the output of engineering and science programs of our universities. It is, therefore, important to examine problems in these educational programs in looking for relief.

The situation today, as you have heard, I'm sure, from other testimony, has many dilemmas. First of all, we have had a steady expansion of our undergraduate enrollments over the past 5 years. Not only are we better off in numbers, but we are better off in quality as well. This large expansion of numbers comes from several motivations. Certainly, there are the exciting new technical fields and exciting career prospects.

Second, the very high pay now being offered by industry has not gone unnoticed by our bright, ambitious young people. An engineering education is now considered as an excellent background for graduate study in the major professional fields such as business, law, and medicine. We have the undergraduates. Now what's the problem?

The problems seem to focus on the graduate education and research programs of our universities. As our undergraduates turn more to industry after receiving their BS degrees, the graduate enrollment is falling off seriously. Graduate student complements are being filled by foreign student applicants who may well return to their home country on graduation.

The falloff in engineering Ph. D.'s is having a serious impact on the staffing of our engineering schools needed to teach our large undergraduate classes. A young person who really wants to have a career in the university finds himself heavily overloaded, working with worn out research facilities, and poorly paid relative to his counterparts who have gone directly into industry.

This dilemma is serious because almost all modern universities make a Ph. D. or Sc. D. an absolute requirement for assignment to a teaching position. One could argue that if all of our top engineering BS students went directly to industry where their continuing education would be handled better with exciting problems and superb facilities, there would be no need for the university graduate programs except for the Ph. D. requirement for faculty.

If this were removed and equivalent industrial experience allowed, we could fold up graduate engineering education in the universities altogether.

Now, I certainly do not recommend this, as the university environment is an excellent one for teaching and research, and if our graduate programs have shortcomings today, we ought to fix them. Industry should not have to do its own education and should count heavily on the graduate university programs.

Many of our most brilliant new inventions and innovations have sprung from the university environment and we should value this work. Some of the reasons it is not working very well today are the result of a gradual separation of university and industrial research objectives since World War II.

The universities' research programs, almost fully funded by Government, have drifted farther and farther to the scientific end of the technical spectrum. The new Ph. D.'s supported by these programs become the new young faculty, with less and less knowledge of the real interests of industry.

Most of us recognize the problem and are trying to reestablish industry-university research programs to turn this trend around. A great deal of effort is now in progress and most certainly will be expanded in the next few years.

The interconnection between modern high-technology industry and graduate engineering at our universities must be accomplished with sophistication. If it is to be successful, a real quid pro quo must be established satisfying the interests of both parties. This can be done and has been done in the past, but we seem to have lost our touch in many cases. This must not be merely an industrial handout, but a significant working relationship of mutual interest.

The solution to our engineering manpower shortage will require us to maintain large enrollments in our engineering undergraduate programs and make them more available to our various shortages. This will require an emphasis on the advantages of an engineering career, and the proper teaching and motivation of the young students. This will require an adequate supply of well motivated and well satisfied teachers who find a career in our universities rewarding and eminently worthwhile.

Again, I believe that this can be accomplished best by the integration of industrial interests with those of the university in order that good teaching and good research can be accomplished in the face of various shortages.

It was alluded to briefly by Dr. Press that the National Research Council has been erecting a major study focusing on the problems of engineering education and research. This study will deal with the whole spectrum of concerns mentioned at these hearings.

This study is being undertaken under the auspices of the NRC and has been supported for nearly a year at phase I. The results of this have now been-have now come forth and we are establishing phase II which is being financed by many other agencies of the Government.

Many of these problems are of immediate concern and, as a consequence, progress reports from this study will be provided at regular intervals. Your committee will, of course, be provided with these as they become available.

Another aspect of the engineering manpower shortage is at the secondary or technician area. These are the young men and women who will become machine tool operators, engine mechanics, and so on. These are in short supply and are essential to both industry and the military.

A major source for these technicians comes from our rapidly expanding community colleges or trade schools. Some of the most interesting activities are being undertaken today at these levels. An example is the Community College of the Air Force. This program involves enlisted personnel in first-class technical programs using the magnificant facilities available at most operating bases. The supply of first-class technician support is crucial to both industry and to the military.

Now, I summarized what I think ought to be done about all this. I am sure you have had commentary on this. I think the universities should search out effective working relationships with modern high technology industry, insuring that a real quid pro quo be

established. Motivate the faculties to take better advantage of industrial staff as adjunct professors.

As an aside, in the past, the normal faculty of a university looks with some concern at adjunct professors and dissuades most of these appointments. I think this will have to be turned around.

Require, in most cases, real industrial experience for engineering school faculty appointments. I do not recommend as yet that we do away with the Ph. D. requirement, but I am very much tempted to do that. Equivalent industrial experience might be more important in some cases.

