{ Update::ASU }
Change In Culture
036 034 032 030 028 026 024 022 020 018 016 014 012 010 008 006 004 002
026
‘Grand Challenges’ summit targets transformation needed to
bring innovation into full bloom
WRI TING B Y :: JOE KULLMAN
U. S. Undersecretary for Energy Kristina
M. Johnson reiterated the theme. Real and
beneficial change will come only when
governments, institutions, industries,
schools, communities and individuals
are each taking the big overarching and
small everyday steps to move us forward,
Johnson said.
The transformational mindset at ASU
is a chief reason the National Academy of
Engineering chose Arizona as a site for
one of five summits across the country this
year to promote public awareness of the
Grand Challenge—a list of what engineers
must achieve to help solve society’s most
critical problems.
f we’re going to bank on
technological creativity to
improve the quality of life in
the 21st century, it will take
much more than smarter
engineering and science. Nothing short of
cultural transformations will do.
That was the overriding message
trumpeted at the National Academy of
Engineering Grand Challenges Summit
in Phoenix in early April. Organized by
Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton
Schools of Engineering and chaired by
Deirdre Meldrum, dean of engineering
schools and professor of electrical
engineering, it drew several hundred
participants, including business and
education leaders, engineers, scientists,
teachers and college students.
ASU President Michael M. Crow set the
tone, telling the Summit crowd that our
rapidly growing and increasingly complex
world presents environmental, economic
and social challenges more daunting than
civilization has yet faced. The road to
sustainable global security, health, prosperity
and freedom, Crow said, can be built only
with connective tissue integrating all the
major forces that shape lives and nations.
Technological breakthroughs alone
can’t get us there, he stressed. Needed
are evolutionary strides in the ways we
do business and govern ourselves, the
ways public and private sectors invest
their resources and the ways we educate
younger generations.
Action at ASU
ASU has been realigning its colleges and
schools based on its own set of Grand
Challenges. The changes, Crow explained,
organize the university more directly with its
role of serving communities—both locally
and globally.
That is especially reflected by the Ira A.
Fulton Schools of Engineering. In the past
year, Meldrum has overseen a meticulous
organizational transformation intended
to ensure the schools pursue research and
teach skills most relevant to economic
development and societal progress. “These
challenges are enormous, but we cannot
afford to be defensive,” Meldrum said. “It’s
time to accelerate the conversion of our
The Summit was designed to provide “the
type of engagement through which we can
share ideas, and join forces to face the Grand
Challenges,” Meldrum said. The April event
focused on four of the schools’ aspirations
closely matching the academy’s Challenges
list—making solar power and other renewable
energy sources more reliable and affordable,
engineering better medicines, finding better
ways to manage and recycle the world’s
growing accumulation of waste materials and
driving innovation in education.
Joe Kullman is senior media relations officer
at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
