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Coping with Change he world of engineering has been groping for years for a handle on
Tthe changes around and within itself. Chemical engineering in particular seems at times to be both exploding and imploding, while at the same time it seems to be driven by external forces beyond its ken or control. One of the most perplexing variables in the picture is that of the social involvement of engineering. Some call for more; others call for leaving the social effects of engineering to nonengineering groups. Julius Stratton, retiring president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has put forth a most eloquent statement of the problem, from a university standpoint. In his final presidential report to the M I T Corporation, he says: the implications of external involvement go (deep). It is a mark of the modern age that the old hierarchies, the time-honored divisions of labor, the respected plans of organization and lines of authority on which we have relied to give order to our ideas-and indeed to our lives-are losing their identity. . . There continues to be much talk about specialization and fragmentation in contemporary scholarship and the professions; yet this ignores powerful forces working toward a fusion of fields and problems. . . . . “Many factors are contributing to this changing state of affairs. One cannot account for it adequately through a sweeping generalization that all this is but one aspect of the contemporary scientific revolution. For as one examines more closely, the situation proves infinitely complex. With the rising level of scientific and technical sophistication, interest focuses increasingly and by necessity on the study of complete or partial systems. These systems encompass many of our most urgent, humanly significant problems. They challenge the scholar and the intellectual as well as the practical doer. They unite elements of pure science and engineering with considerations that are historical, economic, and political in nature. They provide, moreover, an unbroken passage that leads from the lecture room and laboratory into government and industry. . I n a nutshell, Dr. Stratton has summed up our dilemma. In addition to all that is new and relevant in engineering itself, we must learn more science to engineer, more engineering to engage in science, more economics, sociology, and politics to have an impact on the status quo. I n simpler times, the whole functioned in large measure through the sum of independent actions by the parts. Now this is no longer permissible, no matter how much we may wish to resist the change and regardless of our individual ability to cope. Others act on us; we act on others. Engineers need not enter politics for their actions to be felt politically, nor must they become scientists, economists, or sociologists to use science, economics, and sociology in their engineering. But engineers must open their minds to the whole system from which they draw knowledge, seek needs, and find incentives-and must also examine the effects of their contributions on that system as well as on themselves. For if they don’t, others will do it for them.
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