Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. Page 2 of basic science research. First and foremost is the present and future shortage of engineers at the doctoral level, a shortage of grave concern to industrial employers unable to recruit the number of Ph.D. engineers they need. I understand that industrial people have brought this problem to the attention of the Congress and particularly to the Committee on Science and Technology. An October 1978 Bureau of Labor Statistics Table is attached that projected the present shortage and the even greater shortage of Ph.D. engineers to come. Engineering is unique in this respect. In all other fields a sizable surplus now exists at the Ph.D. level and that surplus is projected to increase in the coming decade. With an ever advancing level of technology, a total of about 1,000,000 engineers in this country, and about 50,000 B.S. engineers graduating each year, it should come as no surprise that the output of well under 3,000 Ph.D.s a year in engineering falls far short of industrial demand. What may be surprising to those who have not been given the facts is that all Schools and Colleges of Clearly it is in the Engineering are equally desperately searching for staff, primarily at the beginning assistant professor level where our shortage is greatest. national interest that the instruction of future engineers at all levels be in the hands of the best of our graduates, those in the upper 20% or better of our Ph.D.s. Yet, for the next 5 years we already project more openings than there will be people in this category were none to go into industry. Instead, partly because of high salary differentials, most choose industry. Beyond the 5 years, the replacement of the 500 or so who will retire each year, and a similar number who leave for other reasons, will continue an academic marketplace demand that along with a very much greater industrial demand will not be filled unless there Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. is more than a doubling of the present rate of influx into Ph.D. engineering programs. Unfortunately, almost everyone believes that there are almost no teaching positions available, a valid belief for just about every academic field except engineering. Surely, national attention should be directed toward this unique problem of great shortage of advanced degree engineers for our high technology industries and great shortage of those available to teach future generations of engineers. My fellow Deans of Engineering and I commend you for your interest in this problem and urge you and the Committee to take steps that are needed to turn the situation around. Identification of a problem is far easier than solution. However, one almost immediate step that could be taken would be for the National Science Foundation to begin a special program of pre-doctoral fellowships in engineering. The psychological effect would be profound because it would bring the engineering Ph.D. shortage dramatically to the attention of engineering undergraduates. Numbers of fellowships are of less consequence than a program of fellowships, but a sufficient number would have to be available at a sufficient stipend to make the message credible. A two-year tenure rather than three or four years would save fellowship funds as support in the thesis stage could then come from research grants and contracts. As a trial I would propose an entering group of 500 students a year, 1,000 for the two years in the steady state, at $6,000/ academic year, for a total of $6,000,000 distributed among the schools of engineering approximately in proportion to their present Ph.D. production. The details are of far less significance than the principle. A substantial stipend is needed to Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. February 11, 1980 Page 4 attract any attention in comparison with the $20,000/year industry is offering this year's class of B.S. engineering graduates. The psychological value is obvious and therefore the practical contribution to our nation of a pre-doctoral fellowship program for engineering would be enormous. However, the broader question of the role of NSF in engineering research today and its appropriate role in the years ahead involves many substantive issues that are not nearly as obvious to those not conversant with engineering and engineering research. Once again I start from the premise that public funds are allocated to promote the public interest, both long range and short range. Research and education do have some immediate consequences but primarily are contributions to the future economic, social, and personal well-being of our country and our people. NSF therefore is dominantly long-range in its outlook. It has a clear mandate to maintain the intellectual vitality and the forward progress of science over its entire spectrum without regard to known immediate application. The word "science" in the title of the Foundation and in this context includes engineering explicitly in the Charter. This is only one source of great confusion within the total science and engineering community, and even more among the general public, when distinctions must be drawn between science and engineering. Please forgive me for outlining here those broad distinctions and concepts which should be taken into account within the scope of NSF, distinctions of which you are well aware but which have not been articulated explicitly in this context to my knowledge. Science and engineering are complementary but different in many ways quite apart from the fact that there are many more engineers than scientists Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. in the work force and that engineers are in short supply while scientists are in surplus. As an aside, NSF would be far more helpful to the Congress and the Executive Branch if instead of lumping scientists and engineers together it carefully distinguished between them in its reporting, its projections, and its conclusions on supply, demand, and utilization. Engineering is not science in a more fundamental sense than astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, etc. differ from each other. A casual examination of each undergraduate and graduate engineering curriculum shows this clearly. The education of engineers for a productive life in industry, government, or private practice starts with mathematics and the sciences as a base in much of the freshman and sophomore years. Then come what are called the engineering sciences which build upon this base. These disciplines carry labels such as mechanics of solids, mechanics of fluids, therodynamics, electronics, electromagnetic fields, materials science, operations research and bionics to name an assortment of areas underlying chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, industrial, and the other branches of engineering. They are firmly within the science spectrum because they deal with the understanding and codification of natural phenomena and natural laws, as do the disciplines of science. Engineering is the creation of objects or systems by man (in consonance with nature if the engineering is good). However, a suspension bridge or a synthetic fuel plant or a production line or a computer or an aerospace system obviously is not nature itself. Therefore, the focus of the engineering sciences is on those aspects of nature that are of value at the next level in the curriculum, Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. February 11, 1980 Page 6 the engineering subdisciplines of each of the disciplines of engineering (aero, civil, electrical, ---) that underlie engineering practice but are still one step removed from practice. These fundamental areas of knowledge combine theory, experiment, and the best possible distillation of practical experience into the sets of fundamental concepts that provide the basis for modern engineering practice. They carry a variety of titles such as principles of structural analysis and design, geomechanics, systems analysis and design, information systems, power system stability, transportation systems, hydrology, principles of semiconductor devices, tribology, vehicle dynamics, robotics, principles of design against natural hazards (earthquake, wind, flood, fire), etc. Fundamental research is required over the entire scope of the continually expanding domains of the engineering sciences and the subdisciplines of each engineering discipline to provide the basis for innovative modern engineering in industry, government, and private practice. This advance of fundamental engineering knowledge through research provides the seed corn for the engineering of the future, just as the advance of basic science through research provides for the science of the future. With few, if any) exceptions, when engineers in practice do apply new discoveries of basic science for the benefit of mankind they can do so only after a progressive fundamental research development of concepts through an existing or newly developed engineering science and then one or more of the subdisciplines of engineering. Much of fundamental engineering research does not derive from basic scientific advance but instead derives its impetus from problems in the man-made world that cannot be solved with present knowledge. Engineers in education also will, on occasion, contribute directly to engineering |