{"id":9075,"date":"2011-10-05T19:18:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T19:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=9075"},"modified":"2025-01-31T10:49:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T15:49:30","slug":"the-pocket-protector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/10\/the-pocket-protector\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pocket Protector"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Heidi S. Douglas, hdouglas@engineer.uconn.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Welcome to the inaugural edition of a new emagination<\/em> column, The Pocket Protector.\u00a0 <\/em>Named for the formerly ubiquitous plastic sleeves designed to spare pocket shirts the ruin of runny pens and smudgy mechanical pencils, pocket protectors enjoyed their heyday in the 50s and 60s.\u00a0 Their memory evokes the image of a crew cut guy, wearing a short sleeved white collared shirt with a skinny black tie, dark pants (just a little too short), horned rim glasses, smoking a cigarette and leaning over a drafting board \u2013 sort of Mad Men<\/em>, if the series were set at one of their clients\u2019 offices, like International Business Machines, Martin Marietta or Dow Chemical, instead of their fictitious Madison Avenue advertising agency, Sterling Cooper.<\/p>\n

Fueled by the Cold War, early 60s pocket protectors had a front seat at the birth of the space race.\u00a0 President Kennedy challenged the country to \u201ccatch up\u201d with the Soviets and triggered a testosterone fueled explosion and golden era of exploration, innovation and discovery.\u00a0 Universities scrambled to educate engineers and scientists to satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetite of the sprouting aerospace companies and expanding government agencies.\u00a0 Little kids sat on living room floors, hugging their knees, watching grainy images of Alan Shepard\u2019s first liftoff and dreaming of being astronauts and engineers.\u00a0 Month after month, year after year, a steady stream of unforgettable images flowed from our television sets, enthusing dinner conversation and plans for college.\u00a0 We cheered Neil Armstrong\u2019s first steps on the moon and cried at the horrific fire that took the lives of the Apollo 1 crew.\u00a0 The space program was a great reality TV show.<\/p>\n

Dial forward fifty years and we\u2019ve just watched the space shuttle brought \u201cwheels stop\u201d for the last time.\u00a0 The future of the space program is uncertain.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a TV snob.\u00a0 I cut my teeth on Star Trek<\/em> and can\u2019t wait to see The Good Wife<\/em> every Sunday night.\u00a0 But Snooki?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 What do the reality TV shows of today, so wildly popular with young people (and older, too), do to inspire kids\u2019 educations and careers?\u00a0 A very successful \u201989 CSE alumnus I met recently expressed his grave concern for a generation of kids growing up watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians<\/em> instead of rocket launches.\u00a0 He said that he was blessed to have had the inspirational role models of astronauts and scientists and was worried for kids today.\u00a0 He wanted to know what he could do.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know the Kardashians or Snooki, good for you.\u00a0 Unfortunately, they represent two of the most popular of a group of mushrooming reality television personalities. The question is, What is the next space race, or its equivalent?\u00a0 And, if there isn\u2019t something comparable streaming compelling visions and messages of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers to young people, how do we reach kids without alternative role models?\u00a0 Kids who don\u2019t know that science and engineering careers are cool, and within their reach?\u00a0 That\u2019s the challenge.<\/p>\n

At a time when our heroes are dubious, economy on the ropes and national vision blurred, we need you to put on your pocket protector, saddle up and spread the word.\u00a0 Engineering is cool. \u00a0Get the word out.<\/p>\n

If you like what you read, let me know.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t like what you read, let me know.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the inaugural edition of a new emagination column, The Pocket Protector. Named for the formerly ubiquitous plastic sleeves designed to spare pocket shirts the ruin of runny pens and smudgy mechanical pencils, pocket protectors enjoyed their heyday in the 50s and 60s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":218714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2110],"class_list":["post-9075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 03:58:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224991,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9075\/revisions\/224991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/218714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9075"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=9075"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}