Fall 1997
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Fall 1997 |
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Having been a southern Indiana local yokel all of my life (except for a few college years in Boston) I confess that I was secretly skeptical of Rose-Hulman’s efforts to globalize its curriculum and foster relationships with foreign engineering universities. Nevertheless, I did agree to accompany a few faculty members to attend a symposium on international engineering education at one of our sister institutions, Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) on the western coast of Japan. I secretly suspect that the Rose-Hulman administration and faculty realized my provincialism and knew that I just didn’t get it with respect to the importance of globalizing educational experiences, and thus they cornered me into making the trip on behalf of Rose for my own enlightenment. Let me relate how the trip did, indeed, cure some of my ignorance. What I didn’t get is that, even if I personally would not redesign the world’s economy to be controlled by monolithic multi-national corporations, this in fact is what is happening at an alarming pace. This has been true in Japan and Germany for eons and our own international companies are simply responding to economic reality. Since these international businesses are opening worldwide markets, they need employees who are increasingly cognizant of the cultural differences inherent in expanding markets and engineers who can exchange concepts with those abroad and function in foreign lands. Our larger businesses need engineers who have already been exposed to some globalization. Thus, simply stated, if Rose-Hulman is to continue to provide the best engineers to the leaders in our industries, and if we are to continue to provide our students with the best placement prospects, we need to educate our young students to be able to function worldwide. In short, since neither I or Rose have the power to change the increasing concentration of business in multi-national corporations, even if we would like to, we must react to the reality of the situation and equip our students with the necessary tools to survive. Our student exchange program with KIT and a few other foreign colleges helps fulfill this purpose. In addition, I certainly learned at KIT how the sharing of educational concepts between foreign universities can assist both. It turns out the Japanese high school students score significantly higher on the average than U.S. high school students, no matter how tested. However, after four years of undergraduate college education, retesting shows the American college graduate has leaped far ahead of their Japanese equivalents. This is because, it is believed, that in the U.S. individual creativity and innovation are revered and fostered, and in fact taught in college whereas in Japan teamwork and loyalty to the team (which includes not trying to outshine your teammates) is ingrained in their culture. Thus, KIT is studying and adopting some of Rose-Hulman’s innovative teaching methods to foster the ability of the individual Japanese college student to become more innovative and creative. On the other hand, we in the U.S. and at Rose-Hulman are realizing that the way Japanese operate in cohesive teams can be much better in certain circumstances, particularly in industries responsible for the design and production of complicated products (e.g. automobiles). Information and concept sharing among team members and a shared responsibility for failure as well as a shared and expanded sense of satisfaction from success often lead to better design and production of quality, complicated products. Thus, we at Rose have adopted in part the Japanese concept of teamwork and we are increasing our emphasis on industry-sponsored student team research projects which better fits the type of work the students will face upon graduation. Another eye-opener in Japan is how they treat people with high-sounding titles. I was warned in advance that as Chairman of the board, I would be treated like royalty by the Japanese. Indeed I was, and it was intoxicating. My thanks to Tom Mason who cured my rapidly swelling head by relating to me that Caesar always made sure he had a slave follow behind him and whisper in his ear - You are human, remember you are only human. Tom offered to fulfill the function of this slave for me with the results that although I suffered jet lag upon my return to Terre Haute, my head swelling shrunk with a minimum of withdrawal symptoms from having to climb down from my pedestal. By the way, a symposium session at KIT stressed the desirability of advancing engineering education from simply imparting facts and knowledge into the brains of our students toward an education based upon enhancing wisdom. I was reminded of the words of Mark Twain concerning some wisdom he gained from his own college education. His story went something like this: "When I (Mark Twain) was 18, I was convinced that my father must be one of the most ignorant domineering men in the world. When I returned home after four years of college, I was amazed at how much my father had learned in only four short years." by Guille Cox, Chairman - Board of Trustees
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