December 2004

Welcome to the December issue of Connections, the American Society for Engineering Education's free e-newsletter.

Spotlight On Our Sponsors:

Autodesk Instructor Development Program

Training, Just for Educators!

Autodesk, Inc. partnered with our Autodesk Education Representatives (AERs), offer a variety of options to assist educators in their professional development. Our comprehensive Autodesk Instructor Development seminars are designed to give you hands-on knowledge of our software, along with a free not-for-resale software license to develop your software knowledge on.

Whether you are interested in architectural design, mechanical engineering, or visualization, Autodesk and our Autodesk Authorized Education Representatives are committed to giving you the training you need to understand the software and teach your students.

Click on www.autodesk.com/
instructordevelopment to learn more about the AIDP Seminars and how to register.

National Instruments

LabVIEW 7 Express Student Edition

From courseware to experiments to lecture material, National Instruments provides a wide array of resources to make teaching LabVIEW as easy as possible. For more information on teaching material, including a 3 or 6 Hour Introduction Course, refer to our Curriculum Resources.

Visit: http://digital.ni.com/express.nsf
/express?openagent&code=aayutj
for more information.

Education Benchmarking Engineering Education Assessments

With a focus on assessing program effectiveness by measuring learning outcomes, Educational Benchmarking's (EBI) suite of engineering education assessments are invaluable tools in your accreditation efforts. Our Exit, Alumni and Employer Benchmark Assessments provide you with analysis that will support your accreditation initiatives and help drive your continuous improvement program. In addition to providing benchmarking comparisons, our assessments also measure performance and impact of the learning outcomes at your specific institution. This analysis allows you to identify the areas where change will have the greatest impact on your program effectiveness. For more information please visit www.webebi.com, or contact Viviana Harper at Viviana@webebi.com or call (417) 866-7163.

International Engineering; Creating More Opportunities Here and Abroad

Internationalize and diversify your campus, laboratory or company with IAESTE United States.

For 54 years, IAESTE United States has engineered more than 300,000 international internships for university students from technical and scientific disciplines with over 100,000 companies, research institutes, and laboratories.

Support international engineering and let IAESTE United States find you a highly qualified engineering intern from a pool of 30,000 top technical students worldwide. For every international intern you host, a student from the United States will intern abroad.

Learn more at www.iaesteunitedstates.org or contact IAESTE United States at (410) 997-3069 or iaeste@aipt.org.

Connections is brought to you by the American Society for Engineering Education.

Over 12,000 engineering and engineering technology faculty members and administrators enjoy the many benefits and services that ASEE offers. The Society's award-winning magazine ASEE Prism and academic publications (Journal of Engineering Education and Profiles of Engineering Colleges) keep members up to date with the best and latest in engineering education, engineering research trends, and academic issues, while 47 professional interest groups and a varied selection of meetings provide professional development and networking opportunities that no other society can offer within the engineering education community. Members also receive reduced rates at local and national conferences, discounts on ASEE products, money-saving members-only discounts on financial, insurance, and travel programs, plus an ever growing variety of online services. Our goal is to focus on issues that matter the most to you in our publications, meetings, and on-line services, and to enable you to interact with others who share your specific engineering and educational interests. To join online, just go to www.asee.org/members, or contact our member services department at 202-331-3520 for further information.

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In this Issue:

I. Science and Technology Briefs

A Mind of Its Own - An Australian engineering research team has created mini-helicopters to free humans from performing certain dangerous tasks.
Plastic That's Fantastic for Brigdes - Rutgers University engineers built a bridge made entirely of recycled plastic.

II. Congressional Hotline

FY 2005 Winners and Losers
Impact of Election 2004 Examined

III. Teaching Toolbox

The Write Stuff - A University of Southern California-based online magazine showcases engineering-student writing.
Performance Pay - A recent study shows that paying teachers bonuses leads to improved student performance.

