Search Results

This chapter presents the history of policies and practices in the supply of IT workers, especially as they relate to policy for higher education and computing research, in the United States. There is no direct worker policy that mandates how many workers of various types need to be trained. Instead, policy about the supply of IT workers is vested in other kinds of policy: national research output, education, defence, social welfare, immigration, national economic competitiveness, and taxation. Concerns about the national supply of IT workers is tied directly to scientific research and higher education policy, and these are the topics that are investigated most extensively in this chapter. Both the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Academies of Science and Engineering have been key players in this.

This chapter takes as its point of departure the launch of the Soviet satellite, Sputnik, in 1957 and the subsequent passage of the National Defense Education Act, which, as part of its program of strengthening math and science education in the United States, also provided libraries with funds for purchasing books in these areas. Although designed to fortify the United States against the Communist menace, the Act helped foster a major market for books by people who were strongly critical of the Cold War, and, in some cases, were Marxists or even current or former Communist Party members. This chapter traces the development of science education and scientific literature for children as these intersected with interest in science among Socialists, Communists, and other Marxists, as well as radicals in general, starting in the early 20th century and continuing through the Cold War. In a repressive cultural climate, scientific themes had the advantage of seeming value-neutral, but in practice proved fertile ground for teaching children to think critically, to question received authority (especially on racial matters), and to feel empowered to influence and change the world around them. The chapter also suggests ways in which Marxism's logic influenced scientific thought and translated into scientific children's literature.

Eight years after its foundation, the Atlantic alliance agreed to set up a Science Committee with the ambition of sponsoring a science program. This chapter first explores defence research projects pre-dating the launch of the new committee in the context of its Cold War strategic requirements. It then focuses on the motives behind the setting up of the new committee. The launch of the first Soviet satellite, Sputnik, and the political divisions between the allies convinced NATO's administrators about the merits of a collaborative program for both boosting defense and facilitating the alliance's integration. Instigating a debate on these themes was especially a report by the foreign ministers of Italy, Norway and Canada (the "Three Wise Men") canvassing support for NATO sponsorship.

Dr. Lilia Abron is an engineer, an entrepreneur, mother, and activist who works twelve-hour days. She is another true Renaissance woman. Lilia was born at home in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 8, 1945. She was small, premature, and almost did not survive were it not for her aunt, who rushed her to the hospital in a cab because ambulances were not available to black people at the time. She was the second of four daughters of Ernest Buford Abron and Bernice Wise Abron, who were both educators. Both of her parents had attended LeMyone College. Her father entered college and played football. Because of an injury he was ineligible to serve in the military in World War II. He then worked as a Pullman porter, because his father had been a Pullman porter. After the war, when the trains were not as popular, he became a teacher in the Memphis public schools. Lilia’s mother and father were very active during the civil rights era. Lilia’s mother was from Arkansas; and she typed the briefs for Wiley Branton, defense attorney for the Little Rock Nine, the group that integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Because Lilia’s parents were active in Memphis society, Lilia was involved in programs that included the Girl Scouts and the church. She went to public school in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, which led the United States to improve math and science education. The school system tracked each student’s education, even in the segregated schools. Therefore, Lilia was placed in the math and science track. This meant she participated in a science fair, which was held at Lemoyne College. In addition, she had to prepare other science projects. Her segregated schools were well equipped for science teaching. In addition to well-stocked labs, the Memphis high school that she attended offered higher-level mathematics, including algebra and introduction to calculus. She graduated from high school in Memphis and decided to go to college with the intention of studying medicine, which was the one of the few occupations available to black people at the time.

After Sputnik’s launch, science and natural history museum directors urged the federal government to invest more heavily in the informal education that museums offered. But what constituted effective education in the life sciences, and the role museums should play in that process, now proved a more controversial topic. Teachers, science policy-makers and scientists argued broadly over the relative merits of discipline-based science pedagogy and science literacy in the late 1950s, conflicts that found their way into museum exhibits. Within museums, the on-going professionalization of exhibition work continued to improve the appearance of displays, and evolution as a biological concept slowly found its way into exhibits. By the end of the 1960s, however, federal educational leadership had jumpstarted more productive dialogues about display pedagogy and these dialogues attracted renewed attention to museums’ potential contributions to informal and formal science education.

