(2) We must completely restructure the primary and secondary school curricula to provide an education strong in the scientific and technical areas. This includes upgrading the facilities as well. (3) We must support increased pay and benefits to attract the quantity and quality of teachers needed to ensure a quality education for our students. (4) We must implement a long range plan to increase the capacity of our institutions to turn out quality scientists and engineers in the numbers needed to handle the challenges of the future. Defense and industry can and should participate in this undertaking by supporting major facility upgrade projects which directly increase capability. (5) We must promote the scientific and engineering education of a vast untapped resource--the minorities and women of this nation. (6) We must develop and implement a comprehensive program to increase the public's awareness of the challenges, benefits and wonders of science. For example, the cost of the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn of one cent per person was compensated many fold not only by our increased knowledge but by the young imaginations which were set to wonder at the sight of Io, Europa, Rhea, and Titan, the storms of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. (7) We must place significantly increased funds into research and development for challenging and far-reaching projects to ensure that advances will be there when we need them. (8) For the military--we must ensure that we have the ability to attract and retain the quantity and quality of scientists and engineers we need to provide a strong military force. Specifically, this involves increased pay to achieve and maintain parity with industry, increased ROTC scholarships, additional education and family benefits to enhance retention, and increased graduate education quotas to provide the advanced degrees to ensure excellence in academic and military skills. My recommendations for resolution of this critical problem are embodied in one word--commitment--a total and continuing national effort to build a scientific and technical capability which is second to none. We need to promote and encourage a cooperative, rather than competitive environment among the various sectors which employ engineers with more efficient and productive use of this scarce resource. How unfortunate it is that I should be here talking to you today about maintaining parity with an adversary when, with the total talent available within this nation, we should be talking about technological achievements and advancement. We are at a crossroad in the history of our nation. Difficult decisions must be made, not only in the area of technology, but with many personnel problems facing us today--decisions which will establish our course of action into the next decade. The future of this nation, and our way of life as we know it, is at stake. Mr. FUQUA. Thank you very much, Dr. Marsh. We appreciate our remarks. We will now hear from Prof. Robert Gaither. We are happy to have you with us. Mr. GAITHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, am grateful for his opportunity to appear before you and provide some testimony on the problems surrounding the engineering education and man power. First, I would like to offer my compliments and support for the ine testimony that has been given by my colleagues already this norning. I hope that I can be viewed by all of you as being a person of two resources. First, I am an educator in mechanical engineering, a very basic discipline, a discipline which is required by every industry in the United States. I have never, in all of the period of time as an educator, had any of my students not find a job. Through the worst of the recession period, instead of 7 to 10 job offers, they only received 2 or 3. But, they always got a job; they have always been needed and will continue to be needed. So, what we see today in the way of a shortage, I believe is nothing more than the worsening of a problem that existed 10 years ago. I have been an educator and mechanical engineer for over 30 years, 17 of which have been as head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida. I am in that part of the academic world where I believe the problem is the most critical. In my second role, I am the president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a volunteer organization which has an enormous array of resources. It has 105,000 technical members, 32 technical divisions, 7,000 people working on a council of codes and standards, establishing standards of safety for industry throughout the world. In fact, we have a literal army of people that are dedicated to making sure that this country remains at the top of the heap in the technological manpower world. So, I have an unusual perspective with these two roles. I can assure you that there is a problem. I can further assure you that it has been with us for a while. It is very bad now and it is going to be with us for a considerably longer period of time. You just simply can't take an English professor and/or a person out of industry and throw them into a thermodynamics classroom and expect him to be able to perform immediately. I could provide you with additional statistics. I have already written to almost, I believe, all of you on this committee and many of the other Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives and provided you with data on this problem. I could provide more. I have here a list of the responses from many of you and many of the other members of government indicating that they are aware of this problem. But, I think it would be better if I told you how it was affecting me personally. For the last 5 years, the productivity of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida has increased by 300 percent. I have three times as many students to handle as I did 5 years ago with the same faculty. I have 6 open positions in a faculty of 26. That's a 20 percent, not a 10-percent shortage. I haven't mentioned the fact that I am lacking in space. I have two offices to put those six new faculty members into. I have a shortage of equipment; that which I do have is overaged. I don't even have the funds to pay for the maintenance on the equipment that I have. Unfortunately, the situation in my department is somewhat typical. I don't presume that there are going to be any quick solutions to this situation. I don't believe that any partnership is going to solve this immediately. In fact, it has got to be a limited partnership. Education has got the heart of this problem. They are going to have to solve it. But, we are going to need some help. In the way of advice, I would suggest that you avoid some nonsolutions. There has been much attention given to the number of non-U.S. citizens teaching engineering in the United States. Today, just under one-half of our graduate students in engineering are not U.S. citizens. As you seek to find solutions, you should avoid those quick fixes such as a legislative cutoff of foreign engineers into our system. This is not a solution. We need some of them. Also, I think in this time of budgetary restraint, it is not realistic nor even desirable to think of government funds bailing out the educational situation. I do believe that government can obtain commitments from industry, volunteer organizations such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, universities, and the general public to provide support, even if no other way, but simply recognizing that we really do have a problem here. I would like to see encouragement of agencies of the Federal Government assist in providing the engineering schools with assistance in their real problems of manpower. It would seem to meagain, I'm not a lawyer-that the tax incentive kind of thing that could be provided by the Government might be something along the lines of offering to industry the possibility of paying some portion of their taxes to me instead of to you. I hope that the Government will obtain a commitment from industry. I can assure you that the volunteer organizations are already trying their hardest to get into this problem and get a handle on it. There will be many groups wrestling with this problem in the next few months. In January of next year, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, along with other founder societies, will be having a forum. There are other forums that are going to go on in the spring. We are going to support those forums. We are going to invite members of the other technical societies and people that are presenting some of the testimony here before you today. Hopefully, we will have members of government as well. We are going to attack this problem and come up with some solutions. Finally, I would like to say that ASME with its volunteers and resources stands ready to do what we can to help in this dilemma which is facing our Nation today. I am in a position right now to offer the resources of this society to your committee. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Gaither follows.] 55 ing in space. 1'z bers into. I have is overaged. It ce on the equipme my departme y quick solutions hip is going to s imited partnerst They are going help. u avoid some nors to the number nited States. Tod engineering are should avoid th engineers into them. nt, it is not realis nds bailing out t rnment can obta cations such as th niversities, and er way, but simp re. cies of the Feder commitment fro organizations problem and get! ng with this pro t year, the Amer ith other founde er forums that ar port those forums technical societie imony here before overnment as well me up with some its volunteers an p in this dilemm tion right now to appear before you and provide testimony on the problems surrounding engineering education and manpower. First, let me offer compliments and support to the fine presentations that have already been made before you this morning by my colleagues. I hope that I can be regarded as two resources. The first role is that of an educator in the field of mechanical engineering where the manpower problem is especially recognized as the broadest of engineering disciplines. William Everett (an eminent scholar and Dean of the University of Illinois) perhaps described it |