AAE Professor Dan Dumbacher addresses "Changes in Workforce Development" at 2016 Goddard Symposium
AAE Professor of Practice Dan Dumbacher spoke at the 54th Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium March 8-10 in Greenbelt, Maryland. The theme of the conference was “Leadership for Space: Opportunities and Challenges.” Professor Dumbacher and Boeing Defense, Space & Security Vice President of Human Resources Scott Drach presented an educational session entitled "Changes in Workforce Development," which discussed the challenges of building the engineering talent pipeline and the importance of team and people skills in engineering education.
Professor Dumbacher says we’re evolving from simple physics-based problems to more complex human-centered problems. He says this means students need to be able to learn from and work with people from other disciplines.
"Your technical degree is what I call your ticket into the game,” said Dumbacher. “It’s your people skills and your communication and teamwork capability that will help make you successful in the long run.”
Professor Dumbacher talked about the Purdue Systems Collaboratory which was established in Fall 2015. The Collaboratory aims to teach students to tackle grand challenges through a “convergence of knowledge” from many different disciplines. Dumbacher says the goal is to help students get the skills they need to be more competitive in the workforce and help provide industry and government with better prepared employees that can hit the ground running and take on these larger problems.
A video of the educational session can be found HERE.