Announcement

President Martin Llamas Nistal 2023-2024 Farewell Message

3 weeks 3 days ago
Share on:
mln farewell

This is the last newsletter of the year and my last newsletter as president. Please let me start with the good news that our Society has reached 8,601 members this month, more than double the number of members (less than 4,000). Of these, more than half are students (5,179), which means that the measures aimed at students, which have consisted of lowering their fees, are beginning to bear fruit.

 

Additionally, we also have encouraging figures in terms of equity and diversity. Regarding gender equity, in June 2023, we had 21.59% women, 72.40% men, and 6.00% unknown. Now, at the beginning of November, we have 32.49% women, 59.72% men and 7.59% unknown. We have a better participation of women. But what's more, among students, these figures are 38.77% female, 51.61% male, and 9.62% unknown, which makes us hope for a future with more gender equality. Regarding diversity, 58.7% of our current members come from Region 10, where we also have the highest rate of students: 79.3% of its members are students.

 

These are encouraging figures, but also double as a challenge for our Society in the future. On the one hand, we need to maintain and/or increase these figures, and on the other, the Society needs to focus on getting a large part of our Student Members to become regular members.  We have managed to attract more students; the challenge now is to keep them when they become professionals.

 

We welcome the new officers of the Education Society who were elected at this last Board of Governors (BoG): Diane Rover as President-Elect; Babak D. Beheshti as Vice President for Educational Activities and Awards; and Rosa Maria Vasconcelos who will continue as Vice President for Membership and Geographic Activities. Additionally, we welcome Ana Luna, who has been appointed Interim Vice President for our new Vice President for Outreach Activities position until the end of 2025. My warmest congratulations to all. I would also like to acknowledge Hamadou Saliah-Hassane for all his dedication, leadership, and good work as Vice President for Educational Activities and Awards.

 

We also welcome the newly elected members of the BoG: Krishnamurthy Kesavasamy, Usman Naeem, Roberto Portillo, and Hamadou Saliah-Hassane, and our warmest thanks to those whose terms are ending this year: Babak D. Beheshti, Manuel Castro, Meriel Huggard and Leonard Bohmann. I would also like to offer a special thanks to Manuel Castro, who announced his definitive retirement from the BoG, where he has been dedicated for the last 20 years.

 

As I said before, this is my last newsletter as president, so I will include here what I consider the most relevant milestones, some of which have been achieved during this last BoG.

 

Since 2007, only one of our journals (IEEE Transactions on Education—IEEE ToE) has had a best paper award. The rest of the journals, which were incorporated into the Society later, have not had such awards, although they have been active for a long time. Therefore, in this last BoG meeting, the Society decided to launch the process of creating a best paper award for the rest of the journals: IEEE-TLT, IEEE-RITA, and the IEEE-ACCESS Education Society section. 

 

The IEEE Education Society Best PhD in Engineering Education Award was approved last year, and this year was its first edition. In this last BoG meeting, it was decided that this award should be re-named the "IEEE Education Society Rob Reilly Best PhD in Engineering Education Award" in honor of our colleague and friend Rob Reily, who recently passed away.

 

Given that our Society is global, international, and diverse, last year, it was approved that the fall BoG will be held at the FIE (our leading flagship conference) and the spring BoG at the EDUCON. In this sense, this year, BoG meetings were held co-located with EDUCON 2024 in Kos, Greece, for the first time. In the future, it is desirable that, by 2030, one BoG meeting be held in conjunction with the EDUNINE conference and another with the TALE conference. And some of the Society ceremonies and other primary activities should be held at other flagship conferences. As an example, the Society's annual awards ceremony, held partly at the FIE 2024 conference, will present its other half at the TALE 2024 conference.

 

Other main actions carried out in the last two years include the following:

  • (May-24) Creation of a new officer: the Vice President for Outreach Activities, whose main purpose is to increase the global impact of the EdSoc through strategic outreach and publicity efforts.
  • Creation of 5 committees
    • (Oct-23) Fellow Nomination Advisory Committee (FNAC), whose main objective is to promote and advise our members on effective ways to be elevated to IEEE Fellow when they are ready.
    • (Oct-23) Climate Change and Sustainability Committee (CCSC), which will promote the inclusion and consideration of the effects of Climate Change in all the conferences, publications, and activities
    • (May-24) An Ad-Hoc Committee to become a Global leading champion of Peace Engineering. (Promoted by Edmundo Tovar)
    • (May-24) Outreach Activities Committee (OAC), which shall be responsible for using outreach and publicity efforts to increase the global impact of and promote the vision of the Society to be a global leader in Engineering Education.
    • (Oct-24) The Ad Hoc Committee on Generative Artificial Intelligence Applications in Engineering Education (GAIAEEC), which will develop a best practice guide on the application of GAI in engineering education, for both teachers and students.
  • (Jun-23): Benefit for members: conference rate of 0.9 times the IEEE base registration fee for IEEE Education Society members in all EdSoc Conferences.
  • (Oct-23 & May-24): Several New Initiative Projects were approved (US$ 114,500.00)
  • (May-24): Approval of up to 12 Education Society student travel scholarships for up to $20,000 USD to assist IEEE student members at IEEE EdSoc financially sponsored conferences. (Promoted by Diana Andone)
  • (Oct-23): Engagement of students: Reduced fee for students: $1 USD.
  • Increase support for attendance at BoG meetings to $1,250 USD a year in 2024 and $1,500 USD for next year 2025.
  • Special offers for membership and students in special events: IEEE Day, Educational Week and FIE conferences.
  • The creation and conversion of the Young Professionals (YP) and D&I Ad Hoc Committees into Standing Committees, with the D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) committee being named DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).
  • The creation of the IEEE Education Society Hall of Honor (Promoted by Edmundo Tovar)
  • The update of the C&B on all these changes in the last 2 years.  

 

All these achievements have been possible thanks to the work of great leaders on the Executive Committee, the Board of Governors, Standing Committees Chairs, Editors-in-Chief of our journals, organizers of our flagship and sponsored conferences, chairs of chapters, and many more. Thanks a lot. Working with all of you during these two years has been an honor and privilege.

 

And thanks to our Operations Manager, Margaret Brown, for all her professionalism and good work in the operation of the Society, through all our weekly meetings, and many other working meetings with different leaders of our society. Thanks to her support, the society has achieved greater success.

 

My best wishes and support to the incoming president of the IEEE Education Society for the next two years, Arnold Pears.

 

I hope you enjoy this newsletter!

 

Sincerely yours,

Martin