The PAC Specialty conference held at Ohio State University in March 1977 discussed Maintaining Professional Competence. It was agreed that all ASCE members in active practice have an obligation to undertake some sort of a program of Continuing Professional Development. No consensus was reached as to whether such a program should be voluntary or mandatory. Examples of voluntary programs now in effect in some states were cited, and it was concluded that these voluntary programs were not successful, to date. After long discussion a Draft Policy Statement was passed. This Draft Statement, if adopted, would make it mandatory for an ASCE member to submit a statement, upon request of a client, a legally constituted public body or a professional society, which would indicate what steps the member has taken to insure his Continuing Professional Development.

Civil engineer transit planners can find valuable lessons in the successful operation of a trolley subway by a department store in Fort Worth, Texas. Qualities of ingenuity, economy, efficiency, and craftsmanship could have application also in big city transit.

A method of selecting civil engineering faculty members is proposed to enhance their professional advancement. Each small to moderately large civil engineering program has been advised to select one, two, or a few areas of specialization rather than selecting one or two faculty members from each of the many disciplines housed under the civil engineering umbrella. This requires each specialist to contribute to undergraduate education outside his or her area of spcialization. An approach to assuring that this is effectively accomplished is also proposed. Graduate education and research can be more effectively pursued within these concentrated areas having four to six faculty members with similar or complimentary backgrounds and research interests. The recommended approach is expected to improve stability of graduate programs, assure opportunity for professional growth and development of civil engineering faculty members, and provide for sound undergraduate civil engineering education.

The nation's engineering schools, American industry, the Federal government, and a number of philantropic foundations have joined together to help resolve a major U.S. social and economic issue - the lack of women and minority participation in the engineering profession. The challenge has been to increase the number of women and minority graduates from our engineering colleges to the point that parity between ethnic and racial groups is achieved, and the number of women engineers significantly increased. A national time-table of 18 years has been set for achieving the goal of minority parity for incoming freshman students; the clock started running in 1973 and we are now at the five-year midpoint. The program appears to be on schedule; the number of freshman minority students has doubled to about 7,500 during the initial five years. This is good news, but the 1982 entering class will have to have twice again as many minority students if parity is to be approached. This report describes the program at New Mexico State University.

The American constitution is discussed with reference to the agrarian society for which it was framed. Today, in our hypertechnological age, some updating seems required to include a fourth branch of government, viz., a technological branch. An anology is drawn between the first and second revolutions of automation and cybernation, respectively; and the social, economic, and political stresses that arose partly because of constitutional inadequacies and the failure to recognize the massive technical impacts occurring. The authority, composition, and operation procedures of the technological branch are outlined, together with the method of interface with the existing three branches of government.

The James Bay Energy Corporation is a project management team on a very large scale. The main thrust of its efforts contained economies of scale when acting alone, with contracting to highly-skilled private firms. Salient features include: (1)Single organizations with personnel from three other specialized organizations; (2)allocation of detail design work to Quebec firms; (3)delegation of construction management to the various remote jobsites; (4)operation of transportation services; (5)supply and operation of construction camps; (6)utilization of management controls systems linking project costs and schedules; and (7)submittal of annual budgets to provincial government for approval.

The Los Angeles Section of ASCE initiated a program in 1974 and 1975 to implement salary and fringe benefit guidelines. A salary survey in the geographical area encompassed by the Los Angeles Section was conducted as a basis for comparing actual prevailing salaries with ASCE guidelines. Salary comparisons were also made with other types of employment and implementation problems were defined. Reports comparing actual salaries with ASCE guidelines were distributed in both 1974 and 1975 to major employers of civil engineers, both public and private, in the Los Angeles geographical area and also to collective bargaining units. Presentations covering the comparison of salaries and fringe benefits with ASCE guidelines were made to the section, geographical branches, and technical groups as an integral part of implementation efforts. A continuing program in coordination with the other four California ASCE Sections aimed at implementing ASCE guidelines was formulated.