging work in industry, and gain substantive pro-
fessional experience in other countries.
One final, critical point—once we decide what to teach and how to
teach it, we must be sure that the best and brightest young American
men and women become our students . . . and the engineers of 2020
and beyond. In the past 16 years, the number of B.S. degrees in engi-
neering granted in the United States dropped from about 85,000 to a
low of 66,000; it has rebounded now to about 75,000. In this global,
knowledge age with its serious problems and opportunities, we need the
best and brightest students to pursue careers in engineering, and we
need a large percentage of them to earn Ph.D.s in the areas of engineer-
ing that can lead to innovations that will keep us free, secure, healthy,
and thriving in a vibrant economy.
This will require two things in addition to the broad objectives I
have already discussed. First, we must double and redouble our efforts
to make engineering schools and the engineering profession attractive
and fully engaging to women and students in underinvolved minorities.
We need equity and full participation in our engineering workforce,
faculties, and leadership. Second, we should rally support for the grow-
ing movement to create a twenty-first-century analogue of the National
Defense Education Act of the 1950s and 1960s.
I wish you all good luck with the tasks you have set for yourselves.
And remember, we cannot afford to fail.

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