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Highlights of ASCE Boston Convention (from the perspective
of Jim Yao)
1. Civil Engineering Department Heads Council (DHC) Forum - 18
October 1998
- Bob Elliott (U. of Arkansas) made a survey of 52 Departments
of Civil Engineering. He found that 32.4% of these departments
require less than 130 hours to graduate, 50.0% between 130 and
136 hours, and 17.6% greater than 136 hours. Some 15 departments
said that they are under pressure to further reduce credit hours
for graduation (6 from state legislatures, 7 from university administrations,
1 from the Dean of Engineering, and 1 from peer institutions).
- The Task Force on Redefining Scholarly Work presented their
report entitled "The Scholarship Landscape
in Civil Engineering: A Bridge Between Rhetoric and Reality".
Vince Drnevich of Purdue University appointed the Task Force in
1997, Amir Al-khafaji chaired the Task Force and did most of the
work, and Mike Kupferman put out the well-done report. There will
be more meetings to discuss these important issues.
- Ron Sacks (NSF) described
relevant programs on education as follows:
Equal emphasis on research and education for career awards.
Action Agenda for Systemic Engineering Education Reform (successor
to Coalitions) - 100k to 600k per year for 3 years (talk to
Ernie Smerdon (esmerdon@nsf.gov) about this program).
Cross-disciplinary synthesis (discovery to proof-of-concept
undergraduate and graduate) including infrastructure systems,
environmental systems, transportation systems, building systems,
and constructed facility systems.
Opportunities for civil engineering research include microsensors/actuators
(MEMS), biomimemics, and manufactured systems.
- Tom Lenox (ASCE) mentioned the following important items:
The "Diversity and Career Guidance Showcase" held
during the Boston Convention (See Item 8 below).
Washington internship for students of engineering (WISE) –
the deadline for application (http://www.ieee.org/wise)
is 4 December 1998. Please encourage students to apply.
There are still openings for hosting student chapter regional
conferences (including Texas-Mexico) for 1999. Please contact
pwei@asce.org in case of
need.
The First Professional Degree issue has been approved by the
Board and will be discussed continuously.
- Vince Drnevich (Purdue and Chair of DHC) discussed the reorganization
and expanded role of DHC. His E-mail address is drnevich@ecn.purdue.edu
2. Civil Engineering Education Beyond 2000 - 19 October 1998
- Jose Roesset presided the session. He showed a color picture
of the late Professor Walter P. Moore, Jr., and dedicated the
session to the memory of Professor Moore who helped us to set
up this session.
- Jim Yao presented the Moore/Roesset/Yao paper that was originally
scheduled for presentation by Walter Moore. Bill Kelly and Marshall
Lih presented their respective papers. Delon Hampton told Jose
that he would come but was too busy with his other official duties
(as the new President-Elect of ASCE) to do so. The four papers
and 20 written discussions were pre-printed (also available on
the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu and click on "Forum"
and click on "convention") and passed to all participants
(the capacity of the room is 75 and several people were standing
in the back of the room at all times). In addition, Bill Walesh,
Norbert Teufel, Greg Reed, Anan Kunret, Richard Vogel, Vince Drnevich,
and Frank Lynch offered comments and suggestions. Additional written
discussions (in Word) will be sent to Jim Yao via E-mail (jtpyao@tamu.edu)
for addition to the existing file for continued discussion. Eventually
all authors are urged to respond to these discussions and will
be included in an additional section entitled "authors’
response" by the end of this year.
3. Opening Session - 19 October 1998
Lou Graef, President of ASCE, gave an emotional summary of
his accomplishments during this past year. He then introduced
Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize winner, who gave an excellent
address on history and baseball.
4. Engineering Education: From the 19th to the 21st
Century - 19 October 1998
Stephen Ressler (U S Military Academy at West Point) presented
an excellent talk on "Teaching Teachers to Teach Engineering
(T4E)." NSF supported this program for three years recently.
5. Designing Tomorrow’s Successful Engineering Successors:
Our Students - 20 October 1998
Bob Turner and Mike Peralta (E-mail address: jets@nae.edu)
of JETS (http://www.asee.org/jets) gave good summaries on their
respective efforts.
6. CEO Forum - 20 October 1998
Donald Gunther, Vice-Chair of Bechtel Group, Inc., Preston
Haskell, CEO of the Haskell Company, Charles Thornton, Chairman
of LZA Group, Inc., and Kenneth Stinson, Chairman and CEO of
Peter Kiewit Sons, Inc., presented their respective companies
and predicted the future developments. The entire forum is available
in two parts of video tapes that I gave to Dr. Stuart Anderson
(sda4823@acs.tamu.edu)
for possible use by colleagues and students at Texas A&M
University.
7. Geo Congress ’98 Symposium on Judgement and Innovation:
The Heritage and The Future of the Geotechnical Engineering Profession
- 20 October 1998
Professor Ralph Peck gave an excellent speech entitled "Are
the Glory Days Behind Us?" Essentially, no "ground-breaking"
discoveries have been made in recent years. However, many new
applications were made in new areas such as environmental engineering
and offshore technology. Eventually, geotechnical engineering
is expected to return to being a part of the civil engineering
profession where it began.
8. Diversity and Career Guidance Showcase - 20 October 1998
Participants include Purdue University Women in Engineering
Program (WIEP) (http://fairway.ecn.purdue.edu/wiep),
Massachusetts Pre-Engineering Program (MASSPEP) (http://www1.usa1.com/masspep),
E-mentoring (contact Professor Sara Wadia-Fascetti at swf@neu.edu
and http://sca.coe.neu.edu),
and NSPE (contact mberman@nspe.org). A lot of information on
career paths and mentoring are available through the above-mentioned
Internet addresses.
9. Managing Change in Your Organization - 21 October 1998
Jennie Lee Colosi, ET&L Construction Corporation (father-to-daughter
transition); Joseph J. Rixner, Haley & Aldrich, Inc., (merge
and acquisition changes); and Judith Nitsch, Judith Nitsch Engineering,
Inc., (rapid growth) lead a good discussion of various changes
facing their companies.
10. Installation of ASCE Honorary Members - 21 October 1998
I am proud to witness the elevation of my colleague Jose M. Roesset,
P.E., to Honorary Member of ASCE along with Stephen D. Bechtel,
Jr., P.E., Jacob Dekema, P.E., David A. Firmage, P.E., Jefferson
M. Hilliard, P.E., Ronald C. Hirschfield, P.E., Daniel P. Loucks,
Henry L. Michel, P.E., and James E. Roberts, P.E. Only 10 are so
honored this year among the more than 120,000 members of ASCE. John
M. Niedzwecki, Department Head, was there to celebrate this happy
occasion for Texas A&M University.
I wish to thank Drs. Peter B. Keating (CVEN 345-502) and Harry
L. Jones (CVEN 421-501) for taking care of my Monday and Wednesday
classes during my absence. In addition to learning new things, I
also renewed acquaintance with my old friends and met with many
new friends in Boston. It was indeed a beneficial meeting and an
enjoyable trip.
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