June 2006

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

Spotlight On Our Sponsors:

• NI ELVIS- Premier Design & Prototyping Education
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• Z Corp- Best 3D Printer for MCAD Education 
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• Top Development Bank Executive Addresses UPADI 2006
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• Free Agilent 2006 Basic Instruments CD
  www.get.agilent.com

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Top Inter-American Development Bank Executive Addresses UPADI 2006

Ciro de Falco, Inter-American Development Bank executive vice president, will discuss investing in Latin American and Caribbean infrastructure projects at UPADI 2006, the Pan American Convention of Engineers, on Sept. 19-22 in Atlanta.  The four-day conference is hosted by Georgia Tech. http://www.upadi2006.com

Get your free Agilent 2006 Basic Instruments CD

This new CD offers information for test and measurement professionals, including technical data sheets, video demos and application notes.  This edition includes Test System Developer Guides, two new catalogs and information on new products including digital multimeters, oscilloscopes, power supplies and spectrum analyzers.  Order your copy today!  Visit www.get.agilent.com.

See us at ASEE at Booth # 302

Welcome to the World of K–12 Engineering!

Introducing engineering into the K–12 classroom connects science and math concepts to the everyday engineering that surrounds us. TeachEngineering.com helps teachers enhance learning, excite students and stimulate interest in science and math through the use of hands–on engineering. With a fully searchable, digital library of standards–based lesson plans, and a myriad of “Living Laboratories” that bring real–world engineering principles into the classroom, TeachEngineering's comprehensive curricula are hands–on, inexpensive, and relevant to children's daily lives.

TeachEngineering.com is a joint effort of the University of Colorado, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Colorado School of Mines, Duke University, Oregon State University, and the American Society for Engineering Education, and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Bring the world of engineering into the K–12 classroom with TeachEngineering.com. You don’t need knowledge of engineering to use these curricula!

Search TeachEngineering.com’s digital library at
www.teachengineering.com.

New and Improved Journal of Engineering Education!

The Journal of Engineering Education is a peer-reviewed international journal published quarterly by the American Society for Engineering Education. It serves as an archival record of the leading scholarly research in engineering education. Visit www.asee.org/about/publications/jee/ to read it online.

In this Issue:

I. Databytes

• Bachelor's Degrees and Enrollment in Engineering, 2005
• Master's Degrees and Enrollment in Engineering, 2005
• Doctoral Degrees and Enrollment in Engineering, 2005

II. Congressional Hotline

• House Committee Approves Competitiveness Package
• House Approves FY 2007 Energy-Water Appropriations Bill With Increases for Department of Energy's Office of Science

III. Teaching Toolbox

• A New Option - The stock market may be unpredictable, but the demand for engineers who can develop software that predicts returns is anything but.

IV. Fellowship Programs

• The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

I. Databytes

ASEE collected data from 335 of 354 ABET-accredited colleges for its 2005 survey.

The data reveals some near-term trends in engineering degrees and enrollment.  While bachelor’s and master’s degrees increased marginally, the decline in enrollment at both levels indicates that degrees have probably peaked for the short term.  Doctoral degrees and enrollment both climbed again for the third consecutive year. 

Other statistics can be found at:  www.asee.org/colleges

Bachelor’s

Full-time enrollment, Fall 2005:  366,361

Degrees awarded, 2004-2005:  73,602

Percentage of women enrolled:  17.5%

Percentage of degrees awarded to women:  19.5%

Percentage of foreign nationals enrolled:  5.2%

Percentage of degrees awarded to foreign nationals:  7.5%

Master’s

Enrollment, Fall 2005:  83, 293

Degrees awarded, 2004-2005:  40, 650

Percentage of women enrolled:  22.1%

Percentage of degrees awarded to women:  22.7%

Percentage of foreign nationals enrolled:  38.2%

Percentage of degrees awarded to foreign nationals:  42.6%

Doctoral

Enrollment, Fall 2005:  57,077

Degrees awarded, 2004-2005:  7,366

Percentage of women enrolled:  22%

Percentage of degrees awarded to women:  18.3%

Percentage of foreign nationals enrolled:  56.3%

Percentage of degrees awarded to foreign nationals:  59.4 % 

Back to the index.

