Public policy colloquium hits new attendance mark

A record 126 deans from 41 states attended the February 13-14 EDC Public Policy Colloquium in Washington, D.C. Program highlights included substantial discussion of how engineering colleges might help improve K-12 science and math achievement in the United States.

At a Capitol Hill Reception the first night of the event, EDC Chair Stephen Director presented new House Science Committee Chair Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) with an award recognizing his outstanding contributions to national science and engineering public policy. Several deans of engineering from New York joined Director in presenting the award to Chairman Boehlert: William Baeslack, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Edward Bogucz, Syracuse University; Eleanor Baum, The Cooper Union; Dean L. D. Pye, Alfred University; and Richard Heist, Manhattan College.

Attendees heard former senator and astronaut John Glenn warn in his keynote speech that, in K-12 science and math education, "what was good enough for the past won't be good enough for the future." Representatives Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) both described legislation they have advocated to advance precollege learning and instruction in science and math. NAE President William Wulf stressed the integral role that diversity-both cultural and personal-must play in the future of engineering education.

A panel of engineering and education deans from three schools described strategies for forming a closer relationship between their two sectors of the university community. A range of Capitol Hill staffers and media figures from the science and technology policy arena described the new, fiscally straitened environment for federal spending, warning that the increases of the last several years will very likely end with President Bush's first budget. The Feb. 28 release of Bush's budget blueprint confirmed this, with only defense, education, and NIH budgets increasing by more than the rate of inflation. The deans received status reports on the new National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at NIH and on negotiations between the State Department and the Office of Science and Technology Policy to work out complications in the recently modified International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Deans Stephen Director of the University of Michigan, Bill Schowalter of the University of Illinois, and David Wormley of Penn State University, drawing on their experiences visiting Capitol Hill, offered advice on how to build useful, long-lasting relationships with members of Congress.