Electrical Engineering Education:
Evolution and Revolution
Sept. 11, 2012
Michael Lightner, Prof. and Chair ECEE
Moshe Kam, Prof. and Head ECE Drexel
Talk developed and given in various venues
with support by the IEEE
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Outline
Caveats and disclaimers
Engineering education and previous reforms
Evolution
– The fundamentals may be shifting
– The profession is changing




Geographically
In relation with other disciplines
In terms of products and services
In the nature of the workplace
Revolution
– The tsunami facing higher education
 At least in the US
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Caveats and Disclaimers
Omitting discussion of education outside
the US
Not presenting discussion of the many
advances in pedagogy and learning science
Not providing answers, but raising issues
and pointing out pressures
This is just a sampling, there are many
more examples, apologies if your favorite
is not included
AND – it will be a race through a wide
range of material
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The Beginning of Engineering Education

By the mid-1600s, artillery and
fortifications had grown so complex that
European armies began training officers in
math and mechanics
The term “Engineer” has been in use (in
the current sense) only for the last 200
years
Engineering education was formalized in
France
– School of Bridges and Highways, 1775
(Jean Parronet)
– École Polytechnique, 1794
(Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge)
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First Engineering Schools in the US
Revolutionary America had to rely on Civil Engineers
from Europe for major projects
In 1802 the Army established the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point to train artillery and
engineering officers
Sylvanus Thayer, commandant after 1817,
transformed West Point into the nation's first
engineering school by copying the École Polytechnique
After 1825 courses in Civil Engineering were became
available in Washington College, Princeton, New York
University, and Vanderbilt
RPI (1828); University of Virginia (1833)
http://www.answers.com/topic/engineering-education-1#ixzz1CZzjL7Fn
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EE education in the US and Europe:
the first 50 years in a glance
Early EE departments were established in the last 20
years of the 19th century
– Most grew out of Physics departments
– Curricula focused on AC and DC circuits and power
distribution
– B.Sc. Degree was the norm for faculty
 Plus hands-on training in industry
– After World war I communication options appear
– Little academic research
 In 1925 only one MIT EE faculty member had a Ph.D.
 Half of the faculty had a B.Sc degree + practical
experience
Terman 1976
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The Impact of World War II
The rise of new technology found the field
unprepared
– Most “EE work” was performed by scientists
from other disciplines, especially Physics
– Radar, microwaves, control systems, guided
missiles, proximity fuses
The case was reform was clear
Terman 1976
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The First Reform (1945-1955)
Overhaul of textbooks and courses
– A new book shelf
Focus on the fundamentals
Impetus for reform:
new technology
– Mathematics and Physics
– Introducing Physics-based Calculus as the basic
first step of the engineering curriculum
De-emphasis of classes on “engineering
practice” and apprenticeship
– Drafting, surveying, practicum
Terman 1976
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The First Reform (1945-1955)
Large expansion of graduate programs
– Beginning of federal funding of academic
engineering research
Emergence of new requirements and
expectations from engineering faculty
members
– At least an M.S. degree
– In many institutions – demonstration of ability
to conduct independent research
 Educate new Ph.D. students
 Obtain external support for research
Painful transition in many institutions
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The emergence and rise of graduate programs
in engineering 1960-1975
Significant growth in the number of graduate
engineering programs
Differentiation between the objective and
nature of MS and PhD programs
The impact of strong graduate programs is
being felt in industry…
– Strong graduate programs start developing their
own industries
In 1962 the first US Computer Science program
is established
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High Tech Industry is linked to availability
of strong and well-trained engineer corps
Silicon Valley would not exist without Stanford
University and the University of California, Berkeley
Boston Route 128 would not be possible without MIT
and Harvard
Austin’s Silicon Gulch is there because of the University
of Texas – Austin
DSP Valley is around the University of Leuven, Belgium
Kansai Science City is linked to Osaka University
Numerous examples in China
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The “Axioms”
The post-WWII model of interlinked
teaching and research in engineering
academic programs continues to be
dominant around the world
– The best “stand-alone” research labs
continue to have strong links to universities
The connection between engineering and
economic development has now become
axiomatic both in developed and
developing countries
– A key justification for continued support of
engineering programs
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Differentiation and Compartmentalization
1975-1985
Many engineering programs develop “tracks”
– Often available only in the Senior year
– EE: “Signal processing” “Power and Control” “Biomedical
Devices” “Computers” “Antennas and Propagation”
Computer Engineering programs proliferate
