POTSDAM -- The New Horizons in Engineering Distinguished Lectureship Series at Clarkson University will host a professor from Duke University Sept. 5 to speak about "The Future of Engineering Education."

Earl H. Dowell, will speak at 2:30 p.m. in Clarkson's Bertrand H. Snell Hall Room 213 (#18 on the map athttp://www.clarkson.edu/about/clarkson_map.pdf). Refreshments will precede the lecture at 2 p.m. The event is free.

Dowell will address the future of engineering education in the context of the broader university. Specific topics include the impact of distance learning on the cost of education and the faculty reward system, research funding by the federal government, the sustainability of tuition increases and the cost of education, and the key role that engineers and engineering education will play in creating and responding to these new challenges and opportunities. He will review current data and historical trends, and offer predictions as to what the future may bring for all of higher education -- especially for engineering education.

Dowell is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

He has also served as president of the American Academy of Mechanics, chair of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, and chairman of the National Council of Deans of Engineering.

He is a consultant to government, industry and universities on science and technology policy and engineering education, as well as on topics related to his research. His teaching spans the disciplines of acoustics, aerodynamics, dynamics and structures.

Dowell received his B.S. degree from the University of Illinois and his S.M. and Sc.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before coming to Duke as dean of the School of Engineering, serving from 1983-1999, he taught at M.I.T. and Princeton. He has also worked with the Boeing Company.

Dowell will be the tenth lecturer in Clarkson University’s New Horizons in Engineering Distinguished Lectureship series, which is dedicated to improving the understanding of important issues facing engineering and society in the 21st century.

Read more about the New Horizons in Engineering Distinguished Lectureship Series at http://www.clarkson.edu/news/2010/news-release_2010-08-20-3.html. Info: lregel@clarkson.edu.