Page 6-Tbe Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, Octobef 28,1993
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ZehevTadmor
Zehev Tadmor, president ofTechnion - Israel Institute of Technology for the past three years, has a longstanding affiliation with the university. He earned his B. Sc. in 1959 and his master's degree in 1963 at Technion prior to receiving his PhD from the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. A Technion faculty member since 1968, he is a former chair of the Chemical Engineering Department. In the late 1980s he headed the think tank that drafted the university's program for absorption of Soviet olim. While in Toronto ■ recently, he spoke to GJN reporter Frances Kraft at the Toronto office of the Canadian Technion Society.
CJN: HTw/ are your priorities at Technion, and why?
Tadmor: Priority number one is to get very heavily into major research projects. We are working on establishing some 18 multi-disciplinary centres of (excellence in different phases of technology.
Priority number two, which is equally important, is to improve our engineering education to answer the needs of the future. I believe you can ho longer educate an engineer foi- 21st-century technology in four years. That.means that most of our engineering graduates will have to continue into a master's of engineering program. I think that will be the trend worldwide.
Number three will be getting very heavily into management education. Industry depends on technology, but you cannot run an industry without having superior management. There's tremendous global competition. We established! an Industrial Engineering and Management Department some 20 years ago, but we want to focus more attention on management.
Another major change will be a strong focus on continuing education. Engineers \yill have to study throughout their life, and we want to become a focal point of that type of activity. We have a lot of continuing education already, but we want to expand it. In fact, we are using part of our Canada building to expand substantially the continuing education activity on campus.
We are also getting more involved with science education, because that's the future generation. We have a department that educates teachers for high schools in science and technology, and we've had an international science program for high school [students] for the past two years.
CjN: You headed the think tank responsible for Technion's absorption program for Soviet immigrants. How are those olim who were scientists in the former Soviet Union being absorbed into Israel's scientific community?
Tadmor: There were about half a million immigrants who came in this last wave in the last three years or so. Of that half a million, there were about 40,000 to 50,000 engineers and about 10,000 scientists (people with doctorate degrees who have published papers). Those at universities — between 700 and 1,000 at most — are the ■ elite.; ,„
Many others are in industry. According to the statistics, one year after aliyah about 60 percent, if I remember correctly, have jobs, [although] I don't know if they're the kind of jobs they want to have.
Technion has absorbed 20 faculty members. They are the Cream of the crop, obviously.
Hundreds that were scientists now work as high school teachers in science.
After two years in Israel the unemployment drops to 15 percent, which is still higher than the Israeli average, which I think is now 10 or 11 percent.
You have to realize, and they do too, that when ypu make a transition like that between tvyo societies that are so different, there is a transition period until you climb back to where you have been. Some will never climb backj, and some will far exceed where they were before. We are very early in that stage. It's too early to judge.
CJN: Aside from the 20 Russian faculty menders, how are Russian olim being absorbed at Technion?
Tadmor: In that sense we are leading other Israeli universities. We have on our campus 1,500 Russian students out of a total of 10,500 students. We have 350 Russian scientists vk'orking on research-projects together with faculty on a temporary basis with the help of the govemhient. _ _^We established an incubator for Russian scientists to develop ideas aiid products that have a commercial value, and we have 70 Russian scientists and engineers working on about 15 different projects, each of which is set up as a little compatny. Now we are at the stage where the first littie companies are negotiating major investnient
in order to expand.
We are involved on a continual basis with hundreds of engineers and scientists in retraining programs. [We are] retraining engineers and scientists, either to become teachers or broadening their base in engineering so that they become better integrated into Israeli society. Most of tiiem do find jobs in industry.
CJN: How has the job market for Israeli scientists been affeaed?
Tadmor: I think there is a little more competition. Our graduates are the cream, and the 1,500 Russian students now studying at the Technion will be in the same category, ftilly integrated.
And the others, I find in different positions, some in very good positions, some in riot as good positions. It's a big mix.
The overall impact is extremely positive. The fact is that the Israeli economy started to move with the imniigration, to expand at the rate of six percent.
Attempts by the government to force industry to hire people just to give them jobs were reftised. Industry hii-ed only when they were expanding. They remained efficient, which was the right
Tadmor: The government helped too. The government had allocated additional ftmding [because of mandatory increases in student populations at all Israeli universities to help absorb new olim].
CJN: What role does the Israeli government play in the running of Israeli universities?
Tadmor: There is no minister responsible for universities, because the universities are independent of the government. The Israeli.president makes appointtnents to the Council of Higher Education, and each university is represented there. ■
The Chair of the Council of Higher Education is the Minister of Education, Amnon Rubinstein, but the council makes the decisions on academic matters.
Every academic program, in order to be accredited, needs the approval of the council. The chair of the planning and budgeting committee negotiates with the government for ftinding, so the minister has no direct responsibility, which is excellent, because there is no governmental intervention into the universities. We handle our own affairs.
thing to do.
