Services Science, Engineering and Management Conference, at IBM Palisades, October 6-7

This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker's presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. The digest has been made available for purposes of scholarship, posted on the Coevolving Innovations web site by David Ing.

Debra Stewart, President, Council of Graduate Schools

Have shared some assumptions that service sectors will be large in the future

Advancing services in non-service companies

Also a science in service businesses

Mondale: If you're sure that you know everything that's going on, then you're hopelessly confused

• Not the Washington question: What did you know and when did you know it?

What needs to happen in the current phase?

In the positive global convergence of a corporate business putting forth an agenda on something that it thinks is important, to a group of academics who are enthusiastic and motivated?

• What happens next?
• The next phase to find people in our institution who will move these ideas forward?

Usually the title will be vp of research and/or dean of grad studies: advancing either research or grad education

• Graduate senior is the senior official responsible for oversight
• Includes U.S. schools and Canadian schools
• European schools are getting more like this

Graduate education will push innovators

• 1.15M students of 1.6M are master's
• Most faculty care about Ph.D.s

Also need certificate programs, e.g. Berkeley -- package of advanced training

Graduate schools need to determine that faculty standards are met

• Reflect diversity
• Link employers

Beyond quality (which students don't know much about), students say:

• Interested in linkage between education and future jobs
• Compelling need for transparency in process
• Fixed time: a destination, not a lifetime
• Faculty generally don't like these career preparation, students don't want prepare for a job, but instead prepare for lifetime where they will have to change for jobs

Employers: strongest advocates for graduate education

• Need flexible students
• Global economy, but can work locally
• Flexible
• Can deal effectively with people

Professional science master's: developed with the sponsorship of the Sloan Foundation, located in the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington

• 75 graduate programs
• Unfilled niche: science-based companies wanted something beyond bachelor, but not up to a Ph.D.
• It's science-plus, i.e. science plus the business of science (law, communications, business)
• Helsinki program described yesterday looks like this

How can deans help?

• Find ways to mobilize students

How to scale up:

• Recommend to faculty: know it takes time, but have to find allies, need to make services science the dean's problems
• IBM money will go away some day, and you need to find an institutional home and commitment
• Recommend to administrators: recognize services science is on the frontier, and it's risky
• Recommend to employers: they say they want these people trained, and then employ people with degrees like they have, so need commitment to hire graduates

Asked: is the world is flat?

• Believes Richard Florida, that the world is spiky
• How to ensure that your region is on a spike?
• Focus on compelling areas
• Universities are at the source of spikes, but it's not just any university

[Questions]

Globally-integrated enterprise. What do we do about supply-demand imbalances? Ph.D. shortage in India

• Indian government has committed to grow Ph.D. programs by 5 times in 6 to 7 years
• American model: take undergraduates paid by public funds elsewhere, draw them to the U.S., and keep them here
• 60% to 70% of science and engineering graduates are like this, even despite declines
• Some American schools are starting programs in Asia
• But Ph.D. programs aren't something you can turn on and off

Professional master's degree numbers? Professional doctorate degrees

• 1200 PSMs, but some are very small and niche oriented (e.g. graduate and start a new business)

Jim Spohrer:  Will have meetings of employers

Debra: Have a book on PSM program, can find on web site

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