Transcending Boundaries in Research and Graduate Education
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Dr. Joseph Bordogna
Deputy Director
Chief Operating Officer National Science Foundation
Biography
Remarks, Western Association of Graduate Schools
46th Annual Meeting
Phoenix, Arizona
March 6, 2004
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Thank you, Bianca1,
for that generous introduction.
As you likely know, Bianca's personal acumen, as well as her depth
of understanding garnered from her association with WAGS, is much
appreciated in her national service at NSF.
It's a pleasure to speak to you all tonight – an assembly
of deans who are guiding graduate and professional programs in
many disciplines on campuses throughout the West. I feel a close
connection to you, having served as dean of the school of engineering
and applied science at the University of Pennsylvania. So I'm familiar
with the challenges and the rewards that go with the territory.
I'm also pleased to be speaking at the Arizona Science Center,
an appropriate setting for an NSF-oriented discussion. And I appreciate
the wonderful presentations by Arizona State University students
and faculty of work being supported by NSF funds.
To begin my remarks this evening, I want to share with you a poem
by British poet, Wendy Cope, for a bit of levity and to open our
discussion of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
I was given this poem by a colleague of mine, Dan Hoffman, who
studied engineering as an undergraduate, became an English professor,
and crowned his career as Poet Laureate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wendy Cope's poem plays on themes of function, beauty, and reward
and their integration in our culture. It was composed as a response
to a lament by a U.K. Engineers' Council letter posted in the London
Times, to wit: "Why isn't there an Engineers' Corner in Westminster
Abbey? In Britain we've always made more fuss of a ballad than
a blueprint..."
The posting went on to suggest that sans recognition in the Abbey,
engineers do not enjoy the presence in society enjoyed by other
careers and are thus minimized. In response to the posting, Wendy,
with lighthearted humor, wrote:
We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints –
That's why so many poets end up rich,
While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.
Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?
Whereas the person who can write a sonnet
Has got it made. It's always been the way,
For everybody knows that we need poems
And everybody reads them every day.
Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering –
You're sure to need another job as well;
You'll have to plan your projects in the evenings
Instead of going out. (It isn't swell).
While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimler's,
You'll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,
With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,
With no hope, even, of a modest bust.
No wonder small (tots) dream of writing couplets
And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train,
There's far too much encouragement for poets –
That's why this country's going down the drain.
Wendy's observations are astute. Nothwithstanding the lack of
recognition for engineers in the Abbey, both poets and engineers
are creative and share common traits: they create lovely things
that thrill our senses, enliven our souls, and add quality to our
lives...all for a "modest" fee of course. Both seek to
improve the quality of life, make us see the world whole, and propel
us to actions we otherwise would not take.
The poem also reveals that poets and engineers suffer misconceptions
about each other, as do most specialized groups in our society.
These misconceptions disrupt the lines of understanding and yield
narrow vision, especially about societal trends. Examples of misinformed
vision abound and illustrate how easy it is for a specialized person
to miss something that might be obvious to someone with a more
holistic understanding of the world and its parts.
Now on to the specific business of your workshop. Tonight I want
to share with you some thoughts as your integrative partner in
preparing graduate students to succeed in an increasingly complex
societal environment of rapid technological change, utter globalness,
and enormous capacity to do well. My major aim is to give you courage
to embrace the contemporary path along which Academe is roiling,
as it responds to an increasingly robust integration of research
and education within a context of both disciplinary and organizational
boundary crossings.
We've made some progress in this realm in recent years in response
to marketplace pull, but we're still short of our goal of institutionalizing
its impact on organizational change in the way Academe has structured
itself. Now is the time for all of us to accelerate our efforts
-- so the nation can reap the benefits of investments being made
to reach this end: a yeasty university construct yielding knowledge
creation, knowledge integration, and knowledge transfer carried
into life. Thus, the title of my remarks as: "Transcending
Boundaries in Research and Graduate Education."
To effect this change, my generation of educational leaders has
an important boundary of its own to transcend -- the divide between
that familiar (20th century) academic environment where we were
all educated, and the evolving 21st century context where the next
generations will learn and work. I would add that there is no choice
here since we are being compelled by intellectual events to so
move. Even more, the beginnings of Academe presaged this 21st century "moment
of truth." It's worth recalling how the Groves of Academus
became the start of "making connections to learn."
Over 2,000 years ago, a well-to-do citizen of ancient Greece offered
some of his real estate, a grove, to a thoughtful fellow citizen
of considerable intellect. The thoughtful citizen desired to make
the grove a place where fellow thinkers could gather for hearty
discussion on matters of common and uncommon interest. Thus, did
Academus yield property to Plato for the purpose of making connections
to learn. In those days, a physical place was absolutely needed
to develop and share knowledge, so Academus' gift was well received.
Plato's desire to network intellect was just one example of similar
efforts, developing independently over several centuries in a variety
of cultures around the world, that marked the birth of scholarly
enterprise. As time passed, connections to learning proliferated,
first slowly, as armies of scriveners valiantly copied tomes that
filled libraries for their patrons, and then more quickly, as technological
innovation increasingly became a facet of wealth creation and daily
life. The flow of commerce inexorably meshed with the exchange
of knowledge. From the scriveners to the printing press, to metallic
telegraph and then telephone wires, to transoceanic cables to satellites,
to glass fibers to wireless and beyond – the connectivity
is becoming ubiquitous. Even more, the individual wisdom of many
is being integrated for all.
From our vantage point today, we can see that holistic change
has been waiting in the wings for many years. In his Mission
of the University (1930), José Ortega y Gassett foresaw the
need for synthesis and integration as a function of academe. He
wrote:
"The need to create sound synthesis and systemization of
knowledge...will call out a kind of scientific genius which hitherto
has existed only as an aberration: the genius for integration.
Of necessity this means specialization, as all creative effort
does, but this time the [person] will be specializing in the construction
of the whole."
As you might suppose, I see a close connection between NSF's core
mission and the pressing need for us to meet our "moment of
truth" by integrating research and education. Since its inception
in 1950, NSF has responded to two fundamental questions for the
nation asked at the end of World War II: "How do we sustain
the partnership between government, industry, and universities
formed to win the war and use it for societal progress in peacetime?" and "How
do we increase our scientific capital?" In his 1944-45 correspondence
with Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, Vannevar Bush
offered a concise answer:
"First, we must have plenty of men and women trained in science.
Second, we must strengthen the centers of fundamental research,
which are principally the colleges, universities, and research
institutions. The most important ways in which the Government can
promote this research are to increase the flow of new scientific
knowledge through support of basic research, and to aid in the
development of scientific talent."
In pursuing this mission, NSF's efforts have morphed over 50 years
to a strategic vision of "enabling the nation's future through
discovery, learning and innovation" with a focus on three
strategic goals: people, ideas, and tools. We invest in people
to create a diverse, competitive, and globally-engaged U.S. workforce
of scientists, engineers, technologists, and well-prepared citizens.
We fund the most promising ideas to advance discovery in science
and engineering connected to learning, innovation, and service
to society. We invest in tools – broadly accessible, state-of-the-art
science and engineering facilities and other infrastructure – to
promote and facilitate that discovery, learning, and innovation.
We accomplish our daily work by keeping three strategies in play:
- investing in intellectual capital
- integrating research and education
- promoting partnerships
During the past two decades, events at NSF leading us to today's
formally stated strategic thrust tell the story of how we reached
this point: What are these events and how are they synergistically
linked?
- This year is the 30th anniversary of NSF's Industry/University
Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC) program, which implemented
and validated the concept of an integrated partnership between
academe and industry. This successful experiment was followed
in the mid-80s by the Engineering Research Centers (ERC), as
much to educate holistic engineers as to capitalize on large-scale
industry-university partnerships. Soon afterwards came the Science
and Technology Centers (STC) investments, which institutionalized
the concept of integrative partnerships at NSF center programs.
