March 2006

Fill the pipeline: Young minds needed to engineer Indiana's future

We have billions of dollars in road and bridge projects on the drawing board. We have major public facilities – such as Lucas Oil Stadium and Indianapolis International Airport Midfield Terminal – under construction. Our life sciences industry is driving the development of high-tech research and production centers, hospitals and health-care facilities. And our state's economic development efforts are fueling growth in other business sectors.

As an engineer, I'm excited by all of this. But I'm also concerned. We have great projects in the pipeline, but we don’t have enough young engineers in the pipeline – in other words, coming through engineering and engineering technology programs – to bring those projects to fruition. As a result, I'm concerned that a lot of this work, and the resulting economic benefits, will go to out-of-state or foreign engineering firms.

The good news is that Indiana is already addressing this issue. But it will take a sustained effort for us to remain competitive and make our vision of the future become reality.

Indiana is not alone in this problem. As a nation, we have watched the number of engineering students decline precipitously. One study noted that between 1992 and 2002 the number of engineers graduating from U.S. colleges and universities declined by 20 percent, and the number of high school students planning to enter engineering fields dropped by 30 percent.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that we're seeing a lot of gray hair among engineers. At NASA, for example, the number of engineers age 60 or older is three times greater than the number of engineers in their 20s.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world has stepped up its production of engineers. Countries such as China, Japan and India have increased their number of engineering graduates at a rapid pace.

Fortunately, this issue is receiving attention at the highest levels. In his January State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush identified math and science education as a key to our future competitiveness. "We need to encourage children to take more math and science," he said, "and to make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations."

Math and science, you see, are the basic ingredients for growing our own future engineers.

I believe that the states that embrace this challenge first will be the ones that receive the most benefit. That's why I'm encouraged by what's going on in Indiana.

First of all, Indiana is a standard-setter in Project Lead the Way, a national effort to increase the number and quality of students planning careers in engineering and engineering technology fields. In fact, with 135 middle and high schools participating – and reaching more than 14,000 students – Indiana's program is the second largest in the nation. Administered by Purdue University's College of Technology in conjunction with the Indiana Department of Education and the Department of Workforce Development, our state's Project Lead the Way program was honored in December as a model for other states to follow.

In addition, Indiana college and university engineering departments are working to connect with younger students. For example, Valparaiso University engineering students provide online homework assistance to high schoolers, the University of Notre Dame welcomes teens interested in engineering onto its campus for summer learning experiences, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's Operation Catapult attracts juniors to its campus for a hands-on engineering program.

Purdue has offered engineering-focused programs to teens for three decades, and now the university is looking beyond the students to the teachers who teach them. Two years ago, Purdue created the nation's first Department of Engineering Education, which equips educators from kindergarten to college with the skills to inspire and prepare our next generation of engineers.

A key to all of this is helping bright students understand that engineering and engineering technology are about more than buildings, bridges and highways. We must help students see that, defined more broadly, "engineers" are people who solve problems and imagine possibilities. They are fundamental to our nation's – and our state's – economic strength, vitality and leadership.

That's why Indiana must continue to push forward with the development of young engineers. Not simply so we can build highways and buildings in the next couple of decades, but so we can build bridges to future economic prosperity.