An Industry Group Takes the Initiative

The American Electronics Association (AEA), with 2700 electronics and information technology member companies, is the largest national trade association for the electronics industries. AEA initiated a formal engineering and technical education program in 1981 which seeks to increase the quality and quantity of electrical engineering and computer science/engineering graduates in the U.S. It seeks remedies primarily by focusing on the shortage of engineering and computer science faculty which is restricting undergraduate enrollments and decreasing educational quality. AEA's Board of Directors set a goal for each of its member companies to ``invest'' 2 percent of R&D expenditures in engineering education. It recommends that much of industry's assistance be in the form of faculty development grants, graduate student fellowship-loans, and equipment in the electrical and computer engineering and computer science areas.