Electrical and Computer Engineering Newsblog

A very Happy and Healthy New Year to all FWF readers! Michigan Tech has been closed for all intents and purposes from December 23 to January 1, but things are starting to pick up as we prepare for the Spring 2018 semester, which begins on January 16. The weather has been rather cold, like in the single digits or below every day for the last two weeks, but we have also been getting a decent amount of powdery snow on a regular basis, and the ski conditions are as good as I have ever seen them. Not a bad time to be in Houghton if you ask me.

As we kick off the new year, I thought I would share with you some words from our university president, Dr. Glenn Mroz. He read these comments as his opening remarks at the most recent meeting of the university Board of Trustees, the day before our December commencement. He meant them as a sort of holiday message, but I believe they work just as well for the new year. This will be Dr. Mroz’ last full semester as President of Michigan Tech, and with these words I think he sets just the right tone for the future of the university.

Ongoing political events, the turn of the calendar and our campus-wide discussion of the University’s strategic plan got me thinking about the word “value.” It’s used everywhere. Value stocks. Value voters. Value of education. Value of a degree. Family values. “Value” seems in vogue now more than ever. Perhaps because we think we know what it means; we think that it communicates a shared sense of importance or impact to whatever it’s attached to, and for whomever we may be communicating with. Or, perhaps, ironically, and somewhat cynically, because we tend to emphasize what seems to be in short supply in our society. But not here.

In many of my opening remarks at these meetings, and in communications with key alums around the world, I’ve emphasized “value” in terms of high student placement rates and starting and mid-career salaries, return on investment, and low student loan default rates. I’ve also talked about value in terms of the basic societal good that comes from students and grads who can accomplish amazing feats, having been the beneficiaries of a hands-on, minds-on education. Those examples certainly communicate a lot of value for what makes Michigan Tech, Michigan Tech and its relevance to the State and Nation. But, as George Bernard Shawonce noted, “the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

And I fear that my data-driven attempts to keep people apprised of what Michigan Tech is, and perhaps is not, has at times missed an essential ingredient and that is the “heart” (perhaps soul) of Michigan Tech.

As faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends, we are a numerical bunch! We use data and facts to persuade and prove points that are otherwise hard to imagine or explain. But heart rests on values that have to be inherently true, simple, and without ambiguity.

Through thousands of interactions with our alums, I’ve come to know the personal inner strength that carries people through times when circumstances are conspiring against them – its the strength and ability that’s required to make the right decisions, when all your options look pretty grim. These are the critically important decisions; or to paraphrase Jim Collins the decisions that lead to greatness. Because greatness is not a matter of circumstance, it’s a matter of choice and it’s a matter of will.

That’s why the “heart” of Michigan Tech is as much a part of Michigan Tech’s strategic plan as any goal, metric, accomplishment, or challenge. It provides the “will” to do what’s right for the institution and the people it serves. So while the standard planning exercises of SWOT analysis, creating mission and vision statements, goals, and metrics are important, it’s perhaps more important to have defined who we are as the Michigan Tech community, on campus and around the world. After all, someone has to have the will to take what’s written and agreed to as the plan, and make it so.

Tough times have a way of riveting your attention, and so it was that about nine years ago, a time frequently referred to as the Great Recession, a group of students, faculty, and staff set about to distill the inspirational and aspirational essence of Michigan Tech; to identify the critical values of the people that drive our plans for the future. These are:

We Inspire Community

We inspire an engaged community that actively seeks improvement through acceptance and understanding.

We Inspire Scholarship

We inspire world class scholarship through academics, research, development and continued learning.

We Inspire Possibilities

We inspire the exploration and creation of all possibilities through innovative use of our skills and knowledge.

We Inspire Accountability

We inspire individuals to hold themselves accountable, and to act with integrity, honesty, and diligence.

We Inspire Tenacity

We inspire the tenacity required to make the ethical choice and to persevere through all obstacles.

These are not rocket science. They are not new concepts. They are our values – inherently true, simple, and without ambiguity. They remind us of who we are, and what is expected of us. They remind us of who we need to be in order to make Michigan Tech a university of consequence. They remind us of what it takes to do exceptionally well in an increasingly challenging world. And they remind us of the essential need for consistency in choice and will that is necessary for Michigan Tech to be of value. They are our values – the heart of Michigan Tech.

Thank you Glenn, for this beautiful message and for giving me permission to share it here. Make 2018 a good one everybody!

