David BrodyIn a letter to engineering undergraduates earlier this week, Dean Mary Sansalone set forth a plan to modernize the School of Engineering, announcing the reshuffling of majors and the proposed construction of three new engineering buildings.
The biggest change to the School will be the elimination of the Aerospace Engineering major, which received accreditation this past year.
“The masters is becoming the entry-level degree, and to offer a full aerospace program needs a range of specialties – we don’t have that full scope [at the undergraduate level],” said Sansalone.
Aerospace engineering is usually taught as a graduate program, and the University’s undergraduate program was an attractive feature to some students.
“I became interested in the University because they had the bachelors [program] in aerospace and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do graduate school or not. I was shocked that they dropped the undergraduate [program] but kept the graduate school,” said Junior Kevin Feld, an aerospace engineer.
Sansalone elaborated that since many aerospace courses are offered as evening classes, students must take them at unusual times.
Although current Aerospace majors will be able to complete their curricula, students enrolling in 2011 will not have that option.
This decision was partially based upon feedback from industry advisors who suggested that a Mechanical Engineering degree better prepares undergraduates to become Aerospace engineers, after receiving a master in the field.
The second large change unveiled was the merging of the Department of Civil Engineering with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; the new department will be called the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Structural Engineering.
Some students expressed concern that this could weaken Engineering School enrollment in the future by narrowing the school’s focus.
“It seems like this is downgrading the importance of the engineering school. There were pretty good programs for all the majors before, but they are now changing the emphasis towards BME,” said Philip Boone, a freshman biomedical engineering major.
“Enrollment in those departments was already down, and this is just going to hurt the number of people coming in next year,” said Sara Schroder, a senior civil engineering major.
Students also suggested that a better system of communication be implemented, due to initial confusion over the details of the new structure.
“Even professors weren’t exactly sure what was going on and couldn’t provide the facts when rumors were spreading,” said junior Richard Ockers, a mechanical engineer and member of EnCouncil.
Ockers approached Dean Kroeger and suggested the distribution of a newsletter via email or Pendaflex, a suggestion which was quickly implemented.
These changes come as the Engineering School moves to expand its faculty and hire a number of new professors to strengthen the current programs.
This year, three professors were hired, two in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering and one in Biomedical Engineering. Also, there are currently eight searches underway, which will lead to additional hiring in all departments except Biomedical Engineering.
“She is doing some good by getting a more diverse faculty, but I’m worried that she may not be able to maintain the integrity of the combined programs,” said Tavares Allen, a sophomore civil engineering major.
Sansalone’s letter also described the start of plans to build three new buildings, which would represent 500,000 square feet of classroom and engineering space. According to the plan, construction is to begin during summer 2007.
-Additional reporting by Troy Rumans and Shweta Murthi