What Are They Thinking?
Florida International University has decided to close the Industrial and Systems Engineering department because of budget cuts from the state legislature, calling for a $14 million budget cut, "in addition to $10 million in cuts already implemented earlier this year" (from this article dated May 23, 2008 in the Miami Herald). I would have expected every department to be forced to implement cuts, but apparently decision-makers felt it was easier to close entire departments, in a university with 38,000 students. I quote here the paragraph in the Miami Herald about the fate of industrial engineering department:
"Staff and faculty in the industrial engineering department say the decision to cut their program came as a shock, and was made without consulting them. Industrial engineering is a popular area of study, with 300 students currently enrolled in undergraduate or graduate level programs. Currently enrolled students would be able to finish their degrees over the next three years, after which the faculty and staff would be laid off, said Martha Centeno, associate professor in industrial engineering."
While I'd like to believe the decision was made because the Dean of the College of Engineering preferred not to have an industrial engineering program rather than endangering the quality of the education and the good name associated with FIU's degrees, I suspect the decision stems from the disdain of some engineers toward a discipline they view as "not engineer-y enough". After all, industrial engineers don't build things. But one can argue that the ability to analyze data and construct mathematical models to aid decision-making has farther-reaching consequences on the long-term health of a services-oriented economy than more traditional engineering skills. There is a reason why so many of our graduates go into consulting, and later into management positions. While IE's name recognition may suffer from straddling business and engineering (some businesspeople discount the importance of math because they're not good at it, some engineers discount the importance of business because that's not what they do, and resent businesspeople looking down at them as "technical" people), the importance of IE skills in the economy will only grow. It's unfortunate FIU's graduates will be deprived of the opportunity to learn about quantitative decision models that would benefit Florida's companies.
On days like that I'm glad to work for a private institution. It's easy to forget how dependent public universities are on lawmakers, because some of them have grown into research powerhouses that (wrongly) seem immunized against downturns by their stellar reputations. Please consider signing the online petition to protest the closure of the ISE department at Florida International University.
"Staff and faculty in the industrial engineering department say the decision to cut their program came as a shock, and was made without consulting them. Industrial engineering is a popular area of study, with 300 students currently enrolled in undergraduate or graduate level programs. Currently enrolled students would be able to finish their degrees over the next three years, after which the faculty and staff would be laid off, said Martha Centeno, associate professor in industrial engineering."
While I'd like to believe the decision was made because the Dean of the College of Engineering preferred not to have an industrial engineering program rather than endangering the quality of the education and the good name associated with FIU's degrees, I suspect the decision stems from the disdain of some engineers toward a discipline they view as "not engineer-y enough". After all, industrial engineers don't build things. But one can argue that the ability to analyze data and construct mathematical models to aid decision-making has farther-reaching consequences on the long-term health of a services-oriented economy than more traditional engineering skills. There is a reason why so many of our graduates go into consulting, and later into management positions. While IE's name recognition may suffer from straddling business and engineering (some businesspeople discount the importance of math because they're not good at it, some engineers discount the importance of business because that's not what they do, and resent businesspeople looking down at them as "technical" people), the importance of IE skills in the economy will only grow. It's unfortunate FIU's graduates will be deprived of the opportunity to learn about quantitative decision models that would benefit Florida's companies.
On days like that I'm glad to work for a private institution. It's easy to forget how dependent public universities are on lawmakers, because some of them have grown into research powerhouses that (wrongly) seem immunized against downturns by their stellar reputations. Please consider signing the online petition to protest the closure of the ISE department at Florida International University.
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