A Time for Hard Questions
ASEE should step back and ask, ‘Who do we want to be?’
By Kenneth F. Galloway
On June 26, 2013, Walt Buchanan gave me the gavel and I officially became the ASEE president for 2013-2014. In June, I will hand the gavel to Nick Altiero. Time flies.
And ASEE presidents come and go. Fortunately, a president need not be too concerned with day-to-day Society functions.
Zones and sections organize excellent local ASEE conferences that promote networking and the exchange of ideas. The PICs (Professional Interest Councils) work hard, hand in hand with the excellent conferences team at ASEE headquarters to organize an always outstanding annual conference. The ASEE board of directors and councils of the Society ( Engineering Deans, Engineering Technology, Corporate Interest) represent the membership with a focus and concern for quality in engineering and engineering technology education. ASEE is a volunteer professional society, and we are most fortunate to have terrific volunteers, as we are fortunate to have many dedicated ASEE staff members serving the membership and making ASEE an influential, relevant society.
Yet, while the well-oiled and efficient ASEE structure does its “thing,” Society leaders must be alert to the changing engineering and engineering technology education landscape in which we work. As the proverb or curse goes, “May you live in interesting times.” We do!
Consider the contemporary scene. It is the age of MOOCs. How will they affect the quality of college education and engineering education as we know it? Or are they a passing fancy? Everyone is concerned about the growing cost of a college education and increasing student debt. Will we deliver a superior product to our students and enhance learning with the “flipped” classroom and the increased use of technology? Then there is the drumbeat of “raise the bar.” Does one size fit all? Many of my colleagues question the value of ABET as it is currently constituted and ask if the return on investment is worth it. And there is STEM frenzy. Yes, we want every student to have heightened scientific and technological literacy; we believe it important for an educated citizenry in current-day society. But do we need to increase significantly the number of B.S.-level engineers that we graduate? Engineering enrollments are up. Is this just another cycle of boom and bust? (See Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent by Michael S. Teitelbaum, Princeton University Press, March 2014.)
Occasionally, in any endeavor, we need to step back and ask – who are we? What business are we in? Who do we want to be? Our society, ASEE, needs to do this also. As a society, are we appropriately focused on serving our membership and their students and appropriately focused on our stated mission and vision? Have we articulated the correct mission and vision? Does the “representational” ASEE Board of Directors serve us well, or do we need to consider a restructuring that reflects the current challenges faced by most boards of nonprofit organizations: identifying and discussing the highest priority issues, setting organizational policies, establishing long-term plans, ensuring financial stability, etc.? Is “mission creep” in the activities delegated to ASEE headquarters a threat to our future? Is the peer review in which we engage sufficiently rigorous to win the respect of our academic peers in other disciplines? Do we have the correct mix of journals and conference proceedings to serve the needs of our membership and to support our mission to further education in engineering and engineering technology? Are we structured for the future, or are we structured for the past?
A healthy organization asks itself hard questions and engages in open dialogue as to how to improve. Bill Gates once said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.” Let’s all ask and discuss with our ASEE colleagues what actions we must take to strengthen ASEE for the future. As part of this exercise, the ASEE Board of Directors will initiate a strategic planning activity this year.
Time flies. When I was younger, it was the Chattanooga Choo Choo – now it is the TGV and the Shinkansen high-speed trains. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as ASEE president this past year. I look forward to working with you as we continue to strive to serve the needs of the ASEE membership and to promote excellence in engineering and engineering technology education.
Kenneth F. Galloway is president of ASEE.
Photo by Wyatt McSpadden
ASEE Staffers Recognized for Extra Effort
A monthly award has been introduced at ASEE headquarters to showcase staffers who go above and beyond expectations to provide service to members, assist colleagues outside their own departments, fill in during another’s absence, or improve the organization’s efficiency and bottom line. The awards are decided by a staff committee.
March Awardees
Eleanor Stewart
Senior Program Manager, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Eleanor was nominated for working non-stop during the month of January to ensure the new GRFP virtual panels went well and ASEE’s tasks were all completed to the satisfaction of our client. She worked nights and weekends not only to ensure that the client was taken care of but also to deliver on tasks that were not originally requested.
