3 Key excerpts on "Engineering Institution"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Story of Industrial Engineering

  The Rise from Shop-Floor Management to Modern Digital Engineering

  • Adedeji B. Badiru(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Even today, I still have fond memories of my IE professors at Tennessee Technological University—Sid Gilbreath, Jack Turvaville, James R. Smith, and, later, Meenakshi Sundaram. Sid Gilbreath was (and still is) an engaging, sociable, funny, magnanimous, and accommodating individual. He is widely experienced and broadly skilled on many practical pursuits. To this day, he has continued to be my mentor, advisor, and supporter. In the days of my undergraduate studies at Tennessee Technological University, I marveled at the knowledge base, span of expertise, and professionalism of many of my engineering instructors. Being a new international student, I wondered how such a high concentration of marvelous militarily experienced engineers could be found in one small institution in a nonglamorous part of the nation. I later found out that this was not an isolated incident in one institution. It turned out that a large number of engineering professors in the 1960s and 1970s across the United States had served in the U.S. Navy or Army during World War II and other wars of that era. After the wars, through GI Bill programs, many transferred their military training, education, and expertise into lecturing at the college level. The positive impression I had of my Tennessee Tech engineering professors gave me early incentives to apply more forthright efforts to my engineering education and, subsequently, choose academia as my career path. The consequence is that the foundational knowledge acquired from the military engineers turned professors continues to serve my own students in the years that followed my own education. My conclusion is that the military directly and indirectly influenced the advancement of technical manpower in the United States. What the United States is enjoying today in terms of being a world leader is predicated on a foundation of consistent technical education over the years. For this reason, investment in industrial engineering education is essential not only to keep the military on the cutting edge of warfare technology, but also to positively impact the national landscape of education on a broad scale.

  Relevance to National Academy of Engineering’s 14 Grand Challenges

  Recognizing the urgent need to address global societal issues from a technical standpoint, in 2008, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) published the “14 Grand Challenges for Engineering.” The challenges have global implications for everyone, not just the engineering professions. As such, solution strategies must embrace all disciplines. Industrial engineering, by virtue of its global presence and wider span of application in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education can provide the technical and human foundation for addressing many of the challenges. Industrial engineers of the future will need diverse skills to tackle the multitude of issues and factors involved in adequately and successfully addressing the challenges. Industrial engineers, in particular, are needed to provide the diverse array of technical expertise, discipline, and professionalism required. STEM education provides a sustainable opportunity for all engineers to impact the 14 grand challenges as follows:

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  The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education

  • Miriam E. David, Marilyn J. Amey(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Institutions are grouped by their mission. Categories may include liberal arts, research, polytechnic, technical, special focus, and so on. A liberal arts institution requires the majority of students to take courses in social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences with a focus on critical thinking and global responsibility. A research university is a doctoral degree-granting institution known for specialized study and research activity among faculty and staff. Carnegie further categorizes doctoral institutions by the degree of research activity. Institutions also may have more specialized missions. Polytechnic institutions and institutes of technology focus on applied science, technology, and engineering. In Australia, technical and further education colleges provide vocational training to serve the regional communities similar to community colleges in the United States. Medical institutes, art and design schools, and private graduate and professional schools where the majority of students are in a common field of study are categorized by Carnegie as special focus institutions. Institutions may also be defined as faith-based institutions where the teachings of the faith are central to their mission and operations or as military institutions for their focus on training members of the military.

  Institutions are often categorized by their historically situated missions. In the United States, this includes historically Black colleges and universities, which often, but not always, predominantly serve Black students. In South Africa, historically disadvantaged institutions were designated for people of color during apartheid and continue to face disadvantages. In the United States, a tribal colleges and universities designation may be denoted to emphasize its focus on educating Native American communities and historical and cultural preservation. Additionally, a land-grant institution designation may be denoted to emphasize an institution’s public mission, focus on agriculture or engineering, or its history of receiving substantial federal financial support.

  Student Demographics

  Institutions are also categorized based on the demographics of the student body. In the United States, an institution may be classified as a minority-serving institution, as defined in the Higher Education Act, to designate that it has 25% or greater of students who belong to an associated racial or ethnic group. Minority-serving institutions include Black-serving institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, Alaska Native–serving institutions, Asian American and Native Pacific Islander–serving institutions, and Native-serving nontribal institutions. Institutions that do not have minority-serving institution designation and that have greater than 50% White enrollment are often categorized as predominantly White institutions by researchers. In China, universities may be classified as Minzu (universities of nationalities), which are universities designated for Chinese ethnic groups. Institutions also can be classified as coeducational or single gender, such as women’s colleges, based on their undergraduate student enrollment.

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  Plant Engineer's Reference Book

  • DENNIS A SNOW(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Butterworth-Heinemann

    (Publisher)

  This has been despite the fact that the UK has developed with a culture which is indifferent to engineering, the ‘respectable’ professions being those such as law or medicine, offering more money and prestige. This deeply rooted British attitude was supported by an education system in which, on the whole, applied science – engineering – was not studied in schools or universities. This contrasts with the rest of Europe, where such studies were an important part of the curricula of many schools and universities as early as the eighteenth century. Engineering was not considered suitable for those with the ability to enter a British university, where arts and sciences were studied.

  The need for education in engineering in the UK was met by the development of Mechanics Institutes. By the middle of the nineteenth century around 120 000 students per annum attended some 706 institutes on a part-time basis, thus laying the foundations for the pattern of engineering education in the UK. In 1840 the first chair in an engineering discipline (civil engineering) was established at Glasgow University, soon to be followed by one at University College, London. Oxford and Cambridge were late on the scene, establishing chairs in engineering in 1875 and 1910, respectively.

  Also peculiar to the UK is a somewhat confusing array of professional Engineering Institutions. These were originally learned societies where like-minded people met to exchange views and information. They developed into qualifying bodies by setting levels of experience and academic attainment for different grades of membership. The oldest professional Engineering Institution in the UK is the Institution of Civil Engineers, established in 1818. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was established in 1847 and the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1871. Three quarters of the approximately 35 institutions which are the Nominated Bodies of the Engineering Council were founded in the twentieth century, some quite recently, reflecting the growth of certain engineering disciplines such as nuclear engineering, computing and electronics.

  46.2 The Institution of Plant Engineers

  The Institution of Plant Engineers (IPlantE) had its origins in the Second World War, when engineers who found themselves responsible for the operation and maintenance of the large excavators and other mobile plant brought from the USA to work open-cast coal met together for the exchange of information and to discuss their problems. These meetings were so successful that the engineers concerned decided to continue them in a more formal manner through the medium of a properly incorporated body. The Memorandum of Association of ‘Incorporated Plant Engineers’ was subsequently signed on 3 September 1946.

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