IV. Feature Articles

A New Kind of Engineering - The pharmaceutical industry needed someone to manage the task of developing drugs. Enter the pharmaceutical engineer.
Toys that Teach - Teachers are discovering that toys like Slinkys and yo-yo's might be better than books when teaching kids about engineering.

V. ASEE-administered Fellowship Programs

The National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship
NASA Summer Faculty Research Opportunities
The Office of Naval Research Summer Faculty Research and Sabbatical Leave Program
The Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship

I. Science and Technology Briefs

A MIND OF ITS OWN
AUSTRALIA - An Australian engineering research team has come up with technology that will enable the production of inexpensive, intelligent, small "drone" helicopters that would eliminate risks to humans performing dangerous tasks. They describe their invention, named Mantis, as a first.

To read the rest of this article, visit www.prism-magazine.org/mar04/briefings.cfm and scroll down.

PLASTIC THAT'S FANTASTIC FOR BRIDGES
There stands in New Jersey a 56-foot-long bridge composed of approximately 100,000 polystyrene coffee cups and 80,000 plastic bottles. And cars drive on it. Really. Well, perhaps there are fewer cups and a few thousand plastic eating utensils in the mix as well, but in the end, the bridge really is made entirely of recycled plastic.

To read the rest of this article, visit www.prism-magazine.org/mar04/briefings.cfm and scroll down.

Back to the index.

II. Congressional Hotline

FY 2005 Winners and Losers
After long negotiation sessions, the House and Senate adopted the FY 2005 omnibus spending bill (HR 4818) last month. Disputes over corrections to certain provisions in the omnibus package delayed congressional action until the week of December 6. The current FY 2005 Continuing Resolution, which funds most federal departments and agencies at the FY 2004 funding level, expired on December 8. That same day, President Bush signed the bill into law.

The omnibus spending bill, a package of nine different bills, appropriates $388.4 billion in new discretionary spending for FY 2005, bringing the total discretionary spending level to nearly $822 billion for the current fiscal year. The agreement includes an across-the-board cut of .80 percent for all nondefense and nonhomeland security programs. Negotiators also agreed to a $300 million cut in nonwar, nonemergency related defense spending.

The losers in all this budget wrangling included NIH and NASA. NIH's budget increase of 2 percent will stay just ahead of inflation. NASA's budget will increase 4.5 percent, but more than half of that is to be used to get the Space Shuttle flying again, leaving about 2 percent for other R&D projects. The winners include the USDA, receiving a 7.8 percent increase in R&D funding instead of the cuts proposed, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, set to receive a 10.7 percent funding boost.

To read about the omnibus bill, visit: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app05.html.

Impact of Election 2004 Examined
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held a forum on December 1 to evaluate how the election results will affect science and technology in the years ahead. Panel members of the two-hour forum included former U.S. Rep. John Porter (R-IL), who for many years chaired the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, which has responsibility for NIH's budget; Kathleen Frankovic, director of surveys at CBS News; and Bob Palmer, staff director for the minority side on the House Committee on Science.

Some of the main points of the forum included connecting science and technology research to the economy and national security as a means of funding; watching the NIH reauthorization bill; and the future funding levels of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now that Senator Hollings (D-SC) is retiring at the end of the 108th Congress.

To view a webcast of the event, visit www.aaas.org/election.

Back to the index.

III. Teaching Toolbox

The Write Stuff
Engineering students can't write. This truism is proven wrong with every new issue of illumin online magazine (http://illumin.usc.edu). Put out by the University of Southern California, the magazine is written and edited by USC engineering undergraduates. The articles are culled from papers turned in for WRIT 340: Advanced Writing Communication for Engineers. The class, required for all junior- and senior-level engineering undergraduates, teaches students how to communicate the technical aspects of their field to lay readers.

Visit www.prism-magazine.org/april04/oncampus.cfm to read the rest of this story.

