For those who do not work at companies like Boeing or Motorola, institutions of higher education are working with industry to train a work force in need of continuing actualization. Dr. Smerdon reiterates the importance of this issue by indicating that the country's economic future depends on its intellectual capital. Not only the technical work force and their employers should be concerned but our society as a whole, the author insists. Significant changes are not only happening in the work place of scientists and engineers. In higher education, changes are occurring at a fast pace.
Universities now have multiple campuses and a number of satellite classroom centers.
This is a change in the way higher education was provided even ten years ago. There are many examples in the literature of extended campus instruction, and the support given by libraries to their students and faculty members. One new dimension added to this trend is the creation of virtual classrooms and virtual campuses. Changes are not only affecting professional or graduate sci-tech education, but the undergraduate programs as well. Distance learning is emerging as a real possibility for undergraduate education.