This chapter outlines the political concerns over the launch of Sputnik, which weighed 185 pounds and measured about twenty-three inches in diameter. Some investors assumed that Sputnik would spur U.S. defense spending, and that defense-related stocks would rally. Redesigning the structure and staffing of the defense establishment was just a first step. America's technological renaissance also required a vast investment in research and development. Itek was sensitive to Boston University's needs and appreciated the problems connected with the transfer of the laboratory. The lab was a national resource and Boston University had done everything possible to hold it together, despite declining air force support. The last set of cutbacks had been enough to force Case to shut down the lab on financial grounds.

This chapter analyzes the bureaucratic and financial origins of mid-century federal support for education reform in general and the National Science Foundation’s curriculum projects in particular. Drawing from debates in Congress and among educational reformers, the origins of the new math were primarily located in the push to fight the “Cold War of the classrooms.” Long before Sputnik’s launch in 1957, critics had called for an overhaul of the American education system, and the Soviet satellite provided an opportunity ripe for exploitation. The use of classrooms as a site of Cold War politics was neither inevitable nor self-evident. Politicians, educators, and scientists had to work to make the case that the nation’s “scientific manpower” crisis was ultimately rooted in problems of intellectual discipline.

This chapter looks at space exploration initiatives, mainly by Russia and the United States, that opened up new discoveries about the Moon. On October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the Earth. Nearly everyone in America was unprepared for this development. The United States had no space program and no reliable rockets with which to launch anything into space. A month later, Russia successfully launched another satellite, this one carrying the ill-fated dog Laika. America responded by accelerating the existing work on rocketry that had begun at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Then on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to send men to the Moon and return them safely “before this decade is out.” It all began on July 28, 1964, when Ranger 7 struck only a few kilometers from its intended landing site on a ray of the bright crater Copernicus. This was followed by Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter missions.

This chapter examines two moments in the development of Thomas Kuhn’s theory of science that debuted in 1962’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: when Kuhn spoke in Berkeley about the meaning and implications of the Sputnik crisis in late 1957 and four years later, when his new theory of “paradigms” and “normal science” collided with the post-Sputnik American movement for liberal reforms in science education. It examines that liberal consensus promoted by Kuhn’s mentor, James Bryant Conant, as well as figures like H. Bentley Glass, the geneticist who directed the B.S.C.S. reforms in biology education. Reading “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research” in England in 1961, Kuhn’s counterintuitive claims that dogmatism and intellectual conformity were healthy, productive, and conducive to scientific revolutions led Glass to challenge Kuhn and persuade him to abandon the crucial term he had come to England to defend: dogma. The chapter concludes with an examination of Conant’s reactions to Structure and argues that Conant, like Glass, recognized the text as a reaction to his liberal conception of science--one with important, and possibly unfortunate and dangerous, geopolitical implications.

This introductory chapter recounts President Dwight D. Eisenhower's response to the Soviet Union's launching of the world's first satellite—Sputnik. He tried to dispel the notion that Sputnik should threaten national security, saying that it merely represents scientific progress. However, his comment caused critics to question his assertiveness as president, accusing him of being too “slow in asserting a vigorous leadership” of the United States in the space race against the Soviet Union. They added that the matter should be prioritized as it was a reflection of America's status in the world stage, economic strength, national security, science, education, and ideals. Hence, with U.S. politics roiled by concerns ranging from race relations to nuclear warfare, the Sputnik issue served as a focal point for criticism and a political weapon for Eisenhower's foes on the left and the right.

This chapter centers on Americans' reaction to the launching of Sputnik. George Reedy, an assistant to Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and later his press secretary, recalled that Sputnik's launch hit Americans “like a brick through a plate-glass window, shattering into tiny slivers the American illusion of technical superiority over the Soviet Union.” Although ravaged by World War II, the Soviets managed to implement a crash program to develop weapons of mass destruction, exploding their first atomic bomb in 1949 and first hydrogen device in 1953, just one year after America's H-bomb. Hence, Sputnik demonstrated that Russia indeed had rockets powerful enough to launch nuclear weapons that could reach Western Europe or even North America.