– The emergence of the ECE department
‘Secession’ of Computer Science is complete
New programs emerge in Biomedical Engineering
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The impetus for the second US reform (1990-2003)
Desire to use emerging technology to improve
instruction
– Personal computer, digital communication and
networking
–
The sense that the pendulum has swung too much
toward Engineering Science
High attrition rate of students in the early years
– Attributed to the abstract nature of preparatory
classes – in US only slightly more than 50% of
students entering engineering graduate with an
engineering degree
Graduates perceived to be deficient in communication
and presentation skills
Serov 1997
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The impetus for the second US reform (1990-2003)
Graduates perceived to be unable to take into
consideration economic, social, and ethical
considerations; can’t work in teams
Increased economic gap between engineering
and practitioners of the ‘professions’
Continued failure to attract minorities and
women to engineering
A plethora of new proposals for better
pedagogical approaches for engineering
Serov 1997
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General Outline of the Second Reform in the US
Started with the 1988 NSF-funded E4
experiment at Drexel University
Continued by establishment of NSF coalitions
of schools, which operated 1992-2002
– Gateway, SUCCEED
The coalitions developed new curricular
materials, ideas and structures
– Implementation and scaling proved difficult
– Adoption of coalition-created instructional
material and methods outside home institutions
was limited
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Formalization of Second Reform in
US
ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, EC 2000 was
the formalization of the concerns of the second
reform
Maintain high level of engineering science
while including/emphasizing new elements …
–
–
–
–
–
–
Team work
Capstone design
Ethics and societal impact
Globalization
Communication
Quality control assessment/feedback
mechanisms
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Impetus for a Third Reform - Evolution
The fundamentals may be shifting
– Modern computing is not integrated properly in
engineering education
– Life sciences becoming more important
– Web 2.0 and internet causing fundamental shifts
The profession is changing
–
–
–
–
Geographically
In relation with other disciplines
In terms of products and services
In the nature of the workplace
The economic and demographic problems of the
profession have not been solved
Impetus for a Third Reform
The Fundamentals may be
shifting
– Modern computing is not
integrated properly in engineering
education
Computing is Changing the Nature of
Engineering Work
The use of computing tools has pervaded
almost all areas of engineering
– Look under the hood of your car
– Look under the hood of your Spectrum Analyzer
Engineering education did not yet catch up
– For us it is still “computer aided design”
– For industry this is the only design that there is
We continue to teach many subjects as if
symbolic computation and computers do not
exist
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A Few Examples
We continue to teach again and again how to
find, guess and synthesize integrating factors
We still teach students how to use
approximations and rules of thumb most of
which will never ever be used
– Think about Bode Plots and Root Locus Methods
– How about Karnaugh maps
Fundamentals of software writing and
software testing are often left for self
exploration
– And yet these are of increasing significance for
engineers on the job
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Cloud Computing
Obvious impacts
– Change CS/IT education to understand
requirements for cloud implementations
– Institutions using cloud-based approaches
for email, learning management systems,
social computing
Non-obvious impacts
– Data, both large and small, from real
sources allow new, real world, authentic
problems to be explored at all levels of
engineering education
– Resources available globally reducing
barriers to access
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Key Argument Against Increased
Emphasis on Computing
(1) Rules of thumb provide insight and
intuition for design
(2) Simply running a program provides no
intuition
But… the students coming from high school
seem to have ever decreasing skills in
algebraic manipulation
– Rules of thumb come from doing ‘algebraic’
manipulation to reduce problem size and
understand patterns
We need new ways of teaching that use
symbolic and numerical computation but
still generate insight and intuition for design
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Computing vs. Programming (1)
Computing, herein, refers to use of
specialized packages for computing certain
results and for symbolic manipulation
– Could be within more general packages such
as Matlab, Mathematica, Alpha, LTSpice
– Allows larger and real world problems to be
done by students
– Obviates the need for many specialized
techniques that reduce dimensionality of
large problems
Students need to use these computational
tools as tools to think with, not just tools
to complete an assignment
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Computing vs. Programming (2)
Programming focuses on developing code
for particular purposes
– An important discipline and skill which is not
taken seriously enough in most current
engineering curricula
– The erroneous assumption is that this is an
add-on that students can learn on their own
– Another erroneous assumption is that
programming for production is not done by
engineers
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One Possible Reaction:
Keep Computing to the Computer Scientists!