II. Congressional Hotline

On June 7, the House Science Committee passed two bills aimed at improving math and science education and research programs.  The bills passed are the Science and Mathematics Education for Competitiveness Act (HR 5358) and the Early Career Research Act (HR 5356).  A third bill, the Research for Competitiveness Act (HR 5357), was incorporated into the Early Career Research Act.

The Early Career Research Act would:

• Authorize an existing NSF program that helps fund young faculty in which NSF provides grants of at least $80,000 per year for five years to help researchers establish a lab and pursue risky research in emerging fields;
• Ensure that this NSF program grows proportionally with the overall NSF budget by setting aside 3.5 percent of the agency’s research funding for this program;
• Authorize $25 million at the DOE Office of Science for each of fiscal years 2007 through 2011 for a similar program to support research by new faculty;
• Establishes grant programs for early career researchers at both NSF and DOE that would provide up to $75,000 per year for up to five years, and make an additional $37,500 available each year provided the researcher raises one-to-one matching funds from private industry for the proposed research. A similar program was in place at NSF in the 1980s.
• Authorize an existing NSF program, Major Research Instrumentation, which provides grants to purchase and support cross-disciplinary, shared scientific and engineering equipment, such as electron microscopes, telescopes, and supercomputers, at institutions of higher education;  
• Authorize a program at NSF to fund potentially path-breaking basic research designed to simultaneously advance the physical and non-biomedical life sciences. 
• Allow NSF to support research on innovation. 
• State the sense of Congress that a balanced science program at NASA contributes significantly to innovation in the United States and allow NASA to establish a NASA Academy to provide a scientific and engineering training program for NASA employees. 

 The Science and Mathematics Education for Competitiveness Act would:

• Strengthen and expand the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program at NSF, which was created in law in 2002, which provides scholarships to students majoring in science, math or engineering who commit to teaching two years in return for each year of aid.  The program provides money to colleges and universities both to award and administer the scholarships and to provide programs to help prepare the students for teaching;
• Strengthen and focus the Math and Science Partnership Program at NSF, also created by law in 2002, to fund teacher training, particularly training in subject content, to improve math and science instruction at the elementary and secondary levels;
• Extend the authorization of and expand NSF’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP), also created by law in 2002, which provides grants to colleges and universities to improve undergraduate science, math and engineering education.  The bill enables NSF to fund the creation of centers at colleges and universities to develop new approaches to undergraduate education programs, and expands the focus of STEP beyond its initial focus of increasing the number of graduating STEM majors to include increasing the number of non-majors taking STEM courses;
• Ensure that funding increases proportionally to the overall NSF budget for the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), which supports graduate students in cutting-edge interdisciplinary fields;
• Authorize the Department of Energy Office of Science to conduct education programs, and require the Department to inventory and evaluate its current and future education programs.

 For more information, visit:
http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full06/June%207/index.htm.

House Approves FY 2007 Energy-Water Appropriations Bill With Increases for Department of Energy's Office of Science

On May 24, the House approved its version of the FY 2007 Energy-Water appropriations bill (HR 5427).  The approved bill represents a show of support for the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative by increasing the Department of Energy’s Office of Science by 15 percent to $4.1 billion.  Of the $4.1 billion, $3.8 billion would be for research and development.  Total R&D in the Department of Energy would increase 6.9 percent to $9.3 billion. 

For more information, visit:
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/doe07h.htm.

Back to the index.

III. Teaching Toolbox

A New Option

Most investors would find a crystal ball useful for mitigating risk: It wouldn't hurt to know in advance which stocks are going to soar and which are doomed to plummet, or the price of soybeans and sow bellies three months hence. Engineers are likely to look askance at crystal balls, however, especially when there are more accurate ways to channel the future. In recent years, a new breed of Wall Street soothsayers—financial engineers—has assembled a variety of quantitative techniques based on computer models, advanced math formulas, and financial theory that predict returns and assess risk.

