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BEST PRACTICES FOR SUCCESS
Dr. Alvernon Walker, professor and chair of
the Department of Engineering and Aviation
Sciences
its college students
earning undergrad
degrees in science
and engineering.
Quoting
President Obama,
Thibodeau’s piece
noted that the United
States produced
126,194 bachelors,
masters, and Ph.D.
graduates in 2009.
That seems to critics
of Mr. Obama’s
call for an increase
of 10,000 B.S.
degree engineers
a year to be plenty
enough engineers
for America’s
needs. But against
the backdrop of
other countries’
surging production of science and technology graduates — India
and China alone boast hundreds of thousands of graduates each
year — it does not seem so plentiful. And contrasted against a
backdrop starker still, it seems far less plentiful, as executives
of many industries, especially in the booming American energy
fields, talk of a “Big Crew Change” as Baby Boomers retire, and
taking with them much of the intellectual capital that propelled
American industry to world leadership in the 21st Century. Today’s
production may indeed be a lot less plentiful than what is
needed for the capital projects America needs going forward.
The Makers of Change
On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Dean Alade and his colleague,
Dr. Alvernon Walker, professor and chair of the Department
of Engineering and Aviation Sciences, are looking at
the problem from the heavy-lift end: Decades after Dr. John
Slaughter led a major National Academy of Engineering investigation
of the barriers preventing African Americans from full
participation in engineering and science careers — a generation
since the founding of the National Action Council on Minorities
in Engineering — Blacks, now some 15 percent of the American
population, still represent only a reported 4 percent of America’s
engineers.
Heavy lifting means getting students from very diverse,
underserved backgrounds, most of them first-generation collegegoers,
talented but underexposed, prepped and equipped for
careers that will take them far from the rural, semi-rural, and yes,
even inner-city urban areas in which many grew up for the betterment
of their lives and for the betterment of American society
as a whole.
the University of Utah, heads a school that straddles business
as well as technology studies. Inducted into the AACSB Beta
Gamma Sigma Honor Society in 2011, he has been involved in
international assignments sponsored by the United State Agency
for International Development in Sub-Saharan Africa and is coexecutor
and policy analyst and business consultant to emerging
businesses in South Africa’s wine industry.
Dr. Walker, who earned his bachelor’s degree and M.S. in
electrical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University
and his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, is a member
of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Association
for Computing Machinery and has been inducted into
Sigma Xi, the International Science and Engineering Honor Society,
and Eta Kappa Nu, the International Electrical and Computer
Engineering Honor Society.
Clearly neither one, working in an area where there are no
other engineering schools for under-served minority and nonminority
career aspirants, thinks the critics fighting the expansion
of engineering education in America are making any sense.
According to Dean Alade, the
state of Maryland has allocated
$93 million for construction of
a new classroom and research
building for students in “STEM”
disciplines, set to open occupancy
in 2016.
Impressive Credits
Alade, who earned his Ph.D. in industrial economics from
40 USBE&IT I FALL 2015 www.blackengineer.com