This chapter examines Eisenhower's response to the launching of Sputnik. He urged Americans to remain calm, saying that U.S. national security was not undermined and thus should continue its scientific plan. He also expressed confidence regarding the country's defense and scientific position. Defense Secretary Neil McElroy noted that “in total military strength, the U.S., in our judgment, is still distinctly ahead of the U.S.S.R.” However, congressional critics and the media argued that Sputnik proved America's vulnerability, and that the Eisenhower administration was caught flat-footed. The administration mounted a clumsy, shambling defense by trying to soft-pedal or even dismiss the Soviet achievement.

This chapter highlights Eisenhower's governance principles that contributed to his response to the Sputnik launch. One of these is secrecy. By keeping America's defense secrets too tight, Eisenhower left Americans unaware of Soviet as well as U.S. rocket technology, and his silence failed to draw attention to the Pentagon's progress in Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles. Eisenhower also prioritized surveillance. He dispatched U-2 spy aircraft to monitor Soviet satellite and rocketry work, allowing him to remain unfazed by media and congressional criticism. The remainder of the chapter discusses Eisenhower's other governance principles such as defense, economic strength, and balance.

This chapter explains Eisenhower's priorities as well as his view on prestige in relation to space exploration. Nine months before Sputnik, while delivering his 1957 State of the Union address, Eisenhower spoke of America's willingness to enter into an agreement to “control the outer space missile and satellite development.” General Goodpaster emphasized that the president's willingness conveys that he wanted to keep the two matters separated. In addition, Special Counsel to the President Roemer McPhee stated that Eisenhower considered attention grabbing projects a “fluff,” and worked more on the substance. This attitude explains why even though American's prestige suffered a “severe blow” after Sputnik, Eisenhower prioritized scientific achievement more than the space race.

This chapter discusses the declining political prestige of Eisenhower, which was evident during the 1960 presidential elections. Prof. William Ewald believed that Sputnik represented the start of a downward arc in Eisenhower's presidency. He further described it as “a sequence driven by negativism and partisanship, ending in bitterness and defeat.” As the election year approached, Eisenhower was bombarded by Democratic attacks built around the dual themes of a sluggish president and second-place America. The Democrats accused the Eisenhower administration of suffering a “space-myopia” that prevented it from seeing “the world impact of being the first in space.” More generally, Eisenhower was accused of allowing America slip to second-rate status.

This concluding chapter describes Eisenhower's leadership in relation to the Sputnik issue. Eisenhower practiced a disciplined leadership style stressing tenets that seemed archaic and dull. He resisted cries for expansive government programs and spending. As such, he can be considered a throwback to pre- Keynesian thinking that emphasized balanced federal budgets and limited spending. Moreover, Eisenhower cared for his arsenal of presidential powers. He gave television talks, reached out to scientists, approved a backup satellite, and beat back pressure for more space and defense spending. He accomplished all this while recovering from a mild stroke.

This chapter expands on the notion of Apollo Culture in greater detail, beginning with an historic context of the Cold War era. It takes a look at the Sputnik and Vanguard launches during the IGY (International Geophysical Year) Space Race, and explains how these political and social events of the mid-20^th century set the stage for the rise and fall of the Apollo program- which required a combination of engineering, marketing, and scientific efforts by the federal government.

Given the consistent failures in Harold Stassen’s long pursuit of the presidency, it is difficult to focus on his positive contributions to American policy during his four years in the Eisenhower administration. The ultimate objective of his diplomacy was to de-escalate and end the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He believed he knew how to achieve this goal, which was one that Eisenhower shared. Stassen‘s vision of a world free from the fear of a nuclear holocaust has not been realized, but the optimism he personified has not yet been extinguished.

This chapter argues that Washington maintained its position of global leadership in the second half of the 1950s, keeping alive prospects for growth of the American Century. Challenges were many, including the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, the lure of trade with the People’s Republic of China, and instability in the Middle East and Indochina. In the Western Hemisphere, the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba shook American prestige. Responses resulted in an arms race with the USSR and a greater U.S. strategic presence from Indochina to Pakistan and Lebanon. Importantly, economic aid to the Third World via the World Bank, Development Loan Fund, and Inter-American Development Bank drew on the tenets of modernization theory.