Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, December 8, 1997 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Brenda Forman

Space & The Virtual Classroom - The Future of Education

ABSTRACT -- The American public is indifferent to space and the space program because they don't perceive it as having any connection to their everyday lives. This could change -- possibly rapidly -- if space were to become the vehicle for a first-rate, affordable education leading to high-paying jobs. A space-based, broad-band satellite-supported distance learning infrastructure could create the infrastructure for that education by enabling large-scale distance learning via statewide, regional and national Virtual Classrooms and Virtual Campuses. That infrastructure -- provided it is properly designed with adequate bandwidth and state-of-the-art technology -- then does double duty by making the computer-literate workforce that it has trained readily accessible, via modem, satellite and computer, to employers anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER: Dr. Brenda Forman has spent more than a decade in the private sector. She is currently the Director, Academic Liaison & Federal Technology Policy at the Lockheed Martin Corporation in Bethesda, Maryland. Before that, she spent many years in the federal government, first as a senior policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and later as a senior technology policy advisor in the Commerce Department. Dr. Forman is well known in the space community for her monthly column, now in its eleventh year, for the United States Space Foundation and also writes frequently on a wide range of technology and space subjects for Space News, OMNI, and other national publications. She originated and taught a graduate level course at the University of Southern California's School of Engineering, entitled "The Political Process in Systems Architecture Design," which some of her students dubbed "Survival Skills for the 90's Aerospace Engineer." She took her Ph.D. in political science at the City University of New York. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a recipient of the Defense Department's Distinguished Civilian Service Award and was also an Honorable Mention Honoree at the 27th Annual Wright Brothers Banquet, "The Wright Women," in 1989.