October 17, 2014

THE ADMINISTRATION AND RESEARCH AGENCIES


EBOLA ALERT: NSF SEEKS RAPID NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

In a "Dear Colleague" letter today, National Science Foundation Director France Cordรณva invites proposals for "non-medical, non-clinical care research that can be used immediately to better understand how to model and understand the spread of Ebola, educate about prophylactic behaviors, and encourage the development of products, processes and learning that can address this global challenge." Proposals would come under the Rapid Response Research funding mechanism, requiring only internal merit review at NSF. One-year awards can be up to $200,000.

CISE-ING UP INFRASTRUCTURE: NSF's Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE) is offering grants of up to $1 million for infrastructure projects that enhance community use and have a plan for longterm sustainability. Applicants should document prior research and education contributions, new research opportunities that infrastructure would provide, and plans for community outreach. Learn more. CISE, Engineering and several other directorates are participating Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI), which aims to increase access to shared scientific and engineering instruments for research and research training.

IN SEARCH OF . . . a new director of the Division of Engineering Education and Centers within NSF's Engineering Directorate. It's a Senior Executive Service-level job. Find out more.

TOO MUCH TESTING: The STEM Coalition, an advocacy group to which ASEE belongs, met recently with Roberto Rodriguez, who serves on the White House Domestic Policy Council as special assistant to the president for education. ASEE's Nathan Kahl participated. He reports: The administration feels there is too much testing in math and reading, to the potential detriment of science education. Rodriguez cited the recent Tackling Excessive Standardized Testing Act, introduced by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) as one effort to reduce the “testing footprint.” In his final two years, President Obama hopes to make strides on his high school redesign efforts, in which he encouraged all districts to reconceptualize teaching. Rodriguez notes the administration has a blueprint for the reauthorization of the Perkins Act, which provides over $1 billion in support for career and technical education (CTE) programs. He says, “We need to think about the CTE pathways and what the ‘next gen’ of CTE looks like. People all over are engaged in career-relevant activities and kids are getting strong, hands-on background experiences.”

[To find out what an analyst at the center-left New America Foundation thinks of the current state of career education -- which is not much -- click here.]

OBAMA'S NEXT BUDGET to SEEK SEQUESTER RELIEF: Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan, right, says the FY 2016 proposal will emphasize increasing non-defense discretionary spending, the part of the budget that supports university research at the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and other agencies. CQ Roll Call quotes him as saying "it's absolutely critical on the non-defense side that we continue to make progress against sequestration" to fund, among other things, infrastructure and research and development. (See below for congressional appropriators' post-election plans for the current fiscal year.) Separately, OMB has clarified its guidance on the dual role of student and postdoctoral researchers.

DEFENSE SBIR PROGRAM: WHERE ARE THE WOMEN AND MINORITIES? A National Research Council study of the Pentagon's Small Business Innovative Research program found that participation of women and under-represented groups "is low and not increasing," and is not something DoD has made a sustained effort to foster and encourage. During the period the NRC studied, "approximately 15 percent of awards went to women-owned small businesses . . . and 7 percent to minority-owned small businesses." What's more, black- and Hispanic-owned firms "are themselves a very small share" of minority-owned small businesses overall. "There is no evidence" that Congress's objective of encouraging increased female and minority participation plays a role in the selection processes "at any DoD component."


ISIS, iraq, SYRIA, AND . . . "Drastic weather, rising seas, and changing storm patterns could become 'threat multipliers' for the United States, vastly complicating security challenges faced by American forces." So reads a Washington Post summary of a new Pentagon report on the impact of climate change, described as an "adaptation roadmap."

