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By
Lois Slavin, ESD Communications
Director – April 18, 2007
Resilience
is important to Professor Yossi Sheffi, best-selling author
of The
Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive
Advantage. An international expert in supply chain
management, Sheffi recently turned his attention to resilience
in engineering education at MIT and its impact on US competitiveness.
“Southeast
Asia produces ten times more engineers annually than the
US, many comparable to our highest quality professionals.
If MIT and other US schools continue to generate a large
number of ‘traditional’ engineers, trained for
a manufacturing economy, then engineering will become a
commodity,” Sheffi warned a standing-room-only audience
at the sixth annual Charles L. Miller
lecture.
Yossi
Sheffi at the April 5th
Charles L. Miller Lecture. |
Sheffi,
ProSheffi, Professor of Engineering Systems, Professor of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director of the
MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics referenced recent reports
by the National Academy of Science and the National Academy
of Engineering to build his argument for how to address
the “Sputnik challenge” of the 21st century.
He identified that as the design and operation of complex
systems aimed at health care provision, education, security,
and energy independence.
He
said the important challenge is to educate engineers who
can go beyond designing complicated technical systems
(such as airplanes). They need to be able to design complex
systems of which new technologies are part (like air transportation
systems), where technology intertwines with environmental,
political, economic, managerial and other systems. These
engineers will lead complex systems design, whose objectives
include many “ilities,” such as flexibility,
compatibility, and safety.
Sheffi
advocated a two-pronged approach for MIT: continuing to
educate world class technical experts – the geeks
– to be practicing engineers who design complicated
systems, while preparing world-class leaders – the
chiefs – to design complex systems.
The
new curriculum may include engineering and social science
classes taught jointly by SOE and SHASS; engineering courses
with imbedded managerial concepts and case studies taught
by SOE and Sloan; mandatory studies abroad; and a leadership
curriculum. (He referenced the leadership course offered
by ESD's Master
of Engineering in Logistics program as an example.)
Citing
MIT’s Reports to the President, Sheffi pointed out
that a 20% reduction in undergraduate engineering degrees
and a doubling in management degrees awarded by MIT in the
past five years shows students are signaling the need to
go beyond technical curriculum.
According
to Sheffi, the good news – and the bad news –
is that the MIT SOE is #1. Its top ratings, strong faculty
and students, culture of merit-based promotion and tenure,
entrepreneurial spirit, and unsurpassed reputation are a
source of pride. At the same time the SOE suffers from conservatism
and calcification.” Many outstanding faculty members
are hired – but it’s unclear that they are working
on the right problems,” he surmised.
Sheffi
acknowledged the many hurdles to implementing a new curriculum
alongside “MIT Classic,” specifically identifying
knowledge integration, balancing between the two tracks,
and faculty recognition. He asserted, however, that MIT
presently has an unprecedented opportunity. A new president,
new senior administration, and soon all new deans may provide
the opportunity for profound changes.
In
concluding the event, ESD Professor Daniel Roos called on
the audience to “work together to ensure that this
issue gets exposure – and action – within MIT
now.”
| About
the Charles L. Miller Lecture
Professor Joseph Sussman, JR East Professor of Engineering
Systems and Civil and Environmental Engineering, introduced
the 6th annual Charles
L. Miller lecture. Co-sponsored by MIT’s
Engineering Systems Division (ESD) and the Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), the
series is named for Miller, who was former MIT CEE
Department Head from 1962 to 1969. Miller died in
2000.
In addition to introducing information technology
into CEE, Miller recognized civil engineering as the
producer of large complex systems. He believed that
these systems carry a tremendous capacity to change—for
good or ill—the quality of life of people internationally,
as civil engineering systems intersect with economic,
environmental, and social systems.
“Charlie’s
recognizing the importance of large complex systems,
and his creation of the CE Systems Laboratory, are
precursors to ESD’s formation 30 years later,”
said Sussman. “I have therefore always thought
it appropriate that the Miller lecture is jointly
sponsored by ESD and CEE.” |
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