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

One of the widespread truisms found throughout current thought on management and organizations is that silos are really horrible and that we have to do everything we can to break them down. Just Google the term “silos” and see what I mean. The term refers to vertically integrated units within a larger organization that keep to themselves, do not communicate or play well with others, and in some cases actually compete with other similar units. They are blamed for all manner of organizational ills such as inefficiency, lack of innovation, and resistance to change. When I think about this mindset I envision Dana Carvey’s impression of George H. W. Bush on Saturday Night Live years ago saying “silos…bad…baaad…”

I agree that anything that puts up barriers to communication and fosters unhealthy competition and duplication of effort is not a good thing. But, being the occasional iconoclast, I have to ask myself if maybe silos aren’t getting a bad rap here.

Let’s start with the physical objects that form the basis for the metaphor. Do they serve any useful purpose? Of course they do! A silo is a place to store your grain, to keep it clean and dry before it goes to market. Without silos farmers would just dump their wheat on the parking lot, in a big pile. Who wants that? They also keep the grain separated, in ways that make sense. As a general rule I don’t think we want our wheat and our corn to be mixed together all the time.

Have you ever driven across Kansas (or Minnesota, or North Dakota)? What is the first thing you see in the distance when you approach a small farm town, driving on those long flat roads on the prairie? Those silos tell us that we are approaching a small piece of civilization. They are a symbol of that little town that can be seen for miles around – they give the community a sense of identity. Since it is a place where farmers come from the nearby land to do part of their business, they also provide a focal point for the community. That really doesn’t sound all that bad to me.

Is there something we can learn from these simple analogies that applies to the organizational setting? I would argue yes. Some sort of organization that brings people together, working for the common good, is very useful. As human beings we seek out others with similar goals and similar ways of looking at the world, knowing that we can do more together than we can as individuals. The tribe is good for the safety and security of the individual. We don’t want the results of all our hard work to be dumped out on the parking lot; we want to join it with the hard work of others in an organizational structure that supports us as individuals. Division of labor is also well-known to be an important component of economic growth and prosperity. Group formation and division of labor play out at all levels of human society, from small businesses and universities to entire nations and the world. Throughout human history the formation of smaller units with differing objectives has happened naturally – it’s just the way we are.

I have come to the conclusion recently that the term “silos” is a politically charged word, much more than people might realize. It is an accusation that is easily leveled against any group of people that are trying to get their act together. How many times have you heard “you have to collaborate…you have to cooperate…you have to get along with others” – which sounds great, but it really might be just a way to keep people in their place. Think about it at the society level. The first thing that is said about groups of people trying to organize for their own common good, perhaps to accumulate a little bit of the political power that is enjoyed by others, is that they are disruptive, that they are troublemakers, that they are not good citizens. Sound familiar? And who makes these accusations? Two groups: 1) those that are already in positions of power and influence, who do not want to be challenged and do not want the competition, and 2) those who are even further down on the economic or political ladder, disorganized, jealous or envious of those who are trying to improve their lot in life. Both groups feel threatened and are driven by fear.

These are pretty strong words, I realize, but I put them out there because I want my readers to check in with themselves and ask: what are we afraid of when we see change on the horizon? Why do we react the way we do when we see groups coming together to benefit themselves, when in fact they could very well be a benefit to everyone else at the same time? Why do we insist that one group of people has to be invisible supporters, while others enjoy international prestige and recognition?

One of the lone voices I found that argues in defense of (the right kind of) silos is this piece from Information Week:

https://www.informationweek.com/it-life/why-silos-can-be-good-for-enterprises/a/d-id/1321042

I don’t know much about this website, and even less about the author, but I think the article makes a nice point. The author claims that in an organizational network, describing who is connected to whom, there is a “sweet spot” somewhere between total anarchy, where everyone is connected to everyone but there are no organized groups, and total isolationism, where people work only within their units and don’t talk to anyone else. The ideal situation is one in which there are organized units that do work for their own internal good, but where there is also plenty of give and take between units, based on mutual respect and a larger sense of purpose for the entire organization. It is sort of a “fences make good neighbors” argument.

Here is another nice article along the same lines. This one emphasizes the importance of ventilation in real silos, as a metaphor for communication among groups:

http://holtz.com/blog/business/organizational-silos-dont-need-busting.-they-need-ventilating/4303/

[If there is one good thing about the silo discussion, it is that it provides us with plenty of good metaphors we can relate to.]

