Still learning, every day and every hour

“I do not consider this work,” says Dr Jeffrey Forrest. “I’m a kid in a candy store here!”

Chair and professor in the Aviation & Aerospace Science Department at Metropolitan State University in Denver, Jeff is a Ph.D. in computer and information science, board director at the Colorado Division of Aeronautics, co-author of books on aviation and airport safety, and a certified pilot in jet, glider and seaplane flight operations. He’s been involved in
aviation, aerospace and Earth science for more than 30 years.

Most of his Department’s 650 undergraduates go on to become pilots. Many others pursue careers in airport operations and management, as well as in aerospace technology or systems engineering. And Jeff is clearly impressed with what he sees.

“I think the current generation is probably one of the brightest I've ever seen. They're very creative,” he says. He thinks they may be more mature than his own generation. “They get to the meaning of the experience quickly. They want to be successful intellectually, and be productive, but they are also more demanding about their freedom. I think they're looking for a different lifestyle and I don't think that's unhealthy.”

Jeff always harbored a dream of being a university professor, but didn’t get started until he was in his 40s. Early in his career, Jeff did all types of general aviation flying, including mapping for the oil and gas industry. “When the bottom fell out of the oil and gas industry,” Jeff remembers, “I decided not to chase the money anymore. That’s when I got serious about getting my degrees, my doctorate, and started teaching.”

Jeff also works extensively in aerospace, helping lead grant projects for the State of Colorado and NASA. He has been a driving force behind MSU’s development and teaching of unmanned aeronautical systems and the Aerospace Systems Engineering Technology program.

The approach to technology is one of the big differences Jeff sees in students today. “In terms of the way they learn they definitely want the technological infrastructure around them. They want to know they can go home and access today's lectures online,” Jeff says. “And if technology is brought up in a book, they want to see and experience the real thing.”

Jeff was amazed to find that for some of his students, the technology is actually outpacing the real thing. “We are now at a point where the virtual technology has far exceeded the technology that they actually have to use on the job,” he says. “Now, when I take them out to an airfield they are like ‘ho-hum.’ And these are people that want to fly. And I’m saying, hey - this is an aircraft!”

As someone with decades of involvement in the science of aviation and aerospace, Jeff is concerned that technology is driving too much of academia today. He thinks the idea that higher education should deliver “a higher rate of return” is deeply misplaced. “They are trying to sterilize the experience,” he says. “The demand is to produce students that can get ‘A-B-C-D’ done right now and rapidly prototype them out the door.”

“I tell our students that if you want to take a really hard course, take introduction to philosophy, and take it seriously. That will be one of the toughest challenges you’ve ever grappled with. That’s part of building the whole person and a lot of that is detached from technology.”

In further discussing the impact of technology in the future of his industry Dr. Forrest says that there's “constant talk about where we lost the human and the human nature in the system.”

Reflecting on his student’s reliance on technology Jeff says that “even though you've got all this automation, even though you got all this technology and redundancy, the situational awareness drops. That can be a problem because they have 300 lives strapped to the rear end of them on an airplane.”

He says there has been “a real big push during the last 15 years of focusing on just the technology,” but he takes comfort in the younger students, the Gen Z. “They seem to be getting away from that and much more focused on the humanistic side. They are even looking down to a more rudimentary level like the utility and usability of things rather than just saying I'm doing this because it's technology and it's cool,” says Jeff with a smile.

As an educator Jeff says “I am a big picture person. I show a lot of empathy with the students. I spend time on reflecting, how do I get this person from here to there? What kind of tools are they going to need? That goes into the instructional design and on how I communicate with them on a daily basis. Communication skills are everything.”

As far as his own job goes, Jeff is exactly where he wants to be. “I’ve got all these great young minds around me. I’ve got topics that are incredibly enjoyable to discuss and investigate. There’s always a level of conversation going on around here that I like so much and that is what is special about the campus environment. To me, it’s just unbeatable. And you’re still learning, every day and every hour.”
ILO Office for the United States · Jeffrey Forrest - professor of Aviation & Aerospace Science Department (MSU)