 As
hard as it is to believe, this is
our summer issue already. The school
year has flown by. I want to remind
you that this year's annual
conference will be held in Portland,
Ore., a beautiful city with a strong
engineering heritage. Many of you
have already registered, but it's
not too late for those of you dragging
your feet. We've lined up
a roster of impressive speakers,
including Georgia Tech President
Wayne Clough and Northrop Grumman
Vice President Dwight Streit, and
there will be 280 technical sessions—give
or take a few—and about 1,400
papers presented.
I also want to take this space
to thank outgoing President Sherra
Kerns for leading the effort to
establish
ASEE as the lead society for ABET
accreditation for general-engineering-related
programs. This means that ASEE will
select and train accreditation evaluators,
which is an important new role for
us. Former President John Weese
is ASEE's representative on
the ABET Board and was an effective
advocate for ASEE's position.
Iowa State electrical engineering
professor Ed Jones—who has
assigned program evaluation visitors
for IEEE for more than 15 years—also
helped to develop ASEE's proposal
and is chair of the committee that
will carry out our new responsibilities.
Walt Buchanan was our liaison with
the Technology Accreditation Commission.
It has been almost a year since
Smith College graduated its first
class of engineers. In this month's
cover story, "The
Real World," six of those
young women recount their experiences
during this past year. They've
each taken different paths—one
has become a geometry and pre-calculus
teacher, for example. Two are pursuing
graduate studies, and still another
is an environmental consultant.
They credit engineering for getting
them where they are today.
In this issue, we also take a look
at what happens when states get
involved in funding research in
a big way. After the federal government
began restricting funding for stem-cell
research, California, New York,
and other states began funding such
research themselves. No one knows
how this will play out. There could
be highly productive breakthroughs,
or a lack of coordination among
states could lead to limited results.
Another story, "Making
It Big," tells about the
growing need for mining engineers
as the world's consumption
of materials steadily increases.
Finally, we're presenting
a photo
essay of a new skyscraper rising
on the World Trade Center site.
The developers are employing state-of-the
art engineering techniques to protect
the properties from potential terrorist
attacks and natural disasters. I
think the photos are powerful, and
they allow you to see just how magnificent
engineering is.
I hope you enjoy this month's
mix of stories, and I hope to see
you in Portland.
Frank
L Huband
Executive Director and Publisher
f.huband@asee.org
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