When quantitative technology proved its effectiveness and began reshaping Wall Street more than a decade ago, the industry often turned to industrial or operations research engineers to design new investment tools: derivatives, which are complex financial products whose value is derived from other financial products, often futures; and arbitrage, an investing method that exploits market inefficiencies. These tools were put to use in hedge funding, as the engineers sought to reduce risk and deliver positive returns regardless of market conditions.

Following the success of these early financial engineers, a growing number of universities began offering master's degrees in financial engineering. By one estimate, there are 40 to 50 such programs today. Most are multidisciplinary programs that combine engineering, math and statistics, and business and economic courses.

Typical of these new financial engineering programs is the University of Michigan's (UM), based in its College of Engineering but run jointly with its School of Business and its School of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The growth of Michigan's financial engineering program has been swift, paralleling the rapid advancement of quantitative technologies in financial services. Michigan launched the program in 1997 with six students; today 95 are enrolled. In 2000, it graduated 20 students; this year, it expects to graduate 65.

UM's degree grew out of its industrial and operations engineering program. "That's the closest thing we have to a business school in engineering," explains Stephen Director, dean of the College of Engineering. Because the engineering college had a long history of running interdisciplinary programs, while Michigan's business school was less quantitative than most, "it made sense for it to grow out of here," Director says.

Princeton also runs a successful new program based in its six-year-old operations research and financial engineering department and run jointly with its business school. With 30 students currently enrolled, "We feel like we are blazing new ground, creating a new engineering discipline," says Erhan Cinlar, department head. Columbia University's industrial engineering and operations research department also runs its program with the business school, and has 65 students enrolled. At some schools, such as Stanford and Columbia, the program is called financial mathematics and is based in the math department. At others, including the University of California-Berkeley and MIT, it's anchored in the business school.

Roots: Square and Academic

Stephen Pollock, director of Michigan's program, is skeptical of programs that are primarily financial math or focused on empirical business theories. The engineering perspective is the glue that binds the complex formulas and economic theories together, he insists. "It is financial engineering," Pollock says, stressing the e-word. Indeed, Director adds, the finance industry began hiring engineering graduates because people with the skills to devise complex financial instruments "were not coming out of the business schools."

Problem solving and an ability to deal with uncertainty, Pollock and Cinlar say, are key engineering skills that financial engineers must learn. "To me," Cinlar explains, "an engineer is someone who has a problem and solves it. We concentrate on the problem, and we bring and use whatever tools we need to solve it." In the world of finance, helpful tools include modeling, complex equations, and such engineering problem-solving techniques as optimization and simulation. Guillermo Gallego, chairman of Columbia's industrial engineering and operations research department, says mathematicians too often look for abstract elegant solutions, while engineers seek to remedy real-world problems. As for uncertainty, Cinlar notes: "Most people want to avoid risk. We love it. And people are willing to pay us to show them how to avoid it."

Students attracted to financial engineering tend to be career-oriented—and interested in a fat paycheck. "There are many students who want this degree, not for the education, but for the perks," Pollock says. Gallego agrees. "They are bright students who like math but want it relevant." Pollock says some also view it as an M.B.A. shortcut, "a way to get into finance without the years of experience required for an M.B.A."

Roughly half of Michigan's financial engineering students have undergraduate degrees in engineering, with most coming from the industrial/operations research, electrical, and mechanical engineering disciplines. About 25 percent are physics and math majors, and about a quarter come from economics and business. Princeton's students tend to be equally divided among engineering and math undergraduates; Columbia's mostly have engineering and math degrees, though a few have degrees in economics.

Michigan, Princeton, and Columbia get many more applicants than they have places available. UM reports that total applications are down over the past two years. Nevertheless, Pollock admits that UM's program has about 25 percent more students than it should have. In both 2002 and 2003, it enrolled about 70 students. Tightened admissions standards will keep future classes in the 45 to 50 range. It is likely, however, that the number of universities offering the degree will increase because there is so much demand—much of it coming from foreign students. The overwhelming majority, 90 percent, of Michigan's applicants are from overseas, and they comprise 50 to 55 percent of those accepted. "Schools are going to go where the money is," Director says. Gallego says that "things usually move slowly in academia, but finance engineering is moving fast."

