STATE OF THE NICE 2006-2007

A lot has happened this past year. Our long time Executive director, Diane Folz, and the contract she worked under at Virginia Tech were terminated in February of this year. About the same time our President, Bill Mullins, of Army Research was curtailed from traveling and even contacting us by his higher command. This became apparent at the called NICE Board Meeting in April at Westerville. With this, a lot of history and knowledge of how things work and how they are done for NICE and the Organizations we work with was lost.

I had to step in from my place as President-Elect and take over as the Interim President. This was not easy, but great strides have been made and I am here to assure you that NICE will continue to serve as the coordinating and implementing body within The American Ceramic Society, to advocate and to advance the practice and education related to the ceramics discipline within the field of Materials Science and Engineering. This is our mission as stated in our strategic plan.

At the NICE Board Meeting in Westerville in April, the NICE Objectives and Goals for 2006 were defined. Along with that, the status of the administrative support that has been transferred to ACerS was reviewed and that administrative support was clarified. Henceforth, the staff support will be Greg Geiger as “Manager of Accreditation” and Marcia Stout for support of all awards and Fellows activities. There is not an “Executive Director” of NICE anymore.

At that meeting, the Business Plan and Budget input for incorporation into the ACerS 2007 plan was discussed and the outline of what was needed was decided. The NICE Business Plan and budget input has been completed, and is to be submitted for the BOD approval at this meeting.

The Strategic Plan for the NICE was drafted during that meeting and after many rewrites, was submitted for approval at the ICC meeting in Toronto this past summer. It was approved with some slight revision and is available on our web site.

The NICE is still very active in the ABET process. We have a member on the ABET BOD, and we have a Commissioner among our ranks. This gives us a good platform to promote not only our agenda, but it turns out the agenda of other “small” societies in the world of educational accreditation. We are experiencing great pressure there. The number of Colleges and Universities that still give Ceramic Engineering degrees at the bachelor level is still declining. Currently there are only two left and there is a fierce discussion at one of the over the Ceramic Engineering curriculum. We are working to join with TMS to be a joint-lead society in Materials. This is an ongoing discussion and the end is not in sight. We have also started a discussion on multi-level accreditation. That is, to be allowed to accredit in both the Bachelor and Masters levels at the same school. Currently the accrediting society cannot do both.

Out of that meeting came a directive to continue to give the P.E. Exam for Ceramics. We have not been able to give this exam for several years and it was feared that we would lose the ability to give it. The exam has been updated and was offered here at this meeting. We had three responders. One, it turned out was not qualified and the other two finally dropped out of the process. They had business issues that interfered. In the process of setting this exam up our Accreditation Committee found that the State of Ohio has changed personnel and procedures, so we had to re-orient ourselves to the new process. Greg Geiger has been a big help in going through all the political red tape to find out what the procedure is. I’m sure we will have to do it again next year as the potential exam will be held outside of Ohio. This will mean crossing state lines and finding the right way to accomplish the goal of giving the exam.

Out of the work on the P.E. exam has come a need to know who in NICE is a registered PE. I have asked for members of NICE to give me that information. This will be incorporated on our website as a database. Thus, when a request for a qualified ceramic expert comes in to ACerS, this database can be used to steer applicants to people that are qualified in their state. Since we have not given many exams at any one time in the past, this list will not be too large. Currently we have 16 people that are registered in 18 states and one in Canada! That is a good start. We will need more input from the membership to make this a useful tool. It is possible that this effort will be expanded to the whole ACerS membership.

Also, as a direct result of that meeting, we resolved to re-emphasize the Order of the Engineer Induction Ceremony. This is an organization that promotes ethical practice in the engineering world. The NICE Link of the Order of the Engineer is actively promoting this formal oath of obligation toward ethical practice within the materials community.

As we all know, with the change from an annual Meeting in the spring, to a fall meeting, the awards schedules have been changed. We are currently in the process of getting nominations for the Schwartzwalder P.A.C.E., Greaves-Walker and Friedberg Lecture Awards for the meeting in 2007. We need those nominations in by October 31, so the award committees can make their selections on schedule. Please send them to Marcia Stout at ACerS or any Officer of NICE. The qualifications are on the ACerS website under membership/awards. The Schwartzwalder P.A.C.E award is a joint NICE/ACerS award and is in the top of this page awards. The others are found by scrolling down to “classes” and clicking on NICE. By the time you read this, the nominations will be closed for the 2007 year, however please do not let that stop you from making a nomination at any time as the nominations lists are active for several years.

There is still much to do in an administrative way. The Rules need to be re-written to accommodate these new schedules and administrative changes. After that, the Committees List will change as the committee duties will be changed. I would hope that all that can be done by the January Meeting. I will be working very hard with your Executive Board to get this done.

There was one last item from the April meeting. There was a mandate to have a general communication from the NICE Board twice a year to the membership. There has already been one and a restructuring of this “State of the NICE” will be the second this year.

I look forward to finishing the restructuring of NICE in 2007. NICE will not close, nor will it be the same as it was. We will need your help, your volunteering some time and your thoughts about where we can go from here. Your officers are here to listen and do what you, the ceramic community wants us to do as your representatives.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you this past year. I look forward to representing you in 2007.

Fred Stover
NICE President, 2006-07
fstover@accesstoledo.com