An interesting mini-debate is being held over at the blog Nine Shift on the topic above. See the three-part post here, here, and here.  Other posts on 4 ways to help women learn (here), five learning habits that hurt women (here), and how female engineering students learn (here) have some valuable ideas in them.

In addition to groups on Facebook (here) and Always Illinois (here), today iFoundry has added a group on Linkedin (here).

iFoundry welcomes active volunteers and interested students to eat Papa John’s pizza and find out about the rollout plans for Fall 09 from 12-1:15 pm in Room 212 Engin Hall on Monday, 2 February 2009.  For more information email Karen Hyman.

iFoundry-engaged students saw the following presentation by iFoundry co-Director David E. Goldberg and iFoundry Associate Director Karen Hyman at noon on Monday, 2 February 2009:

The presentation may also be watched on the iFoundry SlideShare page here.

Professor Russell Korte from the Department of Human Resource Education will share insights from his study about the challenges that new engineering graduates face as they adjust to their work environment.

Transitioning Into the Workplace: Learning the Social System of Organizations

Tuesday 24 February, 12:00 noon – 1:30 p.m.

301 Coordinated Sciences Lab

Click here for details.

ITWorld reports on a study commissioned by the American Society for Quality here.

I’m in Singapore at Nanyang Technological University, meeting faculty and administrators to discuss curriculum reform and to speak at a conference Adaptation, Order and Emergence in honor of John H. Holland (see longer post here).  Thinking about John’s work on genetic algorithms and complexity, and driving through the streets of gleeming Singapore, it’s difficult not to reflect on the world our iFoundry engineers of the future will face.  Michael Welge of NCSA’s SEASR group sent a link to a video (here or in the viewer below), which captures some of the pace and complexity of our times.

As we think about engineering education in our times, it is important to consider the larger environment of change young engineers will face.

MEM students working with Gary Wnek at Case Western Reserve University have started publishing a new blog The new economy engineer. The themes discussed there resonate with the those considered by iFoundry.  Take a look.  Gary Wnek twitters on related topics at twitter.com/gwnek.

Bruce Litchfield, Deana McDonagh, and Sharra Vostral are discussed in the Daily Illini article here.

See news release here for the Summit on the Engineer of the Future 2.0 to be held at Olin College, 31 March – 1 April 2009 (Tuesday evening to Wednesday).  For more information go to the workshop website here and the Olin-Illinois Partnership tab here.