Stevens professor to receive honorary degree in Bulgaria

HOBOKEN, N.J. — A professor at Stevens Institute of Technology will receive a rare international honor in April: an honorary degree from Sofia University in Bulgaria.

Dr. Edward Friedman, professor of technology management at Stevens and director of its Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE), will receive the Doctor Honoris Causa at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" on April 7, 2000. During the ceremony, he will deliver a speech, "Edison and St. Cyril: Seeking Common Ground."

"I’m very honored to have been selected for this honorary degree," says Friedman. "My talk covers aspects of American and Bulgarian culture and the evolution of our societies during the past decade."

Friedman and his family will travel to Sofia, Bulgaria, in early April to prepare for the ceremony. Those attending will include officials from dozens of European educational institutions and representatives from the American Embassy in Bulgaria.

Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" is the first school of higher education in Bulgaria. Friedman began his association with education in Bulgaria in 1992 as a Fulbright Fellow at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. He was nominated for the honorary degree by the Department of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia University, and his nomination was supported by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

The university’s honorary degree has gone to a variety of American luminaries, including Nicholas Murray Butler (1939), an influential president of Columbia University and founder of its teachers college; Nikola Tesla (1939), the Serbian-American inventor; George Soros (1992), the international investor, philanthropist and philosopher; and Seymour Papert (1999), a pioneer of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since his work in Bulgaria in the early 1990s, Friedman has been an active advocate for the sharing of effective educational practices between the United States and Bulgaria.

Friedman serves on the board of Best Practices in Education Inc., a non-profit foundation engaged in current projects to bring Bulgarian high school mathematics education methods, materials and software to schools in the United States. He was last in Bulgaria in the summer of 1999 to promote that effort. In earlier years, he had additional involvement in international education when he oversaw establishment of an indigenous college of engineering in Afghanistan. In 1973 he received a citation and medal from the King of Afghanistan for outstanding contributions to education.

Friedman has special interest and expertise in the use of information technology in the teaching/learning process and the impact of information technology on organizations. He earned his doctorate in physics from Columbia University in 1963. His undergraduate studies were in physics and mathematics at MIT.

Friedman is the founding director of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) at Stevens. CIESE, established in 1988, helps K-12 educators exploit the power of technology to improve instruction and to bolster student achievement in mathematics and science. CIESE works collaboratively with teachers, schools system administrators and other educational stakeholders to provide intensive, hands-on training, support and counsel to infuse technology in meaningful ways into the curriculum. Technology is seen as both a tool for teachers and a new mode for bringing exciting content to students.

Through partnerships with school districts, as well as other colleges, universities, and other organizations in New Jersey and other states, including Arizona, Florida, and Ohio, the CIESE program is in the process of training 10,000 teachers and reaching more than a quarter million children.

Friedman served as project director for development of a national policy statement issued by the Committee for Economic Development in 1995 titled "Connecting Students to a Changing World: A Technology Strategy for Improving Mathematics and Science Education."

Prior to founding CIESE, Friedman served as dean of the college (top academic officer for the undergraduate school) at Stevens, where he oversaw groundbreaking programs to integrate computers and networking into college science and engineering instruction. He was responsible for introducing the college’s pioneering computer ownership program, the first in the nation.

He was the founding chair in 1980 of an organization that promoted introduction of technology into liberal arts education known as the Council for the Understanding of Technology in Human Affairs.

In addition, he has conducted award-winning research in solid state physics and is a recipient of the Pride of New Jersey Albert Einstein Education award. He serves on the boards of two other non-profit education organizations: Teaching Matters Inc., and Friends of the (Tel Aviv, Israel) Center for Educational Technology.

More information about Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" is available at its web site, www.uni-sofia.bg.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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