 There
are some who complain that you can’t
get good service anymore. Those
people ought to look at what’s
going on at engineering schools
across the nation. Service learning
is part of the curriculum in a growing
number of engineering departments.
Engineering students participating
in service learning do everything
from programming a computer network
at a battered women’s clinic
to making school more accessible
for children with physical disabilities.
Service learning fits well with
ABET 2000’s accreditation
standards of graduating students
who know how to work as a team and
who can communicate effectively
with people in other fields. As
our cover story “May
I Help You?” explains,
except for the pressure it puts
on the already-packed engineering
curriculum, service learning seems
to be a win-win for everyone.
Closely linked to the service learning
story is “Fertile
New Ground,” which is
also about preparing engineering
students for today’s rapidly
changing world. There’s a
lot of research underway about how
engineering students gain the important
skill sets they must have as practitioners.
The story looks at two new departments
of engineering education, one at
Purdue University, the other at
Virginia Tech, created in part to
study how students learn engineering.
The third story in this month’s
Prism, “Feast
or Famine?” is about money.
How much money will be available
for engineering research in the
2007 fiscal year budget, which is
making its way through Congress?
Thanks to the American Competitiveness
Initiative, which came about in
response to warnings that America’s
future security and economic strength
were at risk, funding for basic
research in engineering and the
physical sciences is currently slated
for a 1.8 percent increase over
2006.
And now for a bit of news. Your
votes for ASEE officers for the
2006-07 year have been tabulated,
and you have elected James L. Melsa
as your new president. You can find
the results for all of the new officers
on page 61 (online: ASEE
Today). For those of you attending
the annual
conference in Chicago, be sure
to introduce yourself to the new
officers. This year’s conference
is going to be a great event with
outstanding speakers and a record
number of papers to be presented.
I hope to see all of you there.
Frank
L Huband
Executive Director and Publisher
f.huband@asee.org
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