To support the integration of standards education in undergraduate and graduate curricula nationwide, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded approximately $500,000 in grants to five U.S. universities.
Launched 10 years ago, NIST’s Standards Services Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program supports integration of content on documentary standards and standardization processes into courses, modules, seminars, and learning resources, including sustainable approaches that can be replicated and built upon by other educational programs.
The five recipients of the award are: Purdue University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Florida, University of Houston, and University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Disciplines supported by the awards include infrastructure improvement and resilience, building information modeling, nanomaterials engineering, aerospace, robotics and sustainability.
“Investing in the next generation of standards leaders can help ensure U.S. technology leadership worldwide,” said Gordon Gillerman, director of NIST’s Standards Coordination Office. “Not only are standards important to innovation, safety and a fair marketplace, a standards-savvy workforce is critical to the U.S. leadership in international standards development.”
NIST’s support has also helped integrate standards into law education: Last month, the Penn Program on Regulation (PPR) at the University of Pennsylvania, announced that it had expanded its resource site showcasing the importance of voluntary codes and standards: Codes-and-Standards.org.
ANSI Supports Standards Education Initiatives
As part of its long-term commitment to foster the next generation of standards leaders and leverage their skills with unique educational opportunities, the ANSI Committee on Education (COE) leads various activities and interactive workshops related to standards education all year, and within campus communities: