Maqsood Mohd
As Kimball Williams has moved on to become the Vice President of Technical Activities, I have been entrusted with the challenging task of becoming the Chairman of the Education and Student Activities Committee. Some of you know me through the Fundamentals Workshop. I welcome you to join the Education and Student Activities Committee and help us enter into the 21st Century with well-founded EMC education. I would also like to thank Kimball Williams for leading the Education Committee during the last five years and making it a much more vibrant committee by taking on many new challenges such as the experimental demonstrations and tutorials.
Recently, I participated in an international workshop “Technological Literacy Counts!” The workshop was supported by the EMC-S. I had the opportunity to collaborate with 90 other workshop participants, engineers, and educators gathered to present suggestions and reach solutions for the enhancement of technological literacy for primary and secondary-level students worldwide. During the workshop sessions we focused on various technological literacy issues and made several recommendations. Some of the main recommendations were collaboration among engineering and education societies at all levels, provide knowledge as directly useable to educators (such as experiments, and tutorial material), and engineer-educator exchange programs. This was one of the most intensive two-day workshops I have ever attended. The recommendations are very closely related to the mission of our Committee - to present EMC education and learning materials to both the novice as well as the seasoned professional alike. (Please refer to the related article on page 13 of this newlsetter.)
The Denver Symposium for 1998 is now behind us; and it was the best yet for educating and enriching the EMC professional. The Denver Symposium Committee deserves thanks and appreciation for the job well done. At this symposium, the Education and Student Activities Committee achieved great success in several areas. In the following paragraphs I have highlighted some of the events that took place that you may find of interest.
It was another landmark year for the Fundamentals Tutorials. Although the tutorials are primarily targeted for the entry level engineers in the EMC field, quite a few seasoned engineers can also enjoy brushing-up on concepts that they might not have used in a while. This year several noted experts from several organizations provided the tutorial material to help EMC concepts and to better design systems from an EMC point of view.
If attendance is any measure, the tutorials had an impressive attendance of more than 400 participants. The tutorial subcommittee is busy planning for another exciting and informative session during the Seattle Symposium. If you would like to propose a topic or a speaker for the Seattle Symposium, email your comments and ideas to mohd@eglin.af.mil.
Location, location, and location. Yes, indeed the location for experimental demonstrations during this year’s symposium could not have been better. A series of EMC concepts demonstrated experimentally during the symposium was another effort by the Education and Student Activities Committee to educate the symposium attendees. For three main days of the symposium, more than 15 experts demonstrated EMC concepts that sometimes might be classified as abstract or black magic type. Many a happy souls were pleased to learn these concepts during these demonstrations. Their doubts changed into convincing beliefs.
Our thanks go to Andy Drozd and Larry Cohen for putting together the demonstration program. If you would like to demonstrate an experiment or demonstrate an EMC concept at the next symposium in Seattle, contact Andy at andro1@aol.com.
As during the past several years, Dr. James Whalen conducted the workshop for engineers and technicians who are preparing to take the National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers (NARTE) examination to certify as EMC engineers and technicians. This year David Case assisted Dr. Whalen. David Case is co-chair of the NARTE subcommittee.
At the NARTE examination on Friday, 23 engineers and technicians sat for the exams. The word from NARTE is that 65% of the participants passed the exams. Our congratulations to all the successful applicants, and welcome to the ranks of certified NARTE professionals. Our thanks to Dr. James Whalen for championing the cause of “preparing for the NARTE exams,” and his able co-host, David Case.
John Howard heads the university grant committee. This year his committee has been successful in finding a winner for this grant. The grant is provided to an institution that is on the verge of offering an EMC course. The grant money is used as seed money to start an EMC course as an established part of the curriculum in the Electrical Engineering department. The grant is open to all universities in the world. For more details contact John Howard. This year’s winning school is the University of Nevada at Reno.
The mission of the university grant committee is enhanced by adding the university survey tasks to its activities. The new name is the university subcommittee. If you would like to be a part of this committee, contact John Howard.
Dr. William Croisant of TC-7 proposed a joint venture between the Education Committee and TC-7 in the form of a student design contest. The contest is to design an EMC solution as part of the design of a circuit. The details are being worked out. If you have an interest in fame and glory, then contact Bill at 217-373-7246 or email w-croisant@cecer.army.mil. This is an exciting area to be in. This effort has the potential of becoming the hallmark of how different technical committees, the industry, and the academia can work together.
Dr. Jim Drewniak is heading up this effort. The Experiment Manual published by the Education and Student Activities Committee is on the web site at: https://emclab2.ece.umr.edu/files/EMCman.pdf. If you have an Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download the entire manual from this site. You can find it by going to the EMCS web page at https://www.emcs.org and choosing the “committees” link, then the “Education Committee” link, then the “EMC Experiments Manual” link.
Jim is looking for a volunteer who can do the follow-up work of soliciting and arranging the new experiments. If you are interested in broadening your career horizons, contact Jim or any other officers of the Education and Student Activities Committee.
Andy Drozd is the Chairperson of this subcommittee. This committee is an adjunct to the life-long learning committee. This committee is examining the development of products such as Introduction to Antennae, and Introduction to EMC.
Mike Bogusz is the Chair of this subcommittee. The mission of this committee is to reach out and touch some students (in fact, all students). Primarily, the focus is on working with student chapters in four areas: The Awareness of EMC, Student Paper Contest, The President’s Award, and the Design Contest.
Dr. Vichate Ungivichian heads this committee. We are asking volunteers to join this committee or lead this committee and take it to new heights.
Several changes occurred during the Denver Symposium. Contact any one of the following to become a part of the ongoing revolution in EMC engineering through education.
Vice Chair Andy Drozd
Chair – Student Activities Mike Bogusz
Chair – Demonstrations Andy Drozd
Vice Chair - Demonstrations Larry Cohen
Chair – Video Productions Dick Ford
Chair – University Committee John Howard
Chair – Experiments Manual II Jim Drewniak
Chair – Standards Education Vichate Ungivichian
Co-Chairs NARTE Jim Whalen, Dave Case
Chair – Nominations Bob Nelson
Secretary Bob Nelson
Chair – Life-Long Learning Kimball Williams
Chair – Continuing Education Andy Drozd
I would like to express my personal thanks and appreciation to each of these officers who tirelessly work throughout the year to bring the very best in EMC education materials, workshops, demonstrations, and tutorials to every symposium and to all the members of the EMC profession throughout the year.