CAN'T GET IT TOGETHER: Federal agencies are having trouble responding to congressional mandates for research into and monitoring of ocean acidification, which the Government Accountability Office says "could have a variety of potentially significant effects on marine species, ecosystems, and coastal communities." The pertinent agencies have yet to implement several of the 2009 law's provisions, "including outlining the budget requirements for implementing the research and monitoring."



i

DATA POINTS


LABOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN HIGH-TECH INDUSTRIES 2000-11
 


 
 
labor productivity growth in knowledge-intensive services 2000-11
    


growth in average salaries




AVERAGE 2012 ANNUAL SALARIES FOR SELECTED U.s. INDUSTRIES AND BROAD OCCUPATIONS




Source: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, U.S. Knowledge-Intensive Services Industries Employ 18 Million and Pay High Wages.
                                                                              
            

 

CONGRESS


hOPE FOR AN OMNIBUS IN LAME-DUCK CONGRESS: CQ reports that Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) has "told staffers to use the current recess to review the differences between the chambers, so that omnibus negotiations could begin in earnest on Nov. 5 -- the day after the elections." Her House counterpart, Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) "said crafting an omnibus should not be a 'Herculean' task." As opposed to a bare-bones continuing resolution, an omnibus would lump together the spending bills already approved by appropriators and assure their views guide future spending.

ROBBED OF SUSPENSE: As the Washington Post's Election Lab data crunchers see it, there's no longer even a question of whether Republicans will gain control of the Senate in the upcoming election. Their latest forecast gives the GOP a 95 percent chance of gaining the needed six seats. Others are more hesistant: The New York Times gives Republicans a 72 percent chance of gaining a majority; Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight gives them a still-comfortable 62.2 percent chance.

NATIONAL ACADEMIES


big data in the classroom: Training students to exploit big data "requires experience with statistical analysis, machine learning, and computational infrastructure," says a report from the National Academies. They'll also need cross-disciplinary skills, "including the ability to make modeling decisions while balancing trade-offs between optimization and approximation, all while being attentive to useful metrics and system robustness."

SOLICITING YOUR OPINION: The National Academy of Engineering plans a colloquium in November on Understanding the Engineering Education-Workforce Continuum. It is seeking feedback from stakeholders that will help shape topics to be addressed. The NAE wants to hear from, among others, professional society leadership; faculty; engineers working in industry; employers and managers of engineers; students; administrators; and career counselors. See the questionnaire.

Address questions to naeworkforce@gmail.com.



   PUBLIC POLICY  AND HIGHER ED


TOP SCIENCE POLICY ISSUES FOR CONGRESS is an interactive website created by the American Geophysical Union that "allows members and the public to learn about the most pressing science policy issues facing their state, handing them the knowledge they need to effectively discuss issues surrounding drought, extreme weather, energy, water resources, space science, and many more."


EXXON-MOBIL continues its promotion of engineering careers with a fun video, 15 Signs You Were Born to Be an Engineer.




  ASEE & COMMUNITY NEWS


transforming undergraduate education in engineering - phase ii - In the next phase of this ASEE-NSF project, students will share their views on the strengths and weaknesses of the current curricula structure and teaching methodologies. They will be asked how the culture of engineering education could better adjust to the strengths of individual engineering students and how the engineering educaiton experience can be transformed into an exciting program of study that will draw in and motivate students -- thereby reducing the need for massive recruitment initiatives and retention programs. ASEE seeks help in identifying students  to participate. Please send nominations to Tengiz Sysykov at t.sydykov@asee.org. The deadline has been extended to Oct. 17, 2014 -- one week from today.

VIDEO INTERVIEWS:

Leaders at NSF and the Navy Discuss the Future of Engineering 
Watch interviews with NSF Assistant Director for Engineering Pramod Khargonekar, left, who talks about exciting NSF projects and opportunities for ASEE members, and Rear Admiral David Johnson, who discusses the importance of technology to the U.S. Navy and where naval research is headed. The videos are part of ASEE’s Advanced Research Monitor Interview Series.

THE DEADLINE IS RAPIDLY APPROACHING to submit abstracts for the 2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition in Seattle. Abstracts will be accepted only through October 19, 2014. See the Call for Papers for more information. Applications for workshops and distinguished lectures may be submitted until November 2, 2014.

