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The post world war era brought about a booming economy, housing
growth, and many new comforts in the United States. In 1946, Admiral
Hyman G. Rickover, then Captain, was assigned to the Atomic Energy
Commission laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and, in early 1949,
to the Division of Reactor Develop-ment, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
He was tasked with building the first nuclear propulsion system.
What he learned when he began to staff his Oakridge lab scared him.
He was finding that there weren't enough qualified American engineers
and scientists. The ones that were capable had to be completely
retrained.
Due his experiences, Admiral Rickover
went
before Congress in hearings and pleaded for them to take a look
at education in America. His pleas fell mostly on deaf ears.. until
October 4, 1957. Sputnik shook up America. The scare of nuclear
bombs in orbit launched America into a race that would end with
Ronald Reagan. When NACA became NASA as a result of this cry, Congress
recalled Admiral Rickover and American education became the
front line of defense in the Cold War. Studies of the Soviet educational
system showed that America was far behind Russia and most of Europe.
"Of special note, on February
11, 1963, President Kennedy and Admiral Hyman
Rickover met to discuss use of submarines and surface ships in the
multilateral force program. At the onset of the meeting, President
Kennedy mentions an article he read on high-school dropouts and
asks Admiral Rickover why many children do not succeed" (JFK
Library, 2003).
The 87th Congress approved a budget of
$4.9 billion for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
during the 1963 fiscal year. Due to the hard work of individuals
like Admiral Rickover, and organizations like the National Science
Foundation, the United States recovered and in essence after nearly
50 years, came out ahead of the Soviets in the cold war.
The United States is presently in a similar situation. America saw
a booming economy in the 1990's post Gulf War 1991. NAFTA and Tech
Stocks also helped surge the U.S. economy. On September 11, 2001,
everything changed. The country was hit hard. We realized that much
of our cold war technology was useless in a new clandestine world
war. Again, we needed our engineers and scientists. However, just
as in the comfortable post war economy of the 40's and 50's, we
are not graduating as many engineers and scientists who are citizens
of the U.S.
"The number of earned degrees in engineering and computer
sciences grew sharply in the early 1980s, peaked in 1986, and
then dropped precipitously before leveling off in the 1990s. In
the 1990s, degrees in biological and agricultural sciences and
psychology began a steady increase. By 1992, the number of psychology
degrees surpassed the number earned in engineering, and, in 1997,
biological and agricultural sciences surpassed engineering as
well. After 1997, degrees in engineering began to decline further,
but those in computer sciences increased sharply, almost reaching
their mid-1980s level by 2000 (appendix table 2-22
)"(NSF, 2004).
"The long-term growth trend in U.S. S&E graduate enrollment
reached a peak of 435,700 in 1993. This was followed by a 5-year
decline, with a recovery of growth to nearly the 1993 level by
2001. Graduate enrollment in engineering and computer sciences
drove the recent growth; enrollment in most other science fields
remained level or declined. By 2001, graduate enrollment in physical,
earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences had declined by 12 percent
from their highs, and enrollment in mathematics declined by 17
percent. The increase in computer sciences and recent recovery
in engineering mainly reflect the increasing number of foreign
graduate students enrolling in these programs (figure 2-6)"
(NSF, 2004).
"America's leaders in S&E research and education, especially
in the academic sector, are drawn heavily from doctorate holders.
Their proportion in some fields was considerably higher: in 2001,
foreign students earned 49 percent of doctoral degrees in mathematics
and computer sciences and 56 percent in engineering (figure 2-23
). In particular subfields, foreign doctoral recipients were an
even higher proportion of the total (e.g., 65 percent in electrical
engineering) (NSF/SRS 2003b). The number of S&E doctorates
conferred annually by U.S. universities fluctuated around 18,000–19,000
through the mid-1980s, reached a peak of 28,800 in 1998, and declined
to 27,100 in 2001. The rise through 1998 largely reflected growth
in the number of foreign U.S. degree recipients. The largest degree
increases were in engineering, biological sciences, and, to a
lesser extent, social and computer sciences (figure 2-19
). The post-1998 decline in earned doctorates reflects fewer degrees
earned by both U.S. citizens and permanent residents" (NSF,
2004).
