【正文】 there is a problem, and then e up with a solution to that problem.” Erin Wallace, director of IE at Walt Disney World Co., would not hire anyone who was not a degreed IE. “I insist on it,” she says. “When you?ve got a group of people who are distinctly IEs, they carry with them what we like to refer to as distinct petencies. Those distinct petencies for an IE at Walt Disney World include their ability to do quantitative analysis. You need an IE degree to be able to do that type of work.” Wallace says that when someone hires IE technologytype majors, they do not get some of the rudimentary problem solving skills acquired from taking engineering courses. Curriculum Since there is a favorable consensus about the technical qualification of degreed IEs, universities and colleges must be doing all industry believes is necessary to prepare today?s IE students. Appearances may be deceiving. In fact, even though ABET accredits many IE and IET programs in the United States, there remains much variance and flexibility among each of the programs. Evidence of the fact can be found in a recent Australian study undertaken by the Industrial Engineering/Management (IE/M) group of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Swinburne Institute of Technology (SIT). The school initiated a set of promotional activities to rejuvenate the industrial engineering name and status. One of the school?s goals was to help convince managers and government to reconsider the role of industrial engineering. In preparation for the events, the IE / M group surveyed more than 150 . universities with accredited IE programs at the undergraduate and graduate level. Of those universities that answered 37 were randomly drawn for analysis. The main purpose was to analyze the quantity and quality of the IE subjects. According to Shayan and Hamadani at SIT, the most important point is that coverage of IE is not yet standardized. Other steps Two key projects currently working toward helping academia improve the overall IE curriculum include the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NFS), and IIE?s joint effort between the Council on Industrial Engineering (CIE ) and the Council of Industrial Engineering Academic Department Heads (CIEADH). SUCCEED, which is aimed at all engineering disciplines, is an engineering education coalition established by NSF in March 1992. The coalition has proposed a new curriculum model, CURRICULUM 2 1, as a mechanism to focus its efforts on specific goals such as restructuring the engineering curriculum and improving the quality and quantity of graduates. The second project, between CIE and CIEADH, has been ongoing since the Fall of 1990. Specifically, CIE (corporatelevel directors whose span of control includes IE functions) meets with CIEADH (98 academic department heads from universities and colleges) at scheduled times during the year to better define what industry needs from academia. IIE acts as a facilitator between the two groups to help inform academia. The ultimate goal of these meetings is the development of a clearly defined set of output characteristics that will help academia design an improved undergraduate IE curriculum. This is not to say that these anizations are attempting to standardize the IE curriculum, rather, they are trying to provide basic guidelines. The question of whether the IE curriculum, should be standardized throughout every university is not an issue. Leaders in industry and academia readily agree that there is no possible way for every curriculum at every college to be identical. “ I don?t think you can require every IE curriculum to be cookie cutter of each other,” says Glaxo?s Ray. What appears to be a problem is the perceived gap between what types of students academia is providing pared with the types of students industry seeks. Most industry leaders acknowledge that the majority of universities and colleges should provide, and do provide, students who are technically petent .To expect that IE students be highly knowledgeable about every possible aspect of industrial engineering upon graduation may be unrealistic, says Zollenberg. Students are required to take a broad range of IE course to help them understand the principles of IE and provide a solid academic foundation. A graduate student can then go on to specialize in a particular area if he or she desire to do so. Zollenberg insists that it is impossible to learn everything they need to know about the jobs they will encounter. “I?m not sure anybody ing out is going to learn all of the required skills in four years of school. I don?t think it?s fair to the universities and I don?t I don?t think it?s fair to the kids,” he says. Expectations What industry leaders to expect, however, are students who have the ability to operate in the environment in which they are placed. These areas where there appears to be a deficiency include interpersonal skills, knowledge of puters, nontechnical/business skills, quality management skills, and an appreciation for the plant floor. Depending upon what industry the new graduate is placed, the need for certain skills will vary. Wallace, who works for a serviceoriented pany (Walt Disney World), thinks today?s students are welltrained in most areas, with the exception of puter shills. She says she still sees a lot of students who came out of school without very good puter skills. “Nowadays, that should be a prerequisite.” In the manufacturing sector, Jack Broadway, director of corporate IE for Reynolds Metals, believes today?s students are p