Performance Pay
Paying teachers for improved student performance can lead to better schools. Cynics might have held that truth to be self-evident, but researchers at the Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC) didn't. And they conducted a four-year study in the Denver public school system to investigate. The results of their study, published in Catalyst for Change: Pay for Performance, could fundamentally change the way public schools operate and help fill the pipeline into engineering programs.

To read the rest of this story, visit www.prism-magazine.org/may04/briefings.cfm and scroll down.

Back to the index.

IV. Feature Articles

A New Kind of Engineering
By Bethany Halford

The pharmaceutical industry looks to a new breed of engineer-the pharmaceutical engineer-to streamline the complex scientific, business, and regulatory processes of bringing a drug to market. The term "pharmaceutical engineering" has a certain appeal, promising lucrative and fulfilling work within the pharmaceutical industry. But ask five different pharmaceutical engineers to define the field and you'll get five different definitions.

To read the rest of this story, visit www.prism-magazine.org/mar04/engineerx.cfm.

Toys that Teach
By Anna Mulrine

Sherra Kerns believes that toys and tools-whether used in pursuit of countertop cookies, building forts, or playing with silly putty-can stimulate the engineering instinct in children. "In part, our educational system doesn't identify activities as engineering-teachers don't say, 'Gee, you know what you just did was an engineering kind of a thing. Those abilities aren't always recognized and stimulated in our children.' "

To read the rest of this story, visit www.prism-magazine.org/mar04/toys.cfm.

Back to the index.

V. ASEE-administered Fellowship Programs

Did you know that ASEE administers doctoral, post-doctoral, and faculty fellowship programs funded by the federal government? The following are the programs currently offered:

The National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program (NDSEG), sponsored by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force

Intended for U.S. citizens at or near the beginning of their graduate studies in science and/or engineering programs. Approximately 180 new awards in 2005
Three-year fellowships that include a personal stipend ($30,500 the first year, $31,000 the second, and $31,500 the third), full tuition and fees, and a health insurance allowance
Application deadline is January 7, 2005
For information and to apply online, go to www.asee.org/ndseg.

NASA Summer Faculty Research Opportunities, sponsored by NASA's Faculty Awards for Research (FAR) Program and the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program

Intended for U.S. citizens who hold full-time science and engineering faculty positions at U.S. colleges, community colleges, and universities. The duration of this summer fellowship is 10 continuous weeks and research is performed on-site
A competitive stipend and travel/relocation allowances are available
Application deadline will be in February, 2005
For more information and to apply online, go to www.asee.org/nffp or e-mail nasa@asee.org.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Summer Faculty Research and Sabbatical Leave Program

Intended for U.S. citizens who hold teaching or research appointments relating to science and/or engineering at U.S. academic institutions
Offers a competitive stipend, relocation and travel allowances, as well as a two-day, pre-program site visit
Application deadline is December 1, 2004
For information and to apply online, go to www.asee.org/summer.

The Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP)

Intended for U.S. citizens or permanent residents who have earned a doctorate in science or engineering and who hold full-time science or engineering faculty positions at U.S. colleges, community colleges, and universities. The duration of the summer fellowship is from 8 to 12 continuous weeks and research is performed on-site
Offers a competitive weekly stipend, and relocation and travel allowances
Application deadline will be January, 2005
For information and to apply online, go to www.asee.org/sffp or e-mail sffp@asee.org.

The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

One to three year postdoctoral fellowship program designed to increase the involvement of creative and highly trained scientists and engineers from academia and industry to scientific and technical areas of interest and relevance to the Navy
Open to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents
Offers a competitive stipend, as well as insurance, relocation and travel allowances
This program has a rolling admission; visit www.asee.org/resources/fellowships/nrl/ to learn more about the program.

Back to the index.

Editor-In-Chief
Jo Ann Tooley

Senior Editors
Robert Gardner

Eric Iversen

Production Manager
Jennifer Johnson

Advertising Manager
Mike Sanoff
m.sanoff@asee.org