University Daily Kansan
Page 11
More Engineers Needed in U.S.
Despite an increased demand for engineers, this year marks the fourth consecutive year that there has been a decrease in the number of undergraduates in engineering schools.
By Terry Murphy
The KU undergraduate enrollments in engineering have followed the national pattern. Present enrollments are about 30 per cent below the 1957 peak, according to John S. McNown, Dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture.
THIS NATIONAL DECLINE has caused great concern among educators and industrialists. Unless the tide is stemmed, industry will be hard pressed to maintain its present pace of development.
The decline defies the law of supply and demand. There will be twice as many industrial recruiters on the KU campus this year as there will be engineering seniors seeking employment.
A bright note in the declining enrollment picture is a steady increase in the quality of engineering graduates.
THE NUMBER OF ENGINEERS graduated each year does not fill the requirements for normal replacements. On top of this, expansion programs and the present growth of new industries have created additional demands for engineering talents.
Industry is faced with competition for engineering seniors from graduate schools. Last September, 185 students enrolled in KU graduate courses leading to the master of science degree in engineering. Those 185 graduate students represent an increase of more than a third from the fall term of 1958.
Because of the great demand, the initial starting salary offered to graduates of KU's School of Engineering and Architecture goes up each year by about $50 a month.
THE NUMBER OF PERSONS in KU doctoral programs in engineering has nearly doubled since 1958, with 38 post M.S. graduates working toward the Ph.D. degree in chemical and electrical engineering mechanics. This increase in doctoral candidates has not been as spectacular nationwide as it has at KU. From 1958 to 1961 there has been a nationwide increase of 23 per cent at the M.S. level and 44 per cent at the Ph.D. level.
KU's increase in graduate school engineers is greater than the national average. The number of students taking advanced courses increases the quality but also heightens the shortage to meet industry's needs.
Graduate programs are increasingly important because the engineer of the future must undergo an ever more rigorous education. The fifth year of study will soon supplant the senior year as the period of intensive specialization. The many challenges in new disciplines offer an exciting but more demanding period of development.
The very names of the new fields are intriguing: plastic design of thin concrete shells; solid state devices; micro-miniaturization of circuits; plasma jets; and ground effect machines.
THESE CHANGES in engineering fields are reflected on the KU campus. New laboratories like those for the nuclear reactor and environmental health engineering have been built. New courses such as the theory of communication and elastic stability have been established.
Another example of change are new professors who study circuits which react in a few billionths of a second and the metallurgy of fine metallic powders.
What with the new facilities and increasing emphasis on engineering education, the future for aspiring engineers is bright.
THE ENGINEERING SCHOOLS are not crowded, up to date facilities are available, salaries are high and the industrial field is undermanned and still expanding.
Economists talk of future trouble in finding work for everyone in an expanding population. From the looks of things they need not worry about finding work for engineers.
DIXON'S CHICKEN DINNER
Friday, April 20, 1962
Delicious Georgia Fried Chicken Dinner
$1.45
- 4 Choice Pieces * Tossed Salad
* French Fries * Bread & Butter
Boat of Chicken
- Tossed Salad
- Bread & Butter
- 2. Pieces
- French Fries
only 75c
Freshly Prepared in only 18 Minutes
DIXON'S DRIVE-IN
2500 W. 6th
The Senate Investigates
SEN. BARTLETT: I must say that I do not have one. I do not know much about Fabian Socialism.
SEN. BARTLETT (D. ALA):
General, I note that a mandatory change was made in a speech you delivered before the National Strategy Seminar on Jan. 21, 1961. You had undertaken to say: "We will be blocked not only by selfish interests who are unable to rise to the occasion, but by the Fabian Socialists and Communists who," and so forth. Would you equate the Fabian Socialists and Communists?
GEN. TRUDEAU: (CHIEF OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, U.S. ARMY): I do not know that my definition of Fabian Socialism agrees with yours. Senator, because I don't know what yours is—
And this represents some of those to the left who seem to appear at various times, usually anonymously, and not in the records of Mr. Hoover, as are the card-carrying Communists, who sometimes raise questions as to where we are going or where they would like us to go.
GEN. TRUDEAU: Perhaps I should not either, but it is a term that has come down, as I understand it, from a society of socialists that was organized in 1884 to spread socialist principles gradually...
I cannot name these individuals. I think there are some of them and where they are I don't know. But in this term of "Fellow travellers," I was associating it with people who are definitely left of the center, and I base the center in my interpretation as being an advocate of those principles on which our country is established, including the spiritual guidance and God and the respect for the dignity of man.
The Fabian Socialists, as such, using the tactics of (the famous Roman General) Fabius himself, are supposed to be those who lean toward Communism, perhaps a little more toward that intermediate step socialism, and in the belief that that can be attained and should be attained without revolution and by evolution...
And the belief in private enterprise within reasonable direction and not in the control of the state, so that man becomes a slave. This is where I stand with respect to the center position. The people I am talking about, whatever terminology I happened to use at the time, fall in the category that are substantially to the left of this position.
And to these people sometimes the individual who stands as solidly to the center of things we have long believed in, is attributed to be an extreme right wing radical, without evidence of this being the fact, but making good news as far as they are concerned. I hope this
answers your question. Senator Bartlett.
SEN. BARTLETT: In my opinion you have made a most helpful statement and you have been a splendid witness.
Practical politics consists in ignoring facts—Henry Brooks Adams
Short Ones
Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem—for purely religious purposes, of course—to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate—Rudyard Kipling
—Senate inquiry into "military muzzling" Jan. 24.
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I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.—Frank Moore Colby
The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. The prize of the general is not a bigger tent, but command—Former Justice of the Supreme Court Holmes
That we should practice what we preach is generally admitted; but anyone who preaches what he and his hearers practice must incur the gravest moral disapprobation.—Logan Pearls Smith.