This view neglects the fact that for many engineers
proficiency in computing and programming is no less
fundamental nowadays than proficiency in Physics-Based
Calculus
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A More Reasoned Approach
The role of computing in the education of
engineers needs to be re-thought
Computing skills can no longer be add-ons
and nice-to-haves
As analytical skill needed by engineers,
computing may have become as least as
fundamental as Calculus
Impetus for a Third Reform
The Fundamentals may be
shifting
– Integrating Life Sciences into the
ECE Curricula
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Intersection of Life Sciences & ECE
Data and Image analysis
– Medical Image analysis
– All the –omics (genomics, proteomics,
glucomics, etc)
Optics and advanced microscopy
Telemedicine/Telehealth
Health Informatics
Prostheses
– Robotics, cognitive, sensory (cochlear,
visual)
In vivo sensors
Biochips
Bionanophotonics
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Student Interest
Significant student interest in bio-x
engineering
– Bioengineering, biomedical engineering,
biological engineering
Other departments are pushing strongly
into these areas
–
–
–
–
Biomedical and Bioengineering departments
Mechanical engineering departments
Chemical engineering departments
Biological engineering departments
ECE often challenged to have significant
bio-presence in the curriculum
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Research Challenges
Major interdisciplinary efforts on campuses
and in companies.
Significant funding and opportunity for
growth, but only if part of the team
EE/ECE departments need to encourage
students and faculty to participate
– Introduce life sciences courses
– Create and hire faculty with different sets of
interests
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One Possible Reaction:
Keep your microbes to yourself – earthling!
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A More Reasoned Approach
Provide ECE students with education in the
life sciences
Develop minors and double majors
Encourage capstone experiences in life
science related projects
Partner with other disciplines
Develop joint faculty appointments
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And there is more …
New approaches to education in Power and
Energy
Engineering as enhancer of quality of life
– Entertainment engineering, media, games
Grand Challenge Problems in the
curriculum
Impetus for a Third Reform
The Profession is
Changing…
–Geographically
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Our Profession is Changing Geographically
Science and engineering education is
expanding into new geographical areas
Some engineering work has migrated from its
former US and West European centers to
other countries and regions
Manufacturing, Design, Research and
Development are performed in many
countries that had no Hi-tech industry even
20 years ago
– But not without significant improvement in
graduate education
First University Degrees in Selected
Areas
1800000
1600000
1400000
1200000
1000000
800000
600000
400000
200000
0
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/c2/c2s5.htm
Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 (US NSF)
Asia
Europe
North/Central
America
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S&E degree as fraction of the
total number of degrees granted
In the United States, S&E degrees are about
one-third of U.S. bachelor’s degrees (and
much lower for engineering alone)
In several countries more than half of first
university degrees were in S&E
– Japan (63%), China (56%), Singapore (59%),
Laos (57%), Thailand (69%)
Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 (US
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Degrees in Engineering
In the United States, about 5% of all
bachelor’s degrees are in engineering
In most of Asia, 20% of the degrees are in
engineering
– In China, the number of first university degrees
in engineering more than doubled between
2000 and 2004 and quadrupled over the past
two decades
In many other countries worldwide, more
than 10% of the degrees are in engineering
Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 (US NSF)
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Older Players experiences
difficulties: Full Time Undergraduate
Enrollment in ECE Programs in the US
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
0
Source:
ASEE
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
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A Global Challenge
Educate future engineers to work in a
transnational environment
– E.g., encourage “a semester abroad” and
exchange programs
– Introduce pertinent international trends into the
curriculum
 Including education in business and law
Provide resources to engineers to understand
industrial and economical trends that affect
the profession
Develop a global system of credential and
accreditation recognition
Impetus for a Third Reform
The Profession is
Changing…
–The Rise of the Service
Economy
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The Role of Service Economy is
Increasing
Increased importance of the service sector
in industrialized economies
Look at the Fortune 500
– …more service companies
– …fewer manufacturers
The old dichotomy between product and
service has been replaced by a serviceproduct continuum
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“Servitization of products”
Today we have the commodization of our
products tomorrow we will have the
servitization of our products
Products today have a higher service
component than in previous decades
Virtually every product today has a service
component to it
Many products are being transformed into
services
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One Possible Reaction:
This is Beneath Us…
Service is NOT Engineering
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A More Reasoned Approach
Recognize that the Service Economy is here
to stay
Find ways to integrate the Service Economy
in the Engineering curriculum
Re-examine interdisciplinary work in
Commerce and Engineering
– This may be the right time for another look
Impetus for a Third Reform
The Profession is
Changing…
–with respect to other
disciplines
Our Profession is Expanding Beyond
Traditional Departments
Here are a few courses taught by the Mechanical
Engineering Department in Lehigh University:
– Control Systems
– Digital Control
– Control Systems
Laboratory
– Mechatronics
– Mechatronics
Laboratory
– Nuclear Reactor
Engineering
Mechanical
Engineering Laboratory
– Introduction to
elementary
instrumentation.
