War Zone Engineers
The war in Afghanistan has drawn attention to the woeful state of that country’s infrastructure and education system. And while Afghans’ political, religious, and ethnic puzzles defy imported solutions, outside help in training the engineers they desperately need is welcome and workable, as our cover story reports. M. Saleh Keshawarz led the way in 2002. The University of Hartford, where he is a professor of civil and environmental engineering, has provided graduate-level instruction to 20 faculty members at Herat University. Other U.S. and Afghan engineering schools began collaborating a few years later, with World Bank funding. Japanese educators, meanwhile, have restored ties with Kabul University begun in the 1970s and provide graduate training to its engineering faculty – just a fraction of the hundreds of Afghan grad students in Japan. As a relatively low-cost method of winning hearts and minds, these efforts would seem to be a prime example of worthwhile international assistance – a no-brainer.
Among hazardous foreign interventions, few compare with the challenge accepted by chemical engineer Marcelo Kós and his inspection team in Syria. Destroying an arsenal of chemical weapons and moving lethal toxins through a country engulfed in civil war – what could possibly go wrong? “It’s been very stressful,” Kós tells writer Tom Grose in our Up Close feature. But if his agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, is successful, it will have crossed a singular horror off the long list of present Middle East dangers.
Elsewhere in the February Prism, you’ll enjoy Mary Lord’s eye-opening piece on the many ways engineering educators stimulate imagination in their students. Yes, Virginia, creativity can be taught.
Flip this issue over and explore what’s on tap – literally – in Indianapolis, home to the Indy 500, numerous craft breweries, and the 2014 ASEE Conference and Exposition. We hope to see you there.
Mark Matthews
m.matthews@asee.org