Message from the Chair - "A Christmas Carol"
Abstract
It is a privilege and an honor to be serving as the Engineering Design Graphics Division Chair for this year! We had a great time and a wonderful Midyear meeting in beautiful Erie, PA last month. The presentations were excellent and the ‘conviviality’ was (as always) outstanding. Once again, special thanks need to be extended to Kathy Holliday-Darr and Judy Birchman, who worked so hard and put in many, many hours to ensure a fantastic conference.
As we continue to move forward in the Division with an eye to the future, one of the potential action items that has been discussed over the past year is changing the name of the Division to reflect who and what we are becoming. You should have all received an email from Mary Sadowski (sent 11/16/09) regarding a Delphi study that we are conducting on this topic, with the goal of identifying consensus from the Division members. It will be a four-round Delphi, and we will need the input from as many of you as possible to ensure the validity of the results. Please respond to Mary’s email if you are willing to participate – we need you! If you signed up to participate at the Erie Midyear, then you do not need to reply to the email.
Speaking of the Midyear, I decided to look at the topics of the presentations in order to get a feel for where our people are researching, and to possibly get a better idea of our direction. There was a strong focus on web applications and techniques, including talks on online learning in multimedia, blended learning/instruction in engineering graphics, and online publishing. This recurring emphasis over the past few years of Annual and Midyear presentation topics highlights our Division’s focus on understanding and strategically applying technology in our classrooms and applications. Many different research areas were highlighted, including lightweight CAD formats, data transfer issues, and augmented reality. As always, we enjoyed a number of presentations regarding effective instructional methods, such as rapid prototyping, information scaffolding, and simulation. One of the strengths of the Division continues to be our attention to the principle of being premier instructors of engineering graphics and graphic applications. It was also good to see so many presentations (at least five) that looked at spatial ability and spatial skill development. I feel this remains a critical area of development for our students and in our research. We also enjoyed presentations in ‘current events’ areas – emerging trends in graphics, diversity, curriculum development, and accreditation. Bundled all together, it seems to me that the presentation topics at the Erie Midyear meeting do a pretty good job of taking a topical snapshot of who we are as graphics practitioners. We have the challenge of maintaining our presence in graphics past, present, and future (sort of a graphics version of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’!).
Looking forward, I see a great future for our field in both research and classroom excellence. As the ‘keepers of the gate’ for engineering and multimedia graphics education, we have the solemn, challenging, and wildly enjoyable responsibility to continue the pattern of outstanding leadership and scholarship that our distinguished forbearers in the Engineering Design Graphics Division have established as our foundation. This is a mighty and sometimes daunting quest that we have embarked on, but that is why we chose the professions that we are in. I am confident that as we strive to continuously move forward with our best efforts, that we will be able to touch lives, educate, and prepare the next generation of graphics practitioners for their exciting futures.