Introduction to digital
data acquisition.
– Including use of
transducers, advanced
instrumentation, and
data acquisition.
Kidnapping of the
Leukipp's Daughters
Our Profession is Expanding Beyond
Traditional Departments
Here are a few courses taught by the Mechanical
Engineering Department in Lehigh University:
– Control Systems
– Digital Control
– Control Systems
Laboratory
– Mechatronics
– Mechatronics
Laboratory
– Nuclear Reactor
Engineering
Mechanical
Engineering Laboratory
– Introduction to
elementary
instrumentation.
Introduction to digital
data acquisition.
– Including use of
transducers, advanced
instrumentation, and
data acquisition.
This looks like EE to me!!
Kidnapping of the
Leukipp's Daughters
Our Profession is Expanding
Beyond Traditional Departments
Here are a few courses taught by the Biomedical
Engineering Department in Georgia Tech:
– Introduction to Signal
Processing
– Biomedical Systems and
Modeling
– Computing for Engineers
– Biomedical
Instrumentation
– Introduction to Medical
Image Processing
Biomedical Systems and
Modeling
– Systems and Modeling
– Linear-Systems Analysis in
the Time Domain
– Linear-Systems Analysis in
the Laplace Domain
– Linear-Systems Analysis in
the Frequency Domain
– Control Systems Design and
Analysis
Our Profession is Expanding
Beyond Traditional Departments
Here are a few courses taught by the Biomedical
Engineering Department in Georgia Tech:
– Introduction to Signal
Processing
– Biomedical Systems and
Modeling
– Computing for Engineers
– Biomedical
Instrumentation
– Introduction to Medical
Image Processing
This looks like EE to me!!
Biomedical Systems and
Modeling
– Systems and Modeling
– Linear-Systems Analysis in
the Time Domain
– Linear-Systems Analysis in
the Laplace Domain
– Linear-Systems Analysis in
the Frequency Domain
– Control Systems Design and
Analysis
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Enrollment is not an Engineering
Wide Problem
US Mechanical engineering enrollment is at
historical highs
– ME appears broad and relevant
– Aggressive, expansion into electomechanics, robotics, bio-mechanics and
nanotechnology
Civil engineering growing rapidly
Aerospace and Bio programs growing well
Mechanical and Chemical departments are
claiming the Energy space
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The Case for Curricular Reform
The fundamentals may be shifting
– The impact of modern computing is not yet integrated in
engineering education
– Integration of life sciences into ECE curricula
The profession is changing
– Geographically
– In relation with other disciplines
– In terms of products and services
– In the nature of the workplace
The economic and demographic problems of the profession have
not been solved
Unexplored here is the ever increasing understanding of how
people learn and the impact that understanding has on how we
support that learning with our university offerings – notice I did
not say teaching
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Revolution
Collective learning
New tools changing the idea of labs
Internet and Machine Learning are providing the
basis for revolutionary changes in higher
education, with engineering and computer science
as the clear first targets
This is made even more compelling as more is
known about how we learn
– Note that we professors are the best model for
didactic learning – after all we succeeded in the
traditional system
– Can be hard for us to accept new perspectives –
seems like either coddling the students or
cheating
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Collective Learning
Solutions to all textbook problems
available online
Many blogs and forums on engineering
topics more responsive and informative
than professors and TAs
Makers movement
– Online communities using tools such as
Arduino, small embedded processors, 3D
printers, and more
– Authentic communities supporting the
design and building of exciting projects
– Much more engaging than typical university
labs
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National Instruments MyDAQ
A lab in your pocket
– EE, ME, Control….