I think there are some good lessons here for Michigan Tech, and other universities like us. I want us to stop using the term “silos” and replace it with “pillars of excellence.” When people think of Michigan Tech, I want them to think about those things that we are really good at, and I want those things to be sufficiently well-organized so that they attract the right kind of attention, just like those real-life silos on the prairie. I do not want to set up unproductive conflict and competition nor shut down lines of communication, but I really do want to raise up and celebrate those things that are important to us, for all the world to see. We already have a couple of those things, and maybe it’s time we built a couple more. Our stakeholders – students, parents, industry, alumni, and research sponsors – deserve nothing less.

This is my last FWF for the year. Through a quirk in the schedule this year, with Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Mondays, the university is unofficially but effectively shut down for all next week. My very best wishes to all my readers for a happy holiday season and a relaxing winter break. See you in 2018!

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

Read just about any description of research activity in the United States today, say from the National Science Foundation, and you are sure to find something about the importance of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary work. The idea that people need to work together in teams and across traditional boundaries has become dogma in research communities, and casting one’s work in an interdisciplinary light has become all but required for obtaining research funding. Of course, I am all for people working together in teams when that makes sense, and for not letting boundaries get in the way of good work and collaboration. But, the emphasis on interdisciplinary work that has become so prevalent in recent years has gotten me to wonder – what makes an academic discipline, anyway? And who gets to decide?

The reason we have academic disciplines in the first place is that the sum of all human knowledge is vast, and there is no way for any one person to know it all. We have to specialize somewhat, to decide what it is we are good at and what we are passionate about. It also helps for us to build communities of like-minded people, with common knowledge and common values, and from these values are born the branches of knowledge that we think of as academic disciplines. The organization of all universities I can think of is built around such disciplines, usually in a hierarchical manner with very broad categories at a high level (engineering, arts & sciences, business, etc.) then with increasing levels of specialization as you drill down into departments and degree programs. There is no one model for all universities, but a lot of universities in the United States, especially large comprehensive universities, look very much alike.

For the most part this system works pretty well. It facilitates communication and a common sense of purpose among groups of people, and that is usually a good thing for getting work done and discovering new things. For research communities, there is a process one goes through to become a part of the group, called getting a doctoral degree (PhD or similar); usually through qualifying examinations or other milestones one proves that he or she has what it takes to become part of “the club.” When we craft degree programs, even at the undergraduate level, we often ask the question “what is it that we expect everyone in our field to know?” and then build courses and course sequences appropriately. When we go out into the world, we can label ourselves as a certain kind of person with a certain set of knowledge and skills, and this division of labor has served us well economically.

What we have to recognize, however, is that these things that we call disciplines are not necessarily predetermined in some obvious or logical way. Often there is a historical evolution of fields, and the organization may be an artifact of the way things turned out in the discovery of new knowledge. A discipline is a branch of knowledge, and the nature of the branch is a result of how the tree grew. I sometimes think of academic disciplines as “quantization bins” for knowledge, and there are a lot of different ways one could do it. Another analogy is this land mass in North America we call the continental United States. We think of that as being carved up into 48 states which seems natural to us, the proper order of things, but it is really the result of 240 years of history and politics, and if we were to start something from scratch today we might come up with something entirely different. (For an entertaining look at that last topic, read How the States Got Their Shapes, by Mark Stein.)

Sometimes the topics that get mashed together to create a discipline seem really far apart intellectually, although when viewed through an historical lens it makes all the sense in the world. The best example I know is my own field of electrical engineering. This is a relatively new discipline (when compared to disciplines with ancient roots like mathematics or physics) and it has gone through a remarkable evolution in its 150-year history. It began when smart people recognized that these forces of nature we collectively call electricity could be harnessed for the good of society. They developed tools for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power, and the use of that power to turn motors and light lights. Shortly thereafter, however, others like Samuel F. B. Morse and Alexander Graham Bell figured out that those same forces of nature, and that same copper wire, could be put to use transmitting information at high speed and over long distances. What happened next was very interesting: in order to take advantage of the new physical technology, we needed a new branch of knowledge to decide how best to encode information into time-varying physical variables like voltage and current, and at its core that branch of knowledge really has nothing to do with voltage and current. What resulted is what we now call communication theory. This new mathematical theory of communication was beautifully crystallized in the work of the pioneering engineer and mathematician Claude Shannon, and an even more mathematically elegant and sophisticated field of information theory was born. Information theory is the foundation for all digital communication that makes smart phones and the Internet work. (Claude Shannon is the closest thing we have in EE to an iconic hero; he is our Albert Einstein. His bronze bust is featured in this week’s photo. There are at least two castings I am aware of, one on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the other in his home town of Gaylord, Michigan.) Take a look at the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and you will find no mention of volts, amps, or watts – it’s all math. Similar stories can be told about signal processing, or control theory, and of course computer science and computer engineering. The field of electrical engineering has branched off in dozens of different directions and now it encompasses a highly diverse set of topics and skills – and yet we still think of it as a discipline with a common core of knowledge.

