New Program Teaches Global Thinking


Juan Lucena and StudentsIf their professors have their way, the graduates of a new degree program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will think as creatively as the people who put peregrine falcons on patrol at JFK International Airport.

For years, aircraft collisions with seagulls that make their home in the beautiful Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge surrounding JFK Airport brought the risk of engine ingestion and crashes. Traditional methods to deal with the situation had been either shooting the birds or playing loud music to drive them away.

In 1996, JFK began experimenting with the use of trained falcons and hawks to scare the gulls away from flight paths. In the first season that these patrol birds were on duty, gull strikes fell by 66 percent.

Managing a complex web

"An innovative solution," says Peter Quigley, chairman of humanities and social sciences at Embry-Riddle in Prescott, Ariz. He's been watching these events at JFK closely ever since his department last fall started a degree program in science, technology and globalization (STG) that aims to teach students how to develop the same type of creative solutions for governments and corporations.

"The aviation and aerospace industries face an increasingly complex web of environmental, security, and technological concerns," he says. "We plan to educate the professionals who will manage this web."

"Industry and trade today know no borders," Quigley explains. "Students need to understand NAFTA and other global trade agreements. They need to know the importance of global environmental regulations to human health and wildlife protection. They need to understand the cultural influences operating in an ethnically and racially diverse work force and industry clientele."

Three specializations

The STG program is the only one in the nation offering specializations in three areas of concern to the aviation and aerospace industries: security, the environment, and technology policy and management.

Students specializing in security will have careers helping governments and companies with global problems such as airline terrorism, weapons proliferation, virus epidemics, and computer hacking. "They'll be able to analyze intelligence information and understand the relationships between that information and the global dynamics that influenced it," says Richard Bloom, associate professor of clinical and political psychology and coordinator of terrorism, intelligence, and security studies in the program.

The environment track trains students to analyze the interaction between science and technology and the environment. They'll mediate between companies and governments on issues such as environmental regulation of airlines and environmental policies in global trade. "Every airport has environmental specialists who work to maintain legal compliances," Quigley says. "In the future, we'll see more leaders in these positions solving local and global problems in creative, environmentally sound ways."

The specialization in technology policy and management prepares cultural "interpreters" of worldwide technological change. "They'll have the skills to work in the technological and human resource dimensions of global change, particularly in high-tech environments," says Juan Lucena, assistant professor of science and technology studies and director of the STG program.

Study abroad encouraged

Students in the program learn a foreign language and are encouraged to study abroad and visit foreign airlines, airports, government agencies, research labs, and factories. Exchanges with universities in other countries are being developed.

Students also serve internships with government agencies, policy organizations, and companies. Opportunities include work-study jobs at McDonnell Douglas; JFK International Airport; Terranext, an environmental engineering firm; Philip Environmental, a resource recovery and conversion company; and the Loka Institute, lobbyists for environmentally sound technology. During their co-op placement, students write a senior thesis that links their academic and real-world education.

The program's faculty are committed to holding major conferences on global issues. In 1997, Quigley organized a forum on the influences of ethnicity, nationality, power, authority, gender, and nonstandard utterances on aviation communication. Bloom, Lucena, and Quigley are planning an international conference for early 1999 on "Science, Technology and Globalization: Agenda for the Next Millennium."

In its first academic year, 1997-98, the STG program boasts 54 students. For more information, contact Juan Lucena at (928) 777-3836 or lucenaj@erau.edu.

By Tedi Bish Patterson