December 11, 2015

 

CONGRESS PASSES 5-DAY STOPGAP; OMNIBUS SLOWED BY DISPUTES OVER 'RIDERS'

President Obama is expected to sign a continuing resolution, maintaining current funding levels, which expires next Wednesday, CQ reports. Negotiations will continue through the weekend on an omnibus appropriations measure to fund the government through the rest of fiscal 2016. The effort is complicated by "dozens of outstanding policy riders" and "a behemoth package of permanent tax extenders and language restricting the entry of Syrian refugees."

'A 3-HOUR PIECE OF POLITICAL THEATER': That's ScienceInsider's characterization of a Senate hearing chaired by Ted Cruz, at which the Texas Republican derided current computer models used to understand global climate trends as “profoundly wrong … and inconsistent with the evidence and the data.” Jeff Mervis reports that he "provided a forum for three scientists known for their contrarian views on climate change—John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and William Happer of Princeton University." Presidential contender Cruz chairs the science subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. His use of the panel to counter those he calls “global warming alarmists” will be worth watching. Why? The Commerce committee has the Senate's lead role in writing a reauthorization of America COMPETES, spelling out policy for research agencies.

BIOTECH BREAKTHROUGHS: Biotechnology has the potential to transform energy, agriculture, and manufacturing, says Zach Serber, chief science officer of Zymergen, a startup founded in 2013 that manufactures chemicals and materials using microbes. He raised the prospect of a "technological revolution likely as important to advancing societal well-being, national security, and economic productivity and competitiveness as the invention of the transistor or the invention of heavier-than-air flight." Serber was one of five witnesses who testified at a hearing by the House Science Subcommittee on Research and Technology. Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. co-founder Reshma Shetty (pictured above left) told the panel: "My co-founders and I were able to bootstrap Ginkgo from scratch on the basis of various federal awards from NSF, DOE ARPA-E, and NIST." (Her firm has been supported by ASEE-managed programs, including the National Science Foundation-backed Engineering Innovation Fellowship Program for Graduate Research Fellows. Ginkgo currently has a fellow from a Small Business Innovation Research program run by ASEE.) Photo courtesy of the University of Utah.

ENERGY BILL THREATENED WITH VETO: A newsletter from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers reports that H.R, 8, a comprehensive energy bill that passed the House Dec. 3, drew bipartisan support in a House subcommittee. However, "negotiations fell apart at the full House Energy and Commerce Committee level and resulted in passage of largely partisan energy package that left out many Democratic energy priorities. As such, the legislation faces a veto threat from the White House." See a fact sheet. 

Graphic by Jennifer Pocock; Source: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NSF). Click here for a larger, more readable version.

MURRAY CONFIRMED TO TOP DOE SCIENCE POST: Cherry Murray, former dean of engineering and applied science at Harvard, was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday as director of the Energy Department's Office of Science. Earlier this year, she told ScienceInsider she hoped to focus on building bridges between the 10 national labs run by the Office and six others run by different parts of DOE.

CONFIRMATION EXPECTED: The Senate is due to take up the nomination of Stephen Welby to be the Department of Defence's assistant secretary for research and engineering, a key position. He holds a chemical engineering degree from the Cooper Union, an MBA from Texas A&M, and master's in computer science and applied mathematics from Johns Hopkins.

THE WEEK THAT WAS: The White House marked Computer Science Education Week with "first ever CS Tech Jam, bringing together educators, students, and developers to generate new ways to bring fun and engaging computer science experiences, coding, and computational thinking into K-6 classrooms." Among events over the following days was a webinar on "Supporting African American Men Pursuing STEM Degrees," with Frank Harris III and J. Luke Wood, co-directors of the Minority Male Community College Consortium at San Diego State University.

EARTHWATCH: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has released for public comment a draft Common Framework for Earth-Observation Data, "which recommends practices for Federal agencies to adopt in order to improve the ability of all users to discover, access, and use Federal Earth-observations data." See also an 8-page report on "ways in which the Administration can assist the private sector in coping with climate changes already underway and preparing for those to come."

NEON BUILDER FIRED: The National Science Foundation (NSF) "has decided to look for a new organization to build its National Ecological Observatories Network (NEON) in hopes of saving the troubled project," Jeff Mervis reports in ScienceInsider. He quotes biology directorate head James Olds as saying: “NSF… has minimal confidence in NEON Inc’s ability to manage the remaining construction and initial operations of the NEON project.”

A CRISP PARADIGM: The National Science Foundation's Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) program seeks "projects likely to produce new knowledge that can contribute to making ICI (interdependent critical infrastructure) services more effective, efficient, dependable, adaptable, resilient, safe, and secure, taking into account the human systems in which they are embedded. Successful proposals are expected to study multiple infrastructures focusing on them as interdependent systems that deliver services, enabling a new interdisciplinary paradigm in infrastructure research." Learn more.