Having what you do included in a discipline like electrical engineering brings certain advantages. There is the name recognition and the respect that goes with the title of electrical engineer. It is a job title for companies to post, to which prospective employees can respond. It is well-recognized on college campuses and known by students as a great major with lots of potential (we like to think so, anyway). The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, or IEEE, is the largest professional organization in the world. Essentially, electrical engineering as field, despite its huge technical diversity, enjoys many of the benefits that people look for when they form societal groups – tribes, gangs, whatever you want to call them. We EEs are a tribe with a shared sense of identity.

What about the situation where, in the vast domain of human knowledge, there are bits and pieces scattered about that intellectually could be considered very close, but have not been pulled together into one discipline? One advantage of working in such fields might be that one’s work is always considered interdisciplinary, since it falls in the cracks between the historically established and recognized disciplines. That might be great for writing grant proposals, but I am not sure it outweighs the disadvantages of being academically homeless, of not being part of a tribe with shared values and shared culture. When one works at the boundaries, no matter how artificial those boundaries might be, one never gets to be on the inside. That sense of independence might be exhilarating at first, but after a while it might also get to be disheartening. Chris Byrnes, my former dean at Washington University in St. Louis, said it best when he said: you can’t be multidisciplinary without a discipline.

Those who follow this column and/or know what I have been up to lately will not be surprised to learn that I am talking about computing. I have come to the conclusion that computing in a very broad sense is a discipline, and if it is not it should be. The reason it is not considered a discipline now is much the same reason that electrical engineering is a discipline: it is an artifact of the historical evolution of the field. When I talk about computing I have a pretty big bucket of topics, including: core computer science, software engineering, computer systems, system administration, computer networks, cybersecurity, high-performance and scientific computation, data science, statistics, analytics, information systems, medical informatics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer engineering, computer architecture, robotics, automation, the Internet, web-design, graphic design, multimedia systems, video games, human-computer interaction, and probably a lot more. If one looks at that laundry list I imagine that one reaction might be – wow, that certainly is a diverse set of topics. To which I respond, yes, but it is no more diverse than that set of topics that we bundle together and call electrical engineering. Or, if one wants to argue that point (and I could see it) I can certainly say that the list above is not nearly as diverse as everything we call just engineering. The main difference is, while one might find a thread of intellectual consistency throughout those topics, they all came from different areas, unlike the story of electrical engineering where one thing led to another, which led to another, and so on. Furthermore, since there are so many different origins, a variety of different groups can and do lay claim to them. The question we have to ask is, does the current way we think about what is a discipline, or what falls in the spaces between disciplines or overlaps multiple disciplines, continue to serve us in our quest for the discovery of new knowledge?

To be continued. Next week: In Defense of Silos.

Until then,

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

This week I want to follow up on my column from two weeks ago, before Thanksgiving, on the various ways that we use the words associated with my line of work: science, computing, engineering, technology, and mathematics. This is mostly a random collection of observations on the strange ways that we use these words, without a whole lot of practical solutions. Think of it as the grammar maven (see FWF 06/16/2017) meeting the engineering professor.

A quick recap of the main points from the last column. Science is the human endeavor of figuring out how the world works, and creating mathematical models for it. Engineering is the human endeavor of designing tools to improve our way of life, often taking advantage of all that we have learned from science. Technology is the set of tools used by society, resulting from all our hard work as engineers. I made the point that engineering usually refers to the development of physical tools, and that there does not exist a good work in the English language to describe the process of designing cognitive tools; computing was the best I could come up with.

Of all the words listed above, it seems to me that science is the one that commands the most respect in academia and in the general public. There are many ways that we attach the word science to things to give them more gravitas. For example, what is the name of the degree that we confer to graduating engineers in the United States? Bachelor of Science. (Let’s set aside the use of the word bachelor for now – I’m not going there.) It seems to me that Bachelor of Engineering would make more sense, but you rarely hear that, if you did you would probably consider it “less than.” We do have both Master of Science (MS) and Master of Engineering (ME) degrees in engineering fields in the United States, but there is little consensus on what those degree titles mean. In many places, the MS program involves a thesis (which means there may be some actual science involved) whereas the ME program is coursework-based and may have more room for courses in business and management. However, at Michigan Tech we have coursework-based MS programs, particular in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, because we have concluded that there is broader acceptance of that degree name among working professionals. The degrees Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.) and Master of Technology (M. Tech.) are also fairly common outside the United States.