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MyDAQ
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Altera DE0-Nano
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Arduino
Simple and
inexpensive
microcontroller
MANY
peripherals
(shields)
HUGE
community of
hobbyists
Great online
help
Collective learning - MOOCs
Challenges from for-profit institutions
Challenges from certificate programs
If continuous education is the norm for a
working professional, how does that manifest
in the classroom?
Is the lecture still relevant? The classroom?
Important reading (there are many more)
– A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for
a World of Constant Change Douglas Thomas, John Seely
Brown
– From Abelard to Apple, Richard DeMillo.
– DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming
Transformation of Higher Education Anya Kamenetz
– Disrupting the Classroom: How Disruptive Innovation Can
Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary
Education, Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, Louis
Caldera, Louis Soares, Innosight Institute, Feb 2011
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Flipped
classroom
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What will happen? Evolution and
Revolution
We will evolve – already seeing changes in
undergraduate programs
– Math/computing still has a long way to go
– Mixing disciplines more likely, especially in bio areas
– Labs will become much more personal
There will be a revolution
– Why lecture when you can have an interactive class?
 Students get lecture from the web – flipped classroom
 Problems/HW, labs, designs, all supported locally
– Labs and design teams can be more global
 Grades and degrees given locally
– Could see professional organizations offering some
type of degree or certification based on testing
material learned online
103
The Flipped Classroom
Interactive Learning Online at Public
Universities: Evidence From Randomized Trials
The study compared how much students at six
public universities learned after taking a
prototype introductory statistics course in the
fall of 2011 in either a hybrid or a traditional
format.
Randomly assign a diverse group of 605
students to either
– a hybrid group, with computer-guided
instruction and one hour of face-to-face
instruction each week,
– or a traditional format, with three or four
hours of face-to-face instruction per week.
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The Flipped Classroom
The result? “We find that learning
outcomes are essentially the same—that
students in the hybrid format pay no ‘price’
for this mode of instruction in terms of
pass rates, final exam scores, and
performance on a standardized
assessment of statistical literacy,”
Purdue has conducted similar experiments
for a number of years
– Essentially no difference, except, students in
the flipped classroom performed better on
more demanding conceptual problems than
those in the traditional classroom
What will happen?
Prediction – engineering education in 2020
will look quite different than it does today.
Changes?
– MS degrees – radically changed
 done online from many sources with a variety of
assessments – even from IEEE???
– Lecturers in large undergrad courses
challenged by available online lectures
 Flipped classroom becomes common
 Student communities become global
– Personal labs become more common
 Online help, and hobbyist communities become
an integral part of basic engineering education
– Role of, and economic value of, many
universities will be called into question
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What will happen?
At least 25 years ago I asked how many
research universities were needed in the US
– I posited that the answer was certainly less than
50 and that anymore was diluting the critical mass
of dollars, researchers and graduate students
needed for major progress
– Of course we have more than 50 research
universities, and everyone claims that they are
doing or require research
The changes in content and especially
delivery that we surveyed today with the
economic challenges facing most of the
globe could cause a profound change in the
landscape and focus of universities in the US
and perhaps globally
107
What do Universities provide?
Collection of experts
Community of learners
Expensive labs
Definition of Degrees
Face-to-face interactions
Gateway to Industry and Profession
Sanctioned
Validation of Success
108
What part of Universities cannot
be replaced?
Collection of experts
Expensive labs
Community of learners
Definition of Degrees
Face-to-face interactions
Gateway to Industry and Profession
Validation of Success
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We Live in Exciting Times
110
We Live in Exciting Times
Thank you
Questions and Comments…