Do more to encourage consulting arrangements between industry and young faculty. If this is done properly, it will help solve pay differential problems. This I believe to be a very important point, this disparity of salaries for young faculty. All young faculty in engineering schools are usually given a day a week for consulting purposes. One of the problems is most of the young faculty aren't very interested in industry yet as consultants and therefore, the demand for them is not strong. However, I think the chairmen of all engineering departments should make sure with industry that their young faculty are involved with consulting in industry one day a week. This not only brings back the excitement of real problems to industry and the university, but solves part of the pay problem.

Do everything possible not to overload the young faculty member so that he will have time to be creative. This is a nice thing to say, but if you have an enormous undergraduate body and a few faculty, it is very difficult to meet that.

Then, help resolve the difficult problems of modern facilities. In high technology, facilities are expensive and become obsolete rapidly. Faculty and facility exchange with other universities and with industry may be essential. This is a very complex problem, and no easy solution is known to it.

I think industry should take the time to understand modern problems facing our engineering schools and be sensitive to their problems. They should establish real working relationships to help guide university research and help resolve dilemmas as they devel

op.

Provide staff, as required, for part-time participation in university teaching and research activities. Make sure this is top staff. Don't just feed off the bottom. Provide specific fellowship support when needed. And then again, help organize consulting arrangements with the young faculty members to involve them in the excitement of modern high-technology programs that are in industry.

Now, the Government. I think one of the main things that we need today is the real facts about what's going on. We have had all sorts of data presented over the last couple of years. I'm not sure that we all agree that we know what the facts are.

For example, the dilemma of manpower shortages, where are they in detail, and so on. I think to provide some top engineering fellowships in important areas is important, and insure that various Government agencies are encouraged to place research programs in our universities that focus on the real world of operation

al needs. This is most important to defense as the effect of the Mansfield amendment is slowly disappearing.

The involvement of university faculty with defense problems is of crucial importance. I would like to expand on that a little bit. One of the major decisions that was made during World War II was made by Dr. Vannevar Bush. This was that research in support of the war would be done as much as possible within the university environment. He did not want to set up national laboratories unless we absolutely had to.

He wanted to insure that the research took place in the universities where students were and where the faculty would operate in a creative environment. We did create national laboratories in some cases, but by and large, that decision of Dr. Bush had a powerful influence on how the universities operated then and are still operating today.

I think the Government should encourage departments like Defense and NASA to maintain their basic research programs in the universities and not to pull them in-house. The tendency is to say we can do this program better in-house than they can at the university. They should be discouraged from doing that.

Reemphasize the assignment of military personnel to certain graduate schools. The very successful program of many years ago has been largely abandoned. I think this should be reinstated. The educational level of industry keeps going up. The educational level of our top military commanders is going down. This should be reversed at once.

Now, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we do indeed have serious problems in engineering manpower. Partial resolution must come through restructuring and refocusing the engineering programs at our universities. The major changes must come in our graduate programs whose focus over the past years has drifted too far in the direction of pure engineering science.

A major factor in solving these problems will be the rapproachment between high technology industry research programs and our university graduate programs. There are new activities starting up to accomplish this. I know you have heard of them. If they are handled with sophistication, our problems should be reduced materially.

Engineering manpower shortages are a real problem today and probably will be so in the next decade. All segments of our society-universities, industry, and government—must cooperate to resolve these dilemmas at once.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Perkins follows:]

Statement by

C. D. Perkins

President, National Academy of Engineering
on Engineering Manpower Concerns
to the

Committee on Science & Technology
U.S. House of Representatives
October 7, 1981

Mr. Chairman:

I consider it a privilege to have been invited to appear before you today to present my views on "Engineering Manpower Concerns," a subject that is rapidly achieving national visibility. Although I am sure there is very little on this subject that you have not heard before, I am glad to have this opportunity to summarize these concerns as I see them.

This statement is coordinated with that of my colleague, Dr. Frank Press, President of the National Academy of Sciences, whose testimony you have just heard. Dr. Press's Academy, the NAS, and my Academy, the National Academy of Engineering, are deeply concerned with this problem and are working and have been working on several aspects of it.

Let me start then, by saying that in my opinion there is little question that we are facing shortages in engineering manpower, particularly in specific fields such as electronics, computer science, chemical and petroleum engineering, energy and environmental engineering and bio or genetic engineering. That this is unquestionably so can be verified by the very large salaries being offered by industry trying to fill shortages on a tight

schedule.

One question comes to mind: "Is this shortage in a cyclical phase which will correct itself in a short time, or are we facing a long term trend