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- 2006-03-30 19:12:58 作者：admin 来源：iie 浏览次数：0 网友评论条
- Global engineering 101
Posted March 29, 2006
A Virginia Tech professor is researching the emergence and progress of engineering in several countries to determine how a nation’s engineering education shapes the profession and how an engineer is viewed in that country.
Gary Downey, professor of science & technology in society and an affiliated faculty member of the university’s department of engineering education, plans to show how engineers have been key figures in promoting their nations and cultures.
Downey said that studying the emergence of the engineering profession in a country helps to explain “the struggles of engineers today to redefine engineering education in the context of globalization.”
”Our argument is that the contrasts in systems of engineering education are shaped by contrasting ideas of national progress,” Downey added.
He is working on the project with Juan Lucena, an associate professor in the division of liberal arts and international studies at the Colorado School of Mines. The division looks at the cultural, social, and economic contexts of engineering across the globe.
How engineers are viewed
”Engineers in France value mathematical knowledge and seek to work for the state, where they have constituted the country’s highest-ranked occupation,” Downey said. “This contrasts with engineers in the United Kingdom, who value practical knowledge and work primarily in the private sector, where they constitute a relatively low-ranked occupation.
”In Germany, the status of engineering rose after unification in 1870 when precision techniques came to be seen as a new way of achieving progress by emancipating the German spirit,” he added.
The study will also examine engineering in Japan, Mexico, Brazil and the United States.
Downey said the study is an extension of a course called Engineering Cultures that he co-developed at Virginia Tech. The researchers plan to write a book later this year about their findings, Downey said.
The research project is being funded with a $172,000 National Science Foundation grant.
Downey is the 2005-2006 Boeing Company Senior Fellow in Engineering Education at the National Academy of Engineering.
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