Rachel Levitin
Program Manager, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship
When Rachel broke her foot, she didn’t miss a step with work. She worked full time during her recovery, staying on top of all her NDSEG duties. If that wasn’t enough, she also took on the contract duties associated with the Air Force Summer Faculty Program after the departure of a colleague. She made sure both clients received whatever they needed.
Sarah Khan
Assistant Editor
Sarah was nominated for combining technical, design, and editorial skills on ASEE’s online journal Advances in Engineering Education, a growing publication. She was able to reduce the amount of time others spent on this publication, including Art & Production, IT, and the rest of Editorial.
ASEE Board of Directors 2014 Election Results
ASEE members elected Joseph Rencis to serve as ASEE president-elect for 2014-2015. Rencis, Tennessee Tech University’s engineering dean and a professor of mechanical engineering, will assume the position of ASEE president-elect at the 2014 Annual Conference in June and become president the following year.
Full election results, with 581 total ballots counted, are as follows:
President-Elect
Joseph Rencis (290 votes)
Dean of Engineering
Tennessee Tech University
Ann Saterbak (275 votes)
Professor in the Practice and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Affairs
Bioengineering Department
Rice University
Vice President, Member Affairs
B. Grant Crawford (278 votes)
Associate Professor and Director, Mechanical Engineering Program
Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department
U. S. Military Academy
Douglas Tougaw (255 votes)
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Valparaiso University
Chair, Professional Interest
Council II
Marjan Eggermont (270 votes)
Associate Dean
Mechanical and Manufacturing Department
University of Calgary
Jeffrey L. Ray (238 votes)
Dean of Engineering Technology and Management
Southern Polytechnic State University
Chair, Professional Interest
Council III
Sheryl Sorby (256 votes)
Fulbright Scholar, Dublin Institute of Technology
Professor, Engineering Education Innovation Center
Ohio State University
Anna Dollár (250 votes)
Professor, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Miami University
Chair-Elect, Zone I
Navarun Gupta (67 votes)
Assistant Professor and Chair
Electrical Engineering Department
University of Bridgeport
Shane Rogers (62 votes)
Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Clarkson University
Chair-Elect, Zone III
Steve E. Watkins (69 votes)
Professor and Associate Chair
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Kenneth W. Van Treuren (55 votes)
Associate Dean, Research and Faculty Development Department
Baylor University
Constitutional Amendments
Accept (491 votes)
Reject (7 votes)
Change name of Audit Committee to Risk Management Committee
Accept (42 votes)
Reject (6 votes)
Three-Year Term for Past PIC Chair on Nominating Committee
Accept (31 votes)
Reject (12 votes)
Authorization for Post-June Nominating Committee to Meet in February
Accept (39 votes)
Reject (5 votes)
Call for Nominations
The ASEE Nominating Committee, chaired by Immediate Past President Walter W. Buchanan, requests member participation in nominating board officers for the 2015 ASEE elections. Officers to be nominated for Society-wide positions are: president-elect; vice president, external relations; vice president, finance; chairs of the Engineering Deans Council and Corporate Member Council; and chairs-elect of Zone II and Zone IV.
All nominees must be individual members or institutional member representatives of ASEE at the time of nomination and must maintain ASEE membership during their term of office. Nominating Committee members are not eligible for nomination. The slate of candidates selected by the committee will not exceed two candidates per office.
Candidates for president-elect must be active members who have served or are serving on the Board of Directors. Candidates for vice president, external relations; and vice president, finance shall be chosen from those who have served as zone chairs.
Candidates for chair of the Engineering Deans Council, chair of the Corporate Member Council, and chair-elect for Zone II and Zone IV will be nominated and selected by their respective councils and zones, as the ASEE Constitution stipulates.
For each proposed candidate for a Society-wide office, submit a biographical sketch of fewer than 400 words that documents career contributions, ASEE offices held, awards and recognitions received, and educational background. Include comments on leadership qualities, ability to cooperate with others to achieve objectives, and willingness to serve if elected. A listing of members who meet constitutional eligibility requirements for the offices of president-elect and vice president, member affairs is available from the executive director’s office at ASEE headquarters.