YES, wepan: The Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) is holding its 2015 Change Leader Forum - Roadmap to Inclusion: Engineering Excellence for the 21st Century next June 9-11 in Broomfield Col., outside Denver. The deadline for proposals is Nov. 26, 2014.


PATHWAYS TO INNOVATION: Engineering deans are invited to join the Pathways to Innovation program, run by the Epicenter at Stanford. It's designed "to help institutions transform the experience of their undergraduate engineering students and fully incorporate innovation and entrepreneurship into a range of courses as well as strengthen co- and extra-curricular offerings." Teams receive "access to models for integrating entrepreneurship into engineering curriculum, custom online resources, guidance from a community of engineering and entrepreneurship faculty, and membership in a national network of schools with similar goals'' See the call for proposals. For more information, contact Liz Nilsen at  lnilsen@nciia.org

THE SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL HISPANIC ENGINEERS (shpe) Deans’ Summit will take place in Detroit, Michigan on Friday morning, November 7 as a part of the annual SHPE National Conference. The Summit will focus on the challenge of building a diverse pipeline of engineering students. Leaders from SHPE, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) will present their current efforts and needs for support in this area. The goal is to develop recommendations and actions to strengthen the ties between these organizations, academia and industry. 


ENGINEERING EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: The Seventh International Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD15) "will explore current and future ways of thinking in the emerging field" and the groundbreaking worth since 2002. It will be held June 9-12, 2015 at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Point Grey campus. 7 of EESD and will celebrate the ground-breaking work accomplishing in EESD since 2002.  The conference will be held from June 9-12, 2015 at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Point Grey campus in Vancouver. See the conference themes. Abstracts are due October 13.


TAKING THE LEAD: The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is hosting a workshop entitled Academic Leadership for Women in Engineering at the WE14+ICWES16 Annual Conference in Los Angeles on Oct. 24 and 25. There will be a specific focus on best practices central to leadership in academia. Click here to learn more and apply to attend the workshop. Please complete the participant application by August 25. Funded through support from the Henry Luce Foundation, the workshop is free to all who are accepted. Contact learning@swe.org with any questions.


ON-LINE STEM SUSTAINABILITY LIBRARY: This on-line library of over 1700 juried articles and 300 videos was developed at James Madison University with NSF funding. The site provides resources for those researching or teaching sustainability across contexts.


ANNUAL CONFERENCE - STORIFY VERSION: ASEE's Engineering Libraries Division has put together a lively collection of photos and tweets that captures the collaboration and camaraderie of the Indy conference. Check it out here.


DEANS' FORUM ON HISPANIC HIGHER EDUCATION

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) invites engineering deans and chairs to the Third Annual Deans’ Forum on Hispanic Higher Education: Advancing Graduate School Opportunities and Success for Hispanic Students, following HACU’s 28th Annual Conference, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. The forum will address issues facing Hispanic students in graduate education and highlight promising practices to enhance access and success. For more information, see http://www.hacu.net/hacu/Deans_Forum.asp.

‘PROFILES’ IS OUT: ASEE's eagerly awaited 540-page Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges has been published. Call ASEE (202-331-3500) to order a copy.


ASEE DIVERSITY COMMITTEE NEWSLETTER:
The spring edition of the semi-annual newsletter is now available. ASEE Past President J.P. Mohsen discusses a proposed Year of Dialogue on Diversity and details on safe zone ally training at the annual conference are posted, among other items.

VIDEOS OF THE PPC: View sessions from February's Public Policy Colloquium of the Engineering Deans Council dealing with advanced manufacturing, federal R&D, and K-12 engineering.

STAY UP TO DATE 

on ASEE's Retention Project by clicking here for updates.


 

EDITOR: Mark Matthews; CONTRIBUTOR: William E. Kelly; NEW MASTHEAD DESIGN by Francis Igot, incorporating the new ASEE logo.

 


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