Ten Years Of Experience With Continuing Education Programs
Authors: Uhl A.E. 
Published: December 2007

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This paper was prepared for the 40th Annual Fall Meeting of the of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Denver, Colo., Oct. 3–6, 1965. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal, provided agreement to give proper credit is made.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

Over ten years of experience with continuing education programs, developed to meet the needs of engineers practicing in the gas industry, is reviewed. The general philosophy of the organization of the program is discussed; aspects of the organization and supervision of individual courses are analyzed. Elements of experience of especial interest to the continuing education problem of the petroleum industry are emphasized.

Introduction

The Institute of Gas Technology was established in 1941 at Illinois Institute of Technology by the nation's gas industry. As a nonprofit membership corporation, its purpose was to serve the educational and research needs of the industry. Its chartered function was threefold: education, research, and information.

Initially, IGT was organized as an affiliated department of the university at the graduate level its budget funded independently of the Illinois Tech tuitions and endowments. The original intent of the industrial founders was to support a semiautonomous faculty which, with its attendant body of graduate students, would engage in educational and research activities in a manner compatible with the chartered functions. It was thus essentially assumed that the faculty and students would perform research in the course of respectively presenting and pursuing advanced degree programs in gas technology. Information would then accrue in the form of texts, manuals, literature surveys, theses, dissertations, and other publications.

The shortage of students during W W II forced the faculty to concentrate more exclusively on research. As a result, research programs arose beyond the level needed to serve the needs of a graduate education program alone. Subsequently, the expansion of research activities generally in the post-Korean conflict period coincided with the permanent establishment of a large research staff at IGT. This resulted in an altered organizational concept. Two semi-independent divisions of activity thus arose, with industrial research staffed and funded separately from education.

The expansion of IGT's research activities was accompanied by an analogous, though less rapid, expansion of the educational services.