Nation Needs More Engineers and Scientists
After the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in the late 1950s, President John F. Kennedy called the nation to act, to produce the engineers and scientists needed to compete. But that was 50 years ago, and now, those engineers and scientists are retiring in droves. The nation now faces what Shirley Ann Jackson calls a “quiet crisis” in filling those positions, though more are starting to listen and act. One of them is Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the first African-American and woman to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 Jun 2008] Read more