Globalization

In response to what actions can we take to prepare our students for the next century as shown in Shift happens

http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift/


I do not often chime in, but this is a good occasion for me to throw in my two cents, some may agree with me, others may not - but hopefully I'll offer some good ideas with real actions that we, as a community, can do now.

- The question is not if America will lose its economic leadership, but more of a question of when. Most of us in the US view this as some potential terrible event - but in reality many nations that do not dominate offer a solid quality of life and standard of living. In the US there will still always be an educated and affluent portion of the population. Loss of our economic dominance will not affect these people as much as it will affect those at the lower ends of the economic ladder as the overall population will no longer be able to afford to sustain programs that help support them.

- In the talk of globalization, this presentation is very US centered. The very presentation carries an attitude that permeates the narrow minded view that most in the US has. What is really changing is the global standard of living. If the US standard of living must drop (for us 300 million) for the standard of living of the remaining billions to increase - is this a good or bad thing? We do see the effects of this daily - competition for gasoline has driven the price of gas up in our country (likely to $4 / gallon by summer's end). It may even force a percentage of American's to (gasp) purchase more gas efficient vehicles to maintain their travel habits or worse (gasp) change those habits. But again - is this a bad thing, and engineer could easily argue that higher gas prices now are a good thing, as they will force us to consider conservation measures, push us to national policy of better energy independence, and force technology to meet the need. And all this will happen!
over a period of time that will allow us to react - rather than push the inevitable crisis back in time - giving us less time to prepare.

- So what can we do ?

1. Bring these topics up in class in front of our students. They are the ones that will be the most affected, we owe it to them to know what they are facing.

2. Create competitions, sponsor workshops and conferences, and do what we can to address these issues. There are answers to many of these questions.

3. Make friends with these new global partners. Have abroad programs, student exchanges, faculty exchanges, etc...

4. Change our curriculum and keep it current (I'm only going to pop this bag of worms open a little)

5. Globalize our curriculum and introduce current affairs. (try polling your students by a show of hands on any current affair - you will be surprised)

6. Introduce Information Fluency and ability to process and use information as a foundation of the curriculum (yes this can be done).

7. As engineers and technologists get involved in the other classes from other disciplines, the skills from these classes will actually be the students edge.

8. Incorporate business and specifically international business into our students curriculum.
I'm sure there are many other things we do - and we are not the first folks to recognize that we must react to make our students competitive in this new world.