MINUTES OF THE 1997 BUSINESS MEETING, AAAS
SECTION ON ENGINEERING (M), SEATTLE CONVENTION CENTER, FEBRUARY 14, 1997,
12:30-3:30 P.M.
1. In the absence of Section Chair Richard Seebass, who was ill and unable to attend the meeting, Chair-Elect Ray Bowen opened the meeting at 12:30 PM. He asked those present to introduce themselves. A list of attendees is appended.
2. The Secretary read the names of officers and committee members who had been elected during the 1996 Section elections. These were: Chair-Elect -- Joseph Bordogna; Member-at-Large of the Section Committee -- Nancy A. Da Silva; Nominating Committee members -- Erich Bloch and Skip Fletcher; Council Delegates -- Jane Evans and John Maulbetsch.
3. Secretary Lear reviewed the process for nomination and election of AAAS Fellows. He then read the names of the eighteen Section M members who had been elected to the grade of Fellow in 1996 and introduced those who were present. He called on attendeees to suggest to any member of the Steering Group names of deserving nominees for election in 1997.
4. Bowen announced the time and location of the single symposium at the current annual meeting for which the Section was the primary sponsor ("High-Speed Civil Transport: Why and When?", organized by Section Chair Richard Seebass and Michael Henderson of Boeing). He also called attention to two symposia for which Section M was a co-sponsor and to a number of other symposia and topical lectures on the program which should be of special interest to engineers.
5. The Chair then called for topics of symposia which the Section might propose for the 1998 annual meeting in Philadelphia. After considerable discussion of each topic suggested, the following were chosen by consensus as ones which the Secretary should present at the February 16 planning session for the Philadelphia meeting:
6.
Prior to the annual meeting, Mark Frankel of AAAS and Harry Tollerton
of ASEE had requested that time be made available on the Section meeting agenda
for a briefing on a joint US-Russian project on engineering ethics. The
project, partially supported by NSF, will involve the collaboration of ASEE and
AAAS with several Russian counterpart organizations to organize and conduct a
series of three workshops in Russia during 1997 and 1998 on engineering ethics.
Since neither Tollerton nor Frankel was able to
attend the Section meeting, the briefing was presented by Dr. Vivian Weil, a
member of the project team, from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Weil
discussed the preliminary steps which had been taken by both US and Russian
participants in planning for the first workshop to be held in Russia on May 19,
1997. She noted that the primary goal of the project is to assist Russian
educators and scholars in developing materials and strategies for incorporating
ethics instruction into engineering education. Following her presentation, she
answered a number of questions from the audience regarding details of the
workshops, prospects for partial funding from Russian sources and benefits to
US participants.
7. Council Delegate Ben Leon reported that there were no resolutions scheduled for the Council meeting which required action by the Section. The only item requiring Section approval was an application from the Society for Risk Analysis for affiliation with the Engineering Section if that Society is accepted by the Council as an Affiliate Member of AAAS. A motion to appprove the affiliation application was approved unanimously by those present.
Leon noted that the Council is looking at ways in which the process of nomination and selection of AAAS Fellows might be improved and, in particular be made more competetive. It was suggested that the Section endorse a resolution to the Council approving efforts to improve the AAAS Fellow selection process. Considerable discussion followed with several present describing the fellow election process in their engineering professional societies and noting that the process usually produced a large number of nominations with a smaller number of the nominees actually elected to the grade of fellow. This is in contrast to the AAAS process in which very rarely is a nominee for fellow from a Section voted down by the Council. Not all those present saw this as a problem, pointing out that there has already been a selection made by the Section Steering Group from among the potential nominees proposed, and the credentials of those elected to the grade of Fellow is generally excellent. Others present saw a need for better publicity of the call for names of potential fellow nominees to get more involvement of other AAAS members in addition to those on the Section Steering Group (the four officers plus the four at-large members of the Section Committee.) No action was taken on the suggested resolution to the Council.
8. The Chair called for Other Business -- At this point Michael Strauss, AAAS Program Manager for Meetings, joined the Section meeting for the balance of the discussion. He reported on the attendance at the current annual meeting, which was an improvement over that of the 1996 meeting. Dresselhaus (AAAS President-Elect) raised the question of Engineering Section membership, which has fallen in recent years, citing the need to attract more young engineers into AAAS membership. A lengthy discussion followed concerning the belief by most of those present that the subscription to Science, which provides them a medium for staying abreast of the latest developments in the sciences, is the primary reason why most engineers decide to join AAAS. The question was raised as to whether a subscription to Scientific American might serve the same purpose at lower cost. It was suggested that the Section consider seeking industry support for a luncheon for local engineering graduate students at the 1998 Philadelphia meeting to introduce these young engineers to AAAS and to the wide variety of topics in the sciences and engineering which are addressed at an annual meeting.
The Secretary and the Chair reported on the status of the efforts by the Section to promote publication in Science by engineers. They reviewed the meetings in past years with Science editors and the appointment of a committee to encourage engineers of stature to submit tutorial articles on emerging technologies for publication in Science. To date, there had been no success in pursuading engineers to seek publication in Science (generally, as opposed to publication in one of the engineering professional journals.) Pister suggested that the Section approach Simon Ramo to see if he would be interested in authoring such a publication.
9. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:10 P.M.
W. Edward Lear, Secretary
Approved unanimously by those present.