How do engineers stay current in today’s rapidly changing technological world? The answer is to continue their education beyond the formal award of their bachelor’s degree. As engineers, our technical knowledge becomes obsolete, it is said, within five years of graduation if nothing is done to renew it. The first part of this presentation focuses on this challenge to us as engineers and discusses ways to meet it. The second part discusses how the IEEE, at the local and national levels, can help in maintaining currency of technical knowledge. Options nationally include conferences and tutorials. At the section level, the options include sponsorship of distinguished lecturers and short course series. IEEE Sections that have sponsored short course series as a continuing education means will be used to provide examples of the types of courses offered. A strategy for determining topics and offering short courses in your section will be presented. The demand for continuing education opportunities will increase as more and more states are imposing continuing education requirements for the renewing of professional engineering licenses. In view of this, the procedure for offering continuing education units (CEUs) through the IEEE is described.

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About the Speaker

Rodger E. Ziemer

Rodger E. Ziemer received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1960, 1961, and 1965, respectively. After serving in the U. S. Air Force from 1965 – 1968, he joined the University of Missouri – Rolla until 1983, having been promoted through the ranks to Professor. He joined the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) in Jan. 1984 as Professor and Chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. In August 1998, he went on leave to the National Science Foundation where he was Program Director for Communications Research until August 2001; he then returned to being a full-time faculty member at UCCS. He has spent intermittent periods on leave or sabbatical to various universities and industrial concerns, including Motorola Government Electronics Group, Motorola Corporate Research Laboratories, Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group Applied Research Laboratories, University of California at San Diego, and Virginia Technical and State University. He was also Visiting Professor at the Iasi Polytechnic Institute, Iasi, Romania, in May-June, 1993 and 1995. He has published several papers in his areas of research interest, principally in digital communications, and has authored or co-authored several books. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and has served the IEEE in various capacities locally, regionally, and nationally. At the national level, he was a distinguished lecturer for the Communications Society from 2001 to 2004. He is currently Region 5 Chair for Continuing Education.