Send nominations in writing, marked confidential, by June 1, 2014. For nominations for the office of president-elect, please include an advocacy statement. Mail nominations to Walter W. Buchanan, Chair, ASEE Nominating Committee, ASEE, 1818 N Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036.
Regions, Sections, and Divisions
The ASEE Today section of Prism welcomes brief reports from Council, Section, and Division leaders providing highlights of their meetings. These reports should be no more than 200 words and provide the meeting’s date, location, and the name of the group that convened it. Submissions should be sent to editorial@asee.org, allowing at least six weeks for publication.
Board Profiles
Terri Morse
The Right Stuff
“Airplanes were just a part of growing up in Wichita,” recalls Terri Morse, ASEE’s vice president for finance. The city was home to several leading aviation companies, including Boeing, where her father worked as a civil engineer, and sonic booms occurred so frequently that she got used to pausing during street conversations.
Still, Morse – who played the piano, composed music, and sang in choirs as a girl – never imagined a career in avionics, let alone rising to become a Boeing director within Engineering, Operations, and Technology. Her “initial dream” was to become a mathematician and a teacher. Another goal: learn an instrument from each family.
Morse mostly met her musical goal, learning the trumpet, viola, and flute. But having graduated summa cum laude from Central Washington University, certified to teach math and music, she left the classroom after a year. “I loved to teach, but I didn’t necessarily like the discipline side of it.” Eking out a living as a church youth and education director, she phoned home in discouragement. Don’t worry, her dad reassured. Boeing employs lots of math majors. Within days, Morse was doing aerodynamic analysis alongside engineers.
That was 1980. Morse went on to design flight-simulator software and avionics for almost every one of Boeing’s commercial airplanes, including the 787, and probably could fly any jet in an emergency. She stepped in as lead engineer to complete crucial aerodynamics software on the 737 autopilot when the contractor lost its team chief. “My name is still on some of the embedded code,” she says, beaming.
While there have been struggles, Morse’s lack of engineering credentials never proved a roadblock. “I always found pathways to get me where I needed to go,” she says. That includes “managers who recognized my capabilities.” One boss noticed Morse was doing the same work as engineers and found a way to reclassify her job and promote her into engineering management.
Morse’s travel schedule leaves little time to complete the composite airplane that she and her husband, a civil and software engineer, are building in a hangar at their airpark home near Everett, Wash. But the couple sometimes flies the Cessna they share with neighbors to the San Juan Islands for a sunset dinner.
On the Board of Directors, Morse sees building a financially healthy ASEE as a critical goal and looks forward to a break-even year in 2014.
Lea-Ann Morton
Different Path
Lea-Ann Morton has never studied engineering, but she plays a crucial role for those who do. When she first joined Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2001 as assistant director of career opportunities and employer relations, she helped ensure that students had robust industry experiences and job prospects. That’s no small task on a campus that lies two hours from the nearest airport in bucolic Rolla. But last year, 300 major employers from across the country attended the engineering school’s fall career fair to hunt for prospective hires.
Morton, who earned a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy from the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and a master’s in adult education from the University of Arkansas, concentrated on boosting engineering students’ presentation and social skills, such as how to converse informally, meet and greet, and interview for a job – vital professional abilities that didn’t exist in their curriculum back then.
She worked in career opportunities and employer relations until August 2011, the same year that the school’s career opportunities and employer relations office was named 11th in the nation by the Princeton Review.
Now on the university’s advancement team as assistant vice chancellor, Morton asks employers, alumni, donors, and other university friends to sponsor scholarships, co-op programs, and lab equipment, as well as fund university research that is specific to industry needs. The majority of Missouri S&T students need some form of financial aid, she notes, and “whatever it is that our partners are able to provide can make a significant impact” on a student’s success . She fondly recalls a student for whom the scholarship freed up the family’s money and allowed a parent to complete a long-delayed bachelor’s degree.
