Georgia Institute of Technology

A few ideas on "Lead in Big Payoff, Transdisciplinary Areas. Sending to you and through the web page for strategic planning. There was a good deal of agreement at the meeting on this topic that transdisciplinary was important. There were several comments on building a culture that supported this and broadening the student experience. I thought there was little specifics on "big ideas." Therefore I suggest three. Consider a professional doctorate for engineering. The title MIGHT be Doctorate of Engineering, DEngr. BUT the title is clearly its own issue. The fundamental reason for such a doctorate is that one needs to know too much to really be able to innovate in leading edge societal problems. Just a "team" w/o people at the top that understand the big picture is not enough. I would suggest that such a doctorate would require 8 years of study including the BS and included a significant project to contribute to solving a big picture problem. And would also include a good deal of course work on economics. NOTE that most professions have a doctorate... medicine, law, accounting, etc. Establish a University Club that as its main specific objectives is to facilitate the personal communication between faculty, business people (e.g., alumni), politicians, etc. One aspect that could be implemented immediately would be a daily seminar series for lunch at which faculty (50%) and others (50%) would be discussing their work. It could meet in WaterHaven's back room. (They are likely to fail like the Globe did if not supported by Tech activity.) A more comprehensive university club could do a number of things to facilitate exchange of ideas. Lastly, have a mechanism to get out ahead of the crowd. We have been great at following...micro-electronics, nano-technology, bio engineering and medicine ... but not in promoting those things that WILL BE NEXT.