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On Thursday, January 11, 2007, at the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in
Reno, Nevada, ARMD Associate Administrator Dr. Lisa Porter moderated an
afternoon breakout session to explore actionable ways through which NASA
can partner to develop a technically-directed workforce.
This breakout session was a follow-up to ARMD’s workforce development
workshop held June 2006 in Washington, DC, where participants offered
ideas on lecture series, fellowships, non-traditional support materials,
assessment options, and ways to generate "the excitement factor." The
goal of the January 2007 session was to build on the ideas expressed
during the first workshop and to elicit suggestions from participants
new to the discourse.
The AIAA breakout session attracted 60 participants from academia,
industry, nonprofit organizations, and government to brainstorm
strategies for engaging, inspiring, and accommodating students with
technical interests.
A number of general issues impacting the ability to attract and retain a
technical workforce were identified by participants during the session.
For example, representatives from industry raised many issues including:
- the promotion of cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
approaches;
- the development of programs that provide students with real-world
work experiences;
- the creation of effective vehicles through which industry and
academia can inform each other of their needs; and
- the balance of the need for education with the need for training.
And representatives from academia, including several graduate students
in the audience, raised many issues including:
- the promotion of multi-disciplinary approaches in partnership with
industry and government;
- the use of multi-disciplinary approaches to show students how their
knowledge can be used in the real world;
- improving the percentage of aerospace engineering students who take
jobs in the aerospace sector as opposed to other engineering sectors;
- offering courses in novel ways to engage students;
- offering advanced technical courses while simultaneously addressing
learning challenges brought by students from K-12 years; and
- responding to pressure being placed on many universities to reduce
credit hours.
Session participants also uniformly expressed the need to imbue
excitement for aerospace engineering in students by telling the personal
stories of professionals already working in the field, and to create
ways to communicate to students the curiosity, awe, and excitement these
professionals feel when they walk a production line floor or uncover a
key finding.
In response to many of these issues, participants suggested a variety of actions, including:
- Investigate the availability of tech-prep consortiums or Industrial
Advisory Boards as venues for engaging industry and academia;
- Pursue capstone design projects that promote multi-disciplinary
integration and cross-fertilization with industry and government;
- Research the outcomes of NASA-funded space grant activity and
Workforce Development Project activities and then share any conclusions
of what worked and what did not work;
- Pursue cooperative programs as a valuable tool for offering work
experience and for transitioning students into the workplace;
- Explore whether industry can identify a demand and justification for
offering continuing education requirements and web-based courses;
- Explore novel and underutilized options at universities for
scheduling technical courses such as winter intercession periods;
- Include the concept of "milestones" and other tools such as
Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs) and Critical Design Reviews (CDRs) in
project structures to expose students to real-world processes;
- Communicate from industry to academia when industry has lulls in
wind tunnel research during which academia could use the workspace at
reduced cost; and
- Explore the ability of industry aeronautics leaders or NASA leaders
to serve on committees at state and national levels that set topics for
K-12 standards and core curriculum requirements to advocate inclusion of
emerging technologies.
At the conclusion of the breakout session, Dr. Porter identified a
number of actionable items that ARMD will pursue, including:
- Identify whether data from NASA-funded Workforce Development
Projects can be accessed and reviewed to generate lessons-learned,
particularly from "success stories", from among the different projects;
and
- Explore feasibility of partnering with the Air Force to create
something similar to the University Nanosatellite Program, but with an
aeronautics focus, as a way to introduce students to the concept of
design-and-build and the discipline associated with those processes.
Comments and input about ARMD's activities in support of workforce
development and higher education should be directed to:
Tony Springer
NASA Aeronautics Research
tony.springer@nasa.gov
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