2008 Woodie Awards
Gathering Storm at Mines
Former Lockheed-Martin CEO Speaks Up
By Hilary Brown
9/24/07 - News
Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed-Martin and member of the "Gathering Storm" committee, spoke last Thursday in the second lecture of the Erickson Distinguished Lecture series. His lecture focused on the future success of Americans in science and technology, with a focus on the education necessary to make the U.S. competitive.
Augustine discussed four growing problems in science and engineering education: the rising cost of higher education, the lack of engineering classes during the first two years of an engineering degree, the inability to condense material into a four-year degree, and the intense specialization of the different disciplines.
"The master's degree has got to become the basic degree of our profession. I realize there are a lot of problems with that, but I think it's just not possible to cover what an engineer needs to know in a 4 year undergraduate program," said Augustine.
He stressed the idea that basic engineering knowledge is not enough to be successful in the future. "Engineers who can only do the traditional kind of engineering are becoming a commodity in the world marketplace. Those jobs are going to disappear from America. People could do it for less money and do it equally well. It will be the engineer that's creative and innovative and imaginative and, as Jeff Wells says, can see around corners," said Augustine.
"How do you teach innovation? How do you teach imagination? Creativity? I think there are a lot of rules of thumb that one can teach, but the best one is through experience, in laboratories and jobs and so on," he continued. "There are certain rules - you encourage people to take risks. Prudent risks, not irrational risks. You don't punish people for failure when their efforts were well meaning and properly carried out, because you are going to have failures. You reward people for innovation."
Education isn't only to blame for a lack of creativity. "In many cases, I think our country is making it very hard for the entrepreneur, the inventor, the creator, because if things go badly they get excoriated in the newspaper, they get sued in the courts, and so on down the line," Augustine explained.
Augustine discussed four growing problems in science and engineering education: the rising cost of higher education, the lack of engineering classes during the first two years of an engineering degree, the inability to condense material into a four-year degree, and the intense specialization of the different disciplines.
"The master's degree has got to become the basic degree of our profession. I realize there are a lot of problems with that, but I think it's just not possible to cover what an engineer needs to know in a 4 year undergraduate program," said Augustine.
He stressed the idea that basic engineering knowledge is not enough to be successful in the future. "Engineers who can only do the traditional kind of engineering are becoming a commodity in the world marketplace. Those jobs are going to disappear from America. People could do it for less money and do it equally well. It will be the engineer that's creative and innovative and imaginative and, as Jeff Wells says, can see around corners," said Augustine.
"How do you teach innovation? How do you teach imagination? Creativity? I think there are a lot of rules of thumb that one can teach, but the best one is through experience, in laboratories and jobs and so on," he continued. "There are certain rules - you encourage people to take risks. Prudent risks, not irrational risks. You don't punish people for failure when their efforts were well meaning and properly carried out, because you are going to have failures. You reward people for innovation."
Education isn't only to blame for a lack of creativity. "In many cases, I think our country is making it very hard for the entrepreneur, the inventor, the creator, because if things go badly they get excoriated in the newspaper, they get sued in the courts, and so on down the line," Augustine explained.
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