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OCR for page 11
WORKSHOP ON NATIONAL NEEDS
AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE:
FOSTERING FLEXIBILITY
IN THE ENGINEERING WORK FORCE
Because industry is a major employer of engineers, the committee wanted to have
industry representation at this workshop. To achieve this goal, a special effort was made to
ensure that approximately 20 percent of the 42 workshop attendees came from industry.9
Workshop participants were asked to use their professional experiences as a basis for
addressing the following questions:
Is adaptability a problem for the United States' engineering work force?
Is the engineering work force flexible enough?
In what ways is the engineering work force not flexible enough?
What kinds of interventions might be necessary right away to foster flexibility in the
eng~neenng work force and by which institutions industry, academe,
governments professional societies?
To maximize the opportunity for dialogue, workshop participants spent most of the
day in one of three discussion groups: technological change; changing national priorities;
and education and training. The technological change group focused on how firms deploy
their engineering work force to meet changes in demand for engineering skills resulting
- from changing technologies. This group looked at differences in responses between
emerging and declining technologies (defined as technologies experiencing a temporary
decline in demand, not technologies going out of existence).l° The changing national
priorities group focused on the impact of changes in national priorities on the need for an
adaptable engineering work force. For discussion purposes, national priorities included
9This total includes staff and the study committee.
OLeggon, op. Cit.
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OCR for page 12
both defense and nondefense priorities. Nondefense issues included the impact of
competitiveness and such environmental concerns as the greenhouse effect and global
warming. One major issue considered was the impact on adaptability of a reduction in
defense spending. The education and training group addressed two issues: how to
produce flexible, adaptable engineers and now to reduce tne Degree or m~smaccn oerween
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the competencies required in industry and the competencies of both new and experienced
engineers.
At the start of the workshop, participants were given their group assignments.
Each group had a committee member to lead the discussion and a rapporteur to record key
ideas. At the end of the day, everyone reconvened to hear the group leaders or rapporteurs
summarize the groups' major ideas, points of consensus, findings, and conclusions.
Although this format was devised as a way to focus on the major aspects of adaptability
that the committee identified, the committee realized that each group would discuss all three
topics because they seem to be such inextricably intertwined components of "adaptability."
It is noteworthy that despite different starting points and foci. He three groups
converged on engineering education-particularly undergraduate and continuing or lifelong
education-as a key factor in creating and maintaining an adaptable engineering work
force.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
national priorities