- The Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) and the
Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)
were started more than two decades ago. SBIR directs some NSF
research monies into proof-of-concept research in small business
innovation, while EPSCoR focused resources on stimulating competitive
research capability in regions desiring to build this capacity.
Very recently, NSF has capitalized on the experiences garnered
from these investments to create the Partnerships for Innovation
(PFI) program as the ubiquitous enabler of regional innovation.
- The Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) program, focused
solely on research, has evolved into Faculty Early Career Development
(FECD or CAREER), which promotes the integration of research
and education.
- NSF's competitive Awards for the Integration of Research and
Education (RAIRE and AIRE) have highlighted the nation's leadership
in the integration of research and education. Descriptions of
the RAIRE/AIRE models from around the country are now available
online: Reinvigorating the Undergraduate Experience, edited by
Linda R. Kauffman and Janet E. Stocks (Carnegie Mellon University).2
- The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP)
investment has yielded more than 200,000 graduates. It provides
not only baccalaureate scientists and engineers, but also a
pool of potential doctoral students and a PhD pool through the
Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP)
program, from which universities can draw faculty.
- The fellows and traineeship programs now (1) yield couplings
with K-12 teachers and students through GK-12 fellowships and
(2) provide integrative doctoral studies funding through the
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT).
- The all-NSF priority areas enrich the disciplines through cross-boundary
investments at robust interfaces along the S&E frontiers.
Six of these are currently underway: Biocomplexity in the Environment,
Human and Social Dynamics, Information Technology Research,
Mathematical Sciences, Nanoscale Science and Engineering, and
Workforce for the 21st Century.
- NSF's investments in large facilities increasingly focus on
distributed tools ubiquitously accessible across geographic boundaries.
- The effort to calculate what it would cost annually to capitalize
on the excellence of the nation in frontier research and education
has become a contextual envelope for developing NSF budgets
under any economic scenario.
- The merit review criteria of intellectual merit and broader
impact are working well. They operate within a framework of integrating
research and education and broadening participation.
Since "integrating research and education" is to be
embedded in all investment decisions, let me give you its overarching
definition:
"The weaving of knowledge creation, knowledge integration,
and knowledge transfer into a robust whole that both defines and
enables the process of continuous learning and the quest for new
knowledge."
At all levels the learning process is thus enabled and enriched
by:
- discovery, curiosity, and inquiry
- the dynamics of the shared student-teacher experience
- a holistic faculty and student body and effective partnerships
facilitated by information/cognitive resources
This is an ambitious and comprehensive blueprint (and maybe a
Wendy Cope ballad) for recasting the way research and education
may flow in the future. Enacting it requires a fresh perspective
and receptivity to system thinking and ever more meaningful partnerships
among leaders in academe, government, and industry. I ask you to
take the lead by breaking new ground on this issue, so our students
garner the capacity to breach both disciplinary and organizational
boundaries.
In our lifetimes, we have seen a half-century of technological
and scientific innovation redefine the way we live, work, and communicate.
Complexity and transformative change are now the overarching characteristics
of 21st century life -- and the pace of that change is accelerating.
If we are to prepare students to contribute and prosper in new
worlds of continuous change, we need to focus on the values and
beliefs that the integration of research and education bring.
At its core, the integration of research and education is a powerful
means of not only educating more highly skilled engineers and scientists,
but also a more science and technology literate citizenry. In NSF
terms, it can help us develop the nation's intellectual capital
and meet our PEOPLE goal of creating "a diverse, competitive,
and globally-engaged U.S. workforce of scientists, engineers, technologists,
and well-prepared citizens."
Coming to closure on my remarks here tonight, I want to read a
portion of the remarks I made in January at an NSF CAREER PI Mentoring & Networking
Workshop. I entitled my remarks "CAREER: Forging a Community
of Inspiration." This can serve here to share with you the
kind of daily tempo underway at NSF in trying to realize the NSF
strategic vision of enabling the nation's future through discovery,
learning, and innovation. Keep in mind as I read that there now
exists a total of 3,000 CAREER Awardees. Thus, there is a critical
mass out there in academe ready to cause big trouble!