Nonetheless, Director cautions, running an interdisciplinary program can be a challenge for many schools, and turf wars have been known to break out. His college has a history of working with other schools and departments, but that's not true at all schools. "The first question is always, ‘How do we share the revenues?' " And faculty from different areas need to feel they are on equal footing. "It can't be one school pushing it on the others or trying to do it all itself."

Just as there is demand for the programs, there is usually a high demand for the graduates. "They are heavily recruited," Director says. Cinlar and Gallego agree that industry demand is currently strong. But, Gallego adds, two years ago students struggled to find jobs, "It goes with the economy." Pollock stresses that graduates must have strong communications skills. Some early Michigan graduates were foreign students who were expert at crunching numbers but whose English skills were weak, and they had a hard time finding jobs. Michigan's admissions process now looks for applicants who not only can handle the math but handle themselves in a business environment, Pollock says. "You will not get hired if you present yourself as a math nerd who hopes only to be asked to solve an equation."

Once grads do land jobs, the pay is good. Starting salaries tend to range from $50,000 to the low six figures. Companies that have hired UM students are a veritable Who's Who of blue-chip firms, including Lehman Brothers, T. Rowe Price Associates, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.

No one foresees a doctorate in financial engineering since the recipients are overwhelmingly career-minded and not looking for a life in academia. "But," Pollock says, "new models and methods need to be developed, so research needs to be done, and that will require Ph.D.'s." That said, these doctorates may not be in financial engineering; they'll likely be in industrial engineering or mathematics, with dissertations on subjects relevant to the field, such as financial math or modeling.

Michigan's program has experienced a few growing pains. Placement was initially somewhat hampered, Director says, because the engineering college was suddenly dealing with companies it had never dealt with before. Finding the right mix of skills among faculty members can also be a daunting task, though it helps that UM is a large school with a good-sized pool of qualified instructors. Most of the problems have been bureaucratic, Pollock explains, because faculty members have to deal with colleagues who might be located across campus, not across the hall. "But there haven't been any intellectual problems." Clearly a crystal ball isn't needed to predict that financial engineering has a bright future.

Thomas Grose is a freelance writer based in Great Britain.

Back to the index.

IV. Fellowship Programs

The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

Opportunities at NRL are open to citizens of the United States and to legal permanent residents.  All permanent residents applying to the NRL program must have their green card at the time of application. If you hold another citizenship in addition to that of the United States, you will need to provide the following:  a statement expressing your willingness to renounce your (dual) citizenship; and be willing to return your foreign passport to the embassy, providing a receipt or you may destroy the passport in the presence of a security official. There is a competitive stipend as well as insurance, relocation, and travel allowances for Fellows.  This program offers one to three year postdoctoral fellowships designed to increase the involvement of scientists and engineers from academia and industry to scientific and technical areas of interest and relevance to the Navy.  This program has a rolling admission.  Go to: http://www.asee.org/nrl to learn more about the program.

Back to the index.

ASEE Announces New User Interface for K-12 Outreach Program Database

Regular users of the EngineeringK12 Center’s outreach program database will now find the collection of K-12 and pre-college engineering, math, science, and technology programs easier to use and convenient to update.  By simply registering with the database, outreach program providers will now have access to the new user interface, allowing them to add, edit, and manage listings at anytime.  This feature will ensure that the most current information on engineering outreach programs is available to database searchers.

Home to hundreds of listings, the EngineeringK12 Center’s outreach program database is a great resource for parents, teachers, and students to search nationwide for an outreach program that matches their needs.  From lesson plans for teachers, to engineering summer camps for students, the database offers a wide variety of programs offered by universities, industry, and government.  Registration is only required to add and manage an outreach program in the database.  Registration is not required simply to search.

You can register to be an outreach program database user at:
http://www.engineeringk12.org/educators/making_engineers_cool/search.cfm

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