Confusion about the distinction between science and engineering, or perhaps between scientists and engineers, has always been a pet peeve of mine (just ask my family). If you ask the general public who is responsible for the highly complex tools that we use every day, such as computers, automobiles, and smart phones, chances are you will get the answer “scientists.” Popular culture doesn’t help to clear up the notion that there is a pecking order: in “The Big Bang Theory” the physicist Sheldon is always berating Wolowitz for being merely an engineer. Please do not misunderstand – I have the highest respect for good scientists and all that they do, my frustration has only to do with the misperceptions about what that enterprise is all about and how it relates to other activities.

Here at Michigan Tech our math department is called the Department of Mathematical Sciences. I should probably talk to someone over there before writing these words, but that mash-up makes no sense to me at all. Similar to the situation with engineering, science is one thing and mathematics is another. Mathematics is the world of pure logic, something that springs from the human imagination and where truth is absolute. Science is a little messier, where we try the understand how things work, where there is no absolute truth but only higher and higher levels of confidence in theories and hypotheses. Mathematics is of course the language of science, and it is what gives the ability to generalize what we have seen, to extrapolate from what we have seen to things that we have never seen before. For example, consider Newton’s Second Law, F=ma. We can conduct experiments to test the correctness of this hypothesis forever, applying a force F to a mass m and measuring the acceleration a, but we can never test it for all possible combinations of F and a. However, if we believe that our experiments confirm that validity of that mathematical model, then we can believe that it will hold true even for combinations of F and a that we have never seen before. [Aside: F=MA is also known as Newton’s Second Law of Graduate Education, applied to PhD students who fail their qualifying examinations. But I digress.] As with scientists, I have the highest respect for mathematicians and all that they do. Math is a beautiful subject, and I only wish I were better at it. I also wish that our engineering students, both undergraduate and graduate, would not find mathematics as something mysterious and unobtainable, and that they would not freak out every time they see the word “proof.” Maybe I wish too much.

Speaking of odd mash-ups, we also have the term engineering technology. I know what people mean when they use that term, but that does not mean it makes sense from an English usage point of view. Engineering is one thing (a human endeavor) and technology is another (a set of tools). I have no problem with our School of Technology, which teaches students about tools and prepares them to implement them in industry or society. I just don’t get where the modifier “Engineering” comes in. Instead of saying Electrical Engineering Technology it would make a lot more sense to say Electrical Technology or perhaps Electrical and Electronic Technology which is rare although I have seen it. No matter what I think, Engineering Technology is a thing; the term is used nationwide and it is recognized by our accreditation body ABET. We are stuck with it.

The words I have referenced today – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics – have been put together in the popular acronym STEM. We hear all the time about the importance of STEM education, and we think of Michigan Tech as a STEM university. That is all well and good, but I have to come back to that fifth word – computing – and wonder where that fits in. Where is computing in STEM? Even though I have defined technology as a set of tools, twice now, I think that in the context of this particular acronym and its use in public policy discussions, “technology” is actually a code word for “computing.” When we talk about STEM, we really mean Science, Computing, Engineering, and Mathematics, all four of which are human endeavors, so they are parallel and go together nicely. The problem is, we can’t make a good acronym of those – SCEM? MESC? Stem is already a simple English word that is easy to pronounce, so I see the appeal. The scant evidence I have for this hypothesis lies in the images that people use to illustrate STEM. Just look up STEM on Google Images and you will find lots of examples of graphics like the one accompanying today’s column (for which I credit Student Affairs at Lehigh University.) If there are little icons associated with the four letters in STEM, the one that goes with T is almost always very computer-y, like the on-off button in the example above.

Again, nothing I say here is really an attempt to get people to change the way they use language. There are a lot of terms in English like “engineering technology” that are just idiomatic and are not built using a logical grammatical construction. However, it is good to be aware of that fact. The words we use and way we use them have a tremendous but often subtle influence on the way we think about things. I encourage all my readers to pay attention and to be as precise as possible whenever that makes the most sense – say what you mean, mean what you say.

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University