MEETING WITH EXECUTIVE ADVISORY COMMITTEE OF CISAT
AND
TASK FORCE ON INTEGRATING SCIENCE, MATH AND TECHNOLOGY

General Discussion

Now in Phase 2

Center for Faculty Support - Madison Science and Technology Center. Federal contracts available for global analysis would be along lines of what the Center would want to do.

Would students be involved? Faculty would be brought together first and then students would be involved.

Center could bring faculty to attention of funding agencies. Would be good to invite industry people in for presentations.

Gately - Referrals to other places could also be given if we don't have expertise.

Daly - Science and Technology people here would want to influence policy. We are in good geographical location to influence nation and state.

Bob Starr - Have to avoid one-upmanship and become us-upmanship. Center could provide interface for new projects.

Reports from the subtaskforces

Biotechnology - first have to decide what biotechnology is.

1. Academic - microbiology, research etc.
2. Business side as well.

Academic program is not just putting traditional programs in a row, but combining material into a unique program.

Areas to focus on:
Bioinformatics
Biomanufacturing
Environmental component -bioremediation.

Need input from industry. What background and training do students need? No B.S. program in biotechnology in Virginia. We could be first. Could have B.S/M.S. program too.

Bob Starr - Where are biotech courses taught now? Traditional courses are in science and math. Non-traditional courses are in ISAT.

Claire Roberson - Are we thinking about applying research to development too?

B. Price - Biotechnology implies products of commercial significance. Some research does not think about practical side of production. We need to keep goals in mind and teach students to do so.

Bob McKown - Are we doing the right thing in teaching business side? Corporations had funded research and stopped recently because there was no payoff. Biomechanics could be integrated with health systems for handicapped.

Environment subtaskforce

People on taskforce did not get along well with the others, but they talked. Three ideas-Environmental management Core of disciplines and Concentrations

Are businesses interested in discipline-oriented students? How about less discipline orientation and more of something else? Are we weakening the student or discipline? Pure vs. Applied? Include policy as well?

All are probably relevant.
(1) ISAT and concentrations
(2) Geology has environment studies minor. Geography in CISAT has program. These parts had not cooperated. Dialogue has begun however. Need to facilitate collaboration among faculty and students.

Claire Roberson - Breadth vs. depth problem. Specialists vs. generalists. Need both to solve problems.

Need to produce well-educated individuals, but these individuals can go in a number of directions. We want all of them to succeed. What are our markets?

Jerry Taylor - Need disciplinary basics for career after graduation. Need base and applied layer on top.

K-12 Outreach

Will need many new technology teachers, but people in the jobs are not trained. College professors complain about student preparation, but we teach them so it is our problem. Trying to reach out to local teachers. Trying to influence administrative people to work on new things.

Outreach is not coordinated. Need to draw strands together. We already train a lot of teachers and need to train more. Need to recognize value of teacher training.

Social Issue - Why aren't people being teachers? Not paid well enough. Hard for us to promote that but do support that. Maybe high school teachers need to draw on others to help in teaching.

Dean Gilje - Need to encourage students not to reject science as a career.

Statistics, Design/Data Analysis/ Visualization computational science.

Lots of data collection, not enough expertise in visualization.

Applied Science and Manufacturing

Looking at opportunities to integrated science and manufacturing and math. Three initiatives.

Provide names of chairs.

Omissions?

Center for Service Technology? How do we help service industry?

All ideas are interesting; some are more resource intensive. How do we rank them?
Provide more narrowly focused ideas for first step. Could make ideas more manageable.