At a recent session in Mihai Marasteanu’s Storytelling for Engineer’s course, Mark Maloney (BCE 1985) came in to talk with students about communicating with the public. Maloney recently retired from his 30-years as Director of Public Works in Shoreview, Minnesota.
During class, one of the students asked Maloney what was the biggest change he’d seen. Maloney named the internet, noting that it makes so much information available to everyone with a simple click, and that has changed people's expectations. It is more difficult for engineers to say, “Trust me, I am an engineer.” Maloney recalls, “Once engineers spoke with specialized knowledge. Now, via the internet, anyone/everyone can find information. I am no longer the expert who knows what no one else knows. What I bring is my judgment and experience.”
Although professors cannot directly teach judgment and experience to our students through simple coursework, we can lay the groundwork for them to build their own judgment and experience over time. And we can create professionals who are resilient and able to adapt to constant change. Engineers must continue to adapt due to new technologies, changes in society, and changes in the natural world.
Such adaptation is part of the job for professors in CEGE, too. They adapt their teaching and research embracing new approaches, new data, new data types, and new realizations about the problems facing society. Three stories are introduced below.
