President’s Distinguished Visiting Speaker Series
“Educating Scientists and Engineers for The 21st Century”
Monday, September 10
4:30 p.m. (coffee and tea will be served from 4:00 p.m.)
Level 0 Lecture Hall (room 0215) between Ibn Sina and Ibn Al Haytham
(buildings 2 and 3)
Speaker: James D. Plummer
John M. Fluke Professor of Electrical Engineering
Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the School of Engineering
Stanford University
In many developed countries today, including the US, Europe, and Japan, student interest in engineering has been in decline. By contrast, student interest in engineering is exploding in rapidly developing countries like China and India.
How do we educate students for engineering careers in a relentlessly globalizing world? Should we rely more on graduate education for the higher-level technical skills engineers need, particularly when many of the important problems engineers need to address in the 21st century demand interdisciplinary solutions? Should greater emphasis be placed on the earlier introduction of quantitative reasoning, systems integration, innovation, entrepreneurship, collaboration and other skills that many believe are critical for success in this century? Finally, online education is well-established, but has more recently been “reborn” as leading institutions have launched dynamic efforts to provide new kinds of courses seeking huge enrollments. What impact will this have on the world’s universities?
These challenging questions and new developments are being debated in science and engineering schools around the world. Dean Plummer’s talk will attempt to assess them, and present some conclusions.
Click here to read James D. Plummer’s biography.
A reception with refreshments will follow the lecture.
About the President’s Distinguished Visiting Speaker Series
The President’s Distinguished Visiting Speaker Series features lectures by eminent researchers renowned for their leading-edge interdisciplinary research.