Remarks at CAREER PI Mentoring/Networking Workshop:
"NSF fosters a network of partnerships to help achieve the
nation's goals, recognizing that our academic partners are the
leaders who create, integrate, and transfer scientific knowledge.
At its very best, our higher education system serves as a creative "hothouse" that
supports continuous learning and contributes new knowledge across
many disciplines. It is clear that all of you in the CAREER community
play a key role in maximizing the nation's scientific capital.
Vannevar Bush would be proud!
I call on you as leaders to expand the community of inspiration
so that it flourishes at your own institutions. You are in a position
to help guide on-going change in academe because you share many
talents above and beyond your core areas of expertise. Let me highlight
four areas of change underway in the academic community and suggest
some of the roles you might play as agents of that change.
First, research and education in higher education is becoming
more integrated. As master integrators, you can shepherd this change
by making your research the centerpiece of your teaching. This
integration gives students a direct experience of the real-world
research and discovery processes of science and engineering. It
also works the other way: Student perspectives can inject out-of-the-box
ideas and questions into research and education thinking.
Second, academe must do more to promote diversity to ensure excellence
in the science and engineering workforce. As futurists, you see
the connection between broadening participation in university science
and engineering programs and creating a U.S. workforce capable
of sustaining the nation's S&E momentum. As teachers and advocates
within academe, you are already leading by example. Success in
this area is essential to creating the community of inspiration.
Third, specialization within institutions of higher learning must
be coupled with cross-boundary approaches. As holistic
designers,
you can lead new generations of learners across disciplinary boundaries.
In your research, many of you are already creating exciting new
partnerships across disciplines. It's past time to also infuse
teaching with the benefits of interdisciplinary thinking.
And fourth, new kinds of knowledge must be thoroughly and productively
infused into the larger society. As enterprise
enablers, you can
help facilitate dynamic partnerships between the knowledge creators
of academe and U.S. business innovators. Your leadership in promoting
and sustaining these alliances can expedite the introduction of
new ideas and evolving technologies into the economy and the workplace.
Holistic change has been waiting in the wings for many years.
In Mission of the University (1930), José Ortega y Gassett
foresaw the need for synthesis and integration as a function of
academe. He wrote:
"The need to create sound synthesis and systemization of
knowledge...will call out a kind of scientific genius which hitherto
has existed only as an aberration: the genius for integration.
Of necessity this means specialization, as all creative effort
does, but this time the [person] will be specializing in the construction
of the whole."
Leadership of this kind requires consciousness, courage, and an
intuitive interest in the future. A month before the signing of
the Declaration of Independence, John Adams looked into our nation's
future and wrote:
"We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete,
unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations."
228 years later, "we are in the very midst" of a series
of new revolutions that will determine our next generations' future.
Just like the cosmological universe, human knowledge and our capacities
for creating future knowledge are expanding at an exponential,
accelerating rate.
These revolutions, both simultaneous and complexly interrelated,
provide our richest opportunity in history to strengthen the learning
community of our nation across all scales of distance, time, scope
and experience. That opportunity is within your talent and capability
to achieve.
We trust your judgment and expertise. And we are grateful for
your energy and enthusiasm for the challenges ahead.
End of Remarks at CAREER PI Mentoring/Networking Workshop:
So, too, does NSF trust WAGS' judgment and expertise. And so,
too, are we grateful for your energy and enthusiasm for the challenges
ahead.
Thank you for a lovely visit with you and especially the fine
work you do for our nation.
1 Bianca Bernstein, introducer and NSF Director, Division of Graduate Education.
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2 http://www.cur.org/publications/AIRE_RAIRE/toc.asp
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Return to a list of Dr. Bordogna's speeches.
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