One might argue that if engineering
enrollment is up, then why does it matter how many are American
citizens. The answer is simple. Our industrial economy was founded
on innovations that were developed here and stayed here. Much of
the graduate work performed at U.S. universities are performed by
foreigners. If the knowledge gained by doing this research as a
student is not applied by that student in this country, then that
knowledge is lost. The idea of having a graduate research assistant
is not for cheap labor, but for the advancement of the mind and
the experience of that student. Too often we forget that. NSF data
shows that many of these students are not staying here.
During the late 1990's due to NAFTA,
many of the good manufacturing jobs in the U.S. began to be exported.
Much of the electronics contract manufacturing which was so dominant
in the Mid-west has seriously declined. These were top notch technical
jobs. People stated that we would be a service economy and perform
services for the world at a top rate because now we could do it
better than anyone else. The call centers for everything from students
loans, to credit cards performed in India. Accounting firms have
moved much of their low level operations to India as well. Now,
many of the service jobs are gone. Supporters of this exporting
of jobs state that we will now live off of our knowledge. We will
be exporters of knowledge in the United States. If foreign countries
are gaining this knowledge through our schools and more foreign
students are gaining technical degrees in this country than U.S.
citizens, then that base of our economy is severely weakened.
The program was formed with a broad goal of increasing engineering
awareness in the Northwest Florida region. Since the inception of
the program in August 2003, many specific goals have added.
Critics have argued that students
cannot learn college engineering material in high school due to
their lack of core courses. The goal of this program is not to make
engineers out of high school students. As any experienced engineer
knows, you are not an engineer upon graduation from college; you
merely have the tools and skills to become an engineer through experience.
In essence, the pre-engineering program
takes that one step backwards. The specific pedagogical goal of
this program is to give students, who have the desire, the tools
and skills they need to be successful upon entering a university
engineering program so that they may attain a degree in engineering.
Here are excerpts from an extensive
commentary on public education, made in March, 1958, by Vice Admiral
Hyman G. Rickover:
"The chronic shortage of good scientists,
engineers and other professionals which plagues us is the result
of time wasted in public schools which must be made up later on."
What Admiral Rickover needed was
an intervention. He often spoke of people getting the data, but
not the concept. Students were graduating from high school with
good grades, but they did not have the skills to study engineering
and science. They were capable of memorizing the names of items
and reading for content, but just as today in the state of Florida,
they cannot read and critically analyze.
This program seeks to intervene and
develop skills in students such as problem solving, critical analysis,
and research by using specific engineering topics tailored to the
level of the high school students accepted into the program. Hands
on experience with actual hardware is gained. Team interaction and
competition is utilized. Topics such as philosophy, logic, and ethics
are discussed and written about by students. Game playing is used
to teach strategy and to increase interaction between students.
The end goal is to have a seamless
engineering program in the Okaloosa county community that will take
the students from 9th grade to Ph.D. The plan is to begin with pre-engineering
at Choctaw, continue with the Bachelors in Engineering at the UWF
Fort Walton Campus, and complete a Masters and Ph.D. through the
UF Graduate Education Research Center in Shalimar (GERC).
Through the partnership of UWF, CHS,
and the Okaloosa School district and the teaching and research that
results from this partnership, this program will become the leader
in teaching others to do what we do.
This is why we at the pre-egnineering
program exist. For the future of our students, for the future
of our community, for the future of our country.
References
JFK Library (2003). Last accessed January 17, 2005. http://www.jfklibrary.org/newsletter_fall2003_05.html
National Science Foundation Division of Resource Statistics (2004).
Last accessed January 17, 2005. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/stats.htm
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