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his State of the Union Address, President Bush called for a sharpening
of America’s competitiveness and highlighted the need to pick
up the pace of innovation in order to thrive on the playing field
of global commerce.
The President touched on it, but recent books (e.g., The World is
Flat) and national reports (e.g., Rising above the Gathering Storm)
have been more explicit on the challenge: The world is catching
up with the U.S. in engineering, science, and information technology
– areas that directly impact economic competitiveness. In
the past decades, we have watched as our nation’s manufacturing
base has eroded and many operations, along with thousands of jobs,
have migrated to foreign countries with cheaper labor. We have tolerated
this, encouraging workers to retrain for the new information economy
and to obtain more education to keep up with the changes.
As the dean of engineering at Vanderbilt University, I am a great
believer in education – particularly education in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). But now we are seeing
significant international competition at some of the highest levels,
with international firms hiring engineers from other countries at
lower salaries than they must pay U.S. engineers. Is getting a strong
education and specialized technical training enough for the next
generation to secure their future?
Indeed, that would be a significant start! A disturbing fact is
that the number of U.S. students capable of and interested in pursuing
careers in engineering, science and technology is flat or dropping.
These are the students that will invent the new products, create
future innovations, and make us competitive in the global economy.
Meanwhile, in many other nations, the STEM numbers are growing.
There is no question that bringing our K-12 students up to speed
in math and science is a vitally important component of any strategy
to enhance our economic competitiveness in the world.
But I believe we have to do more. The best way to keep jobs here
in the U.S. is to show that we can get the job done better –
we must do as Larry the Cable Guy says – “Git-R-Done.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R–TN) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D–NM)
as initiators of the NAS/NAE study Rising above the Gathering Storm
have stressed our need as a nation to make significant investments
in science and engineering. These investments must be in money,
in people, and in national willpower.
To successfully tackle these issues, we must leverage both our technical
expertise and our characteristically American ability to sweep aside
conventional thinking and traditional, limited mindsets. As a nation
we are all about frontiers. This new phase of world development
is a new frontier. We must approach this mission of keeping our
economy healthy and thriving as the challenge of a new frontier
and as an adventure rather than some dire emergency. We will need
a spirit of adventure to deal not only with foreign competition
but the increasingly unwieldy complexity in our world.
We all face the problem of managing the knowledge explosion in all
of the science and engineering disciplines. In order to solve many
of the technological challenges that confront us – whether
they be in energy, the environment, medicine, national security,
or industrial production - we must build cross-disciplinary teams.
In many of our universities, we have truly come a long way in learning
how to break down traditional barriers between academic disciplines
so that we can attack these problems and create better solutions.
It is vitally important that our government understand that innovative
breakthroughs come largely from science and engineering research,
U.S. research universities are major performers of this research,
and that this research is well worth the investment of federal dollars.
Also at the universities, we need to teach students to effectively
and creatively tackle big problems. Many of us are using research
about how people learn to develop a very different approach in teaching
our students. And, we are working to make these teaching strategies
available to K-12 teachers, so that students’ natural curiosity
and interest about technology and science will be encouraged.
We need participation in the adventure of innovation from a new
generation of scientists and engineers that includes the strength
that comes from diversity. We want to ensure that a STEM education
is both attractive to and within reach of many more of our students.
Americans are an inventive, resourceful people. We roll up our sleeves
when it’s clear there is a need. But we can also be complacent
and not respond to danger until it is very nearly too late. My hope
is that the President’s comments will encourage the Congress
and the American people to address this multi-faceted challenge
and to embrace the adventure of innovation and the new frontier
of global competitiveness.
References
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,
Thomas L. Friedman, Publishers: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, NY,
2005.
Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America
for a Brighter Economic Future, a report of the NAS/NAE/IOM, National
Academies Press, 2005 (see www.nationalacademies.org/cosepup).
A version of this Op-Ed piece appeared in The Nashville Tennessean
on February 3, 2006. Ken Galloway is a long-time member of the IEEE
Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society and a Fellow of the IEEE. He
received the IEEE NPSS Radiation Effects Award in 2002.
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