ACCREDITATION AND THE PUBLIC: In a Message from ABET Leadership, the accreditation agency says its board of directors "has identified public perception of accreditation as a significant strategic issue for the organization.  In January, the directors anticipate acting on a long-term public outreach campaign that will include a media component." The message cites "critical statements about accreditation (that) occur in the context of lengthy Congressional deliberations over renewal of the Higher Education Act." One example cited is a paper, "Higher Education Accreditation Concepts and Proposals," put out by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, chaired by Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). That paper states: "Vanderbilt University estimates that its College of Art and Sciences devotes 5,000+ hours to accreditation-related work annually and that its School of Engineering devotes 6,250-8,000 hours of work to such efforts annually."

ECONOMIC CASE FOR BETTER SCHOOLS: A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research asserts that "educational achievement strongly predicts economic growth across U.S. states over the past four decades. Based on projections from our growth models, we show the enormous scope for state economic development through improving the quality of schools. While we consider the impact for each state of a range of educational reforms, an improvement that moves each state to the best-performing state would in the aggregate yield a present value of long-run economic gains of over four times current GDP."

ScienceInsider reports expanded R&D spending in Australia and Ireland.

UNDERGRAD 'CUREs': A National Academies convocation looked at Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences ("CUREs” or “CREs”) and found  "exemplary examples from across the scientific and engineering disciplines."  Several are "designed to remove the barriers created by hesitation on the part of the students, or selectivity on the part of faculty members. These strategies can benefit underrepresented student groups, including minority, economically disadvantaged, and first-generation college students, who often do not know how to seek out such opportunities—or why they should."

ASEE HAS OPENED ONLINE REGISTRATION AND HOUSING for three important upcoming events:

2016 Public Policy Colloquium - February 8-10, 2016 at The Fairmont Hotel, Washington, D.C., sponsored by the ASEE Engineering Deans Council and its Executive Board. The colloquium is intended to strengthen the discussion of engineering education and research issues between the deans of engineering and key public policy makers, and to enable the deans to refine their public policy agenda. Since the Public Policy Colloquium will focus on the activities of the Engineering Deans Council, we ask that you come yourself and not send an associate dean. Early registration rates end January 22, 2016. Click here for more information.

2016 Engineering Research Council Annual Conference - March 7-9, 2016 at The Sheraton, Silver Spring, Md., sponsored by the ERC and its Executive Board. Conference Goals:
• To provide an overview of federal R&D budgets and upcoming priorities.
• To equip research leaders with tools and strategies to more effectively lead their research programs and organizations.  Workshops and panels include:
o Strategies for winning large center proposals
o Data management and the new federal open access requirements
o Research metrics and academic analytics
o Research laboratory safety

Format Change: We are significantly reducing time spent on formal presentations by federal funding agency representatives, instead asking speakers to provide power point slides as read-ahead material and devoting more time with them as interactive panel discussions and Q&A sessions.  Also, we are increasing the number and scope of sessions on leadership tools and strategies.
Engineering deans, associate deans, department chairs and other engineering research leaders are encouraged to attend this conference. Early registration rates end February 19, 2016.
Click here for more information.

2016 Engineering Deans Institute -  March 29 – April 1, 2016 at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel, San Francisco.
ASEE's annual EDI provides an opportunity for engineering deans - and only deans - to gather and discuss the crucial issues facing their schools, colleges, and profession. For a few days, a single-stream program fosters dialogue between deans, industry leaders, and those in important roles in research and government. Deans share best practices, learn about career prospects for their graduates, and develop a voice for engineering education and the role of engineering in society. Social activities and plenty of time for conversation encourage the cultivation of relationships and an intensely rewarding experience. EDI is sponsored by the ASEE Engineering Deans Council and its Executive Board. Early registration rates end March 11, 2016. Click here for more information.

2016 ANNUAL CONFERENCE UPDATE

New Navigation Section - Papers Management:
The new section contains upcoming deadlines, guidelines, call for papers, and kits for authors, program chairs, reviewers, and moderators.

Author's Kits are Available:
• The 2016 Annual Conference Author's Kit -- available on the website -- contains extremely important information regarding the submission process as well as all relevant deadline dates.

THE ST. LAWRENCE SECTION CONFERENCE will be held at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.,  April 8-9, 2016. This year the conference will include several workshops. The calls for papers, presentations, posters and workshops as well as  information about the Conference Program, Registration, and Hotel information is available on http://stl.asee.org/conference_2016.html.

eGFI IS HERE: Help inspire the next generation of innovators with the all-new 6th edition of ASEE's prize-winning magazine for middle and high school students: eGFI (Engineering, Go For It). Filled with engaging features, gorgeous graphics, and useful information about engineering colleges and careers, eGFI aims to get teens fired up about learning - and doing - engineering. To purchase copies, go to http://store.asee.org/  For bulk purchases or other inquiries, contact eGFI@asee.org or call 202-331-3500.