Morton learned about ASEE through the Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration as well as the 2002 annual conference. There she found useful connections among engineering employers and other engineering institutions. This is her first year as a board member and PIC V chair, and though unfamiliar with the scientific and technical side of engineering, she’s no less fascinated by what engineers do. “I’m so surprised at how engineers accomplish what they do,” Morton said. “Everything you touch, engineers have played a role in it.”
Engineering Researchers Brave Snow to Attend Conference
By Shanae Jones
A major winter storm that shut down the federal government threatened to ruin the first day of the 2014 Engineering Research Council’s (ERC) Annual Conference, but thanks to the commitment of the ERC Board of Directors and National Science Foundation speakers scheduled to present, the sessions continued without a hitch. The 2014 conference, which took place March 17 – 19 at the Sheraton Hotel in Silver Spring, Md., started with a panel entitled “Updates, Changing Priorities & Opportunities at the NSF.” Presenters were Pramod Khargonekar (NSF assistant director, engineering), Farnam Jahanian (NSF assistant director, computer and information science and engineering), and Mary Galvin (NSF division director, math and physical sciences). NSF breakout sessions included presentations from CBET, EEC, ECCS, CISE, CMMI, IIS, and EFRI. Day two of the conference saw greater attendance as the Washington, D.C., region dug out from more than seven inches of snow and travel restrictions lifted. Those who stayed through Wednesday were rewarded with an informative Q&A session on “Strategies for Seeking Foundation Funding” with Anita Plotinsky of Plotinsky & Associates, Susan Golden of the Golden Group, and Lisa Camp of Case Western Reserve University. We greatly appreciate the dedication of this year’s panelists and attendees. Thanks also are due to the ERC’s planning committee, whose efforts made the 2014 conference such a success. Presentations and other material related to the 2014 ERC Annual Conference can be found online at www.asee.org/conferences-and-events/conferences/erc/2014/program-schedule.
Shanae Jones is ASEE’s council affairs coordinator.
Meet Your Staff
Spreading the Word on Better Teaching
More than most on staff, Rocio Chavela speaks the language of our members. This holder of a Ph.D. in engineering education (Purdue, 2011) was an ASEE member herself, dating to 2006, before joining the staff at ASEE headquarters in 2011. She is currently our manager of faculty development.
While being raised in a small Mexican village may seem an unlikely starting point for someone seeking an engineering career, Rocio knew from middle school she wanted to be a chemical engineer. “I had a teacher in chemistry who was amazing. She was not an engineer, but the chemical part came from her.” And of course, there was the money. Reading about engineers on oil rigs, she calculated what her monthly income would be and would proudly tell her family how much she could make one day soon, an astronomical sum where she grew up.
Rocio started teaching after graduation because she needed a job and wanted to earn a master’s degree while working. By teaching where she took classes, she could earn her degree tuition free. And after one year of working as an instructor at the University of the Americas, Puebla, she realized she liked it. After five years of teaching, her next step was enrolling in Purdue’s School of Engineering Education, where language and culture were the biggest hills to climb.
“Statistics was my first class, and that was simple, English-wise…but then I took some humanities-type classes, and I was overwhelmed,” she recalls. “Fortunately my fellow classmates and the faculty in the program were very welcoming and friendly, helping my transition. Perhaps the biggest adjustment was how so many people used their mealtimes to work; I was used to meals being a social activity!”
She’s been in Washington, D.C., since 2011 and enjoys cooking, dancing, and playing tourist when friends visit. While some familiars of home are missed (“the tacos al pastor can’t be replicated here, and I long for the warm weather of Mexico”), she likes the people and the cross-functional teams at ASEE and loves the opportunity to make a difference.
She brings a useful knowledge base. “We know what works in engineering education, but we don’t do it – change is hard. While raising awareness of proven teaching practices is key, systematic ways to describe and assess such practices and support structures that value and reward effective teaching are also needed.”
Maybe there’s something in the agua in her little village in Veracruz: Rocio’s sister is an engineer with Chrysler, and her brother is an engineer with Ford, both in Mexico City. A younger brother is also an engineer and is presently working on his master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
Though she misses her family, with whom she Skypes regularly, she knows that Washington, D.C. is the place for her right now. “I care about ASEE’s mission and what we do here. That’s why I’m here.”