New Department and Getting down to the “Roots”

I’d first like to thank all of you for the comments and suggestions that I’ve received related to our articles, the Forum, and to the Editor’s Letter. Your input is not only welcome, but it is invaluable to help us determine our readers’ interests. If you haven’t responded in the past, please consider sending us your comments.

In this edition, we’ve added a new department, “Ethical Issues in Engineering,” which focuses on ethical conduct within the practice of engineering. The department will present a case study for consideration through the lens of professional ethics, and a prompt for response from you, our readers. This new department comes to us from one of our subcommittees, the Committee on Business Practices, of the Committee on Professional Practice (CPP). If there are other areas of interest that you might like to see as a regular inclusion, please let us know and we will certainly consider including them in the Journal.

This month’s Forum deals with educational issues and reasonably represents where our system is headed as related to educating the next generation of engineers for the practice. The Forum presents widely varying comments from an e-mail discussion group consisting of mostly academics in engineering education, but also includes some practicing engineers. Although the original discussion was to solicit comment on concerns raised by the book Declining by Degrees by Richard H. Hersh and John Merrow, comments from the group were often tangential and general, which reveals that there are numerous opinions regarding where we are going as educators and professionals, and what educational reforms will allow us to get there. Let me also add that I was part of this discussion group and promise that I will not take the editorial opportunity to get in the final word. My sole purpose is to bring this to your attention as it is important for you to know. I’m sure you will enjoy this lively dialogue, as it shows that there are still differences in how we should approach the future of engineering education.

Most of the contributors from this discussion group are actively serving the practice on national committees of ASCE as well as on national committees of other professional societies such as ACI, NSPE, and others. I add this comment to show that regardless of what you feel about the opinions expressed in the Forum, these people are sincerely dedicated to serve the practice and represent, albeit with sometimes widely differing opinions, persons who are in a position to influence direction. The essence of the Forum in this issue highlights the relationship between a push for research in most engineering programs and how this emphasis affects undergraduate education—a concern that should be of importance to you as a practicing engineer. I would, therefore, strongly solicit your comments on this discussion.

I promised you that I wouldn’t proselytize and I won’t, but I’ll give you my strategic opinion to a solution for all of the problems that have been raised in the article and subsequent discussion. It’s a quote from a great philosopher, Reverend Ike. Ike was a radio evangelist, and, as those of you who are now of a certain age and used to go on all-night cross-country road trips from time to time will remember, you could pick up Ike on AM radio WLAC out of Nashville while you were waiting for Randy’s Record Shop to play some even better blues. WLAC started broadcasting at about a million and a half watts sometime after midnight. On one of these cross-country trips somewhere between Oppolusas and Slidel, while I was tuned in and hoping to hear some good blues by John Lee Hooker, Ike came on instead and said to me, “It ain’t money that’s da root of all evil, it’s da lack o’ money that’s da root of all evil.” Ike was on to something! If you could get enough money into these engineering programs, you can have it all—teaching, service, and research. Until then, the secret to making our educational programs what they need to be will revolve around the lobby for money from stingy and vote-conscious legislatures. The key word here is “root”—the root of the problem is characterized by the lack of fiscal support for state universities, which has led to the $120\text{-}\text{hour}$ engineering degree and the shift to emphasis-funded research to make up for the shortfalls in traditional funding.

If you don’t agree with this opinion or would like to comment, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me ([email protected]) or give me a call. You can also write feature articles for this publication or submit Forum material that you think would be worth sharing with our other readers.

“Dig the well before you are thirsty.”—Chinese proverb

Your faithful servant,Chick Glagola, P.E.