Earlier this summer, Prism received the good news that it had won an Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) Distinguished Achievement Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing for its November 2005 cover story, “Down, But Not Out.” This was the Prism article that covered the aftermath of Katrina and the devastation dealt to engineering schools in New Orleans. The story was compelling, and the double-page photo spread of a flooded Tulane, dramatic. Now, a year later, Prism returns to the university, and the article, “Tulane’s Next Move,” looks at what has happened since then. After Tulane closed its doors for the 2005 fall semester, the university announced a sweeping restructuring plan that includes the elimination of three of the institution’s five engineering departments: civil and environmental engineering; electrical engineering and computer science; and mechanical engineering. The remaining programs, chemical and biomedical engineering, will be integrated into a new school dominated by science majors. It’s probably an understatement to say the reaction has been mixed. Some affected professors and students are fighting the plan, but others favor having the school take an interdisciplinary approach to engineering education.

ASEE’s Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges book, which became available in August, provides a wealth of data for 334 U.S. and seven Canadian engineering colleges. This month’s Prism cover story, “Trouble on the Horizon,” draws some sobering conclusions from these statistics—that engineering graduation and enrollment rates are not keeping up with the country’s increasing demands for engineers and that women, African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans remain untapped pools of talent. The article examines why women continue to be largely disinterested in engineering.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has moved ahead with a generous scholarship/fellowship program to help ensure its future share of talented researchers for U.S. defense labs. A pretty sweet deal, the SMART Program scholarship covers tuition, fees, books, room and board—and, as of this year, even provides students with a salary or stipend. Top U.S. students earning degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM disciplines) can apply, and successful recipients must agree to work at a government defense lab for one year after graduation for every year of scholarship. Read “Get Smart” for more about this Congress-approved program.

I would welcome your thoughts and comments.

Frank L. Huband
Executive Director and Publisher
f.huband@asee.org