Up to a certain level [of competition], people work better and harder. When you exceed that level, it may become counterproductive. 1 think we have not reached that stage. AH in all, it's a positive.
CJN: In your 1992president's report you mentioned that Technion's absorption of 2,000 immigrants was accomplished without going into overdraft. Can you still say the same thing?
Tadmor: Absolutely. Our university has no ac-cumulated deficit whatsoever. As we grew in student population by about 17 percent, our faculty only grew very moderately. This was intentional, because this may be a transient period, and then the niimber of students may go down. We didn't want to increase our permanent faculty and not be able to reduce it.
So that made it more efficient in a way, though the students perhaps suffered a bit because the student-faculty ratio went up higher than what we would like to see. „:,.
Our fiindraising also increased 75 percent within a two-year period. I don't think we'll stay at that rate, though. Partly the increase was due to the fact that the Jewish community worldwide was galvanized by the immigration.
CJN: Where does government funding fit in?
CJN: Of all your deans, department heads and institute heads, only one is a woman. Why do you think that is?
Tadmor: Why don't girls tend to study science in high school? That's what it's about, and the reason is the teachers and the home which still direct girls not to opt for science and technology. Counsellors in schools generally don't encourage that sufficiently. I don't know why.
The image of technology is that it's very masculine — hard hats, big corporations — but in reality, in today's world, most engineers or a good number of them, will be working with computers, doing things that women can do equally well, and it's just a matter of bringing them up there. The delay time is very long.
CJN: Do you think there's a reason why women can't do "hard-hat" jobs?
Tadmor: No.
CJfiiJs there anything that Technion is doing to encourage women to pursue careers in technology?
Tadmor: We are [letting it be known] when we send information to high schools thafin today's world girls and boys should equally opt for science and technology. We don't want those that
do not have the talent and the capability, but those that do [should consider it], and they do in increasing numbers.
There are faculties and departments at the Technion, such as food technology and biotechnology, that have an equal or proportional number of women. My own department, chemical engineering, always had a large number of women. Mechanical engineering less so, but it's changing. It's slowly growing. I don't think it's growing fast enough, and I think we have an m-tapped reserve of talent which we ought to take advantage of.
CJN: Of all the high-tech projects at Technion, which ones do you think might have the greatest impact?
Tadmor: We have major efforts both in optoelectronics which is the next stage of microelectronics; and in advanced materials with the electron microsco[^ that the Canadian Technion Society is [ftinding];
We also have a substantial multi-disciplinary effort in space technology with a Technion-developed satellite that is to be launched in space next year by the Russians.
CJH: Haifa has a relatively large Arab population Is that reflected in your student population ?
Tadmor: We have many hundreds of Arab students. I don't know the exact number because we don't count, but I would say we have representation a little less than in the general population. It's very difficult to get into Technion.
In certain fields [Arab students] may still have difficulties finding jobs because many of our graduates go into defence-oriented industries. For them it's more difficult to find a job.
CJN: What is the political atmosphere like be-tween Jewish and Arab students?
Tadmor: Our student organization is the only one in the country which is totally apolitical. We do not allow any political activity for students.
They can invite anybody they want to listen to and they can discuss [politics] freely, but the organizational structure is not political and we want to keep it that way. So therefore there is no problem between Arab and Jewish students. When you go into a class you don't distinguish..
CJN: What is being done in the area of water research at Technion?
Tadmor: Water research is one area of the centres of excellence that we are now establishing [in the form of| a water research institute, j We are investing many millions of dollars into it, and we already have a very strong water research effort involving desalination, water, recovery, water policy, and everything associated . with water management.
CJN: Is there any kind of co-operation with Lebanon on water issues?
Tadmor: Israel's former water commissioner is a Technion professor, and he was involved in the international deal for negotiating part of the peace process. Unofficial co-operation goes on all the time, but much more could be done in an environ^ ment of peace, and willbe done.
CJN: What has technion done in the area of environmental research ?
Tadmor: We haven't done enough in environment. That's in the planning stage.
There are now two aspects to the environmental problem. The environment itself, which is a global problem, and we want to play a role in that. Then there is a regional global warming, [depletion of] ozone layers and so on. Our satellite, by the way, has an ozone gauge which will measure the concentration of ozone over the polar regions.
The Mediterranean requires a lot of attention from an environmental point of view. Regional pollution problems, air pollution problems and water resource pollution problems are problems that we want to treat.
But there is also the other aspect of the environ-ment,^eveloping technologies to protect it. We want to develop those high tech technologies. ■_
CJN: What are your thoughts on the recent peace accord?
Tadmor: I think it's the beginning of anew.era. I think our economy in a peaceful environment can evolve tremendously. It's a hopeful time. The future is still wrought with many traps and dangers, but war is dangerous too.