In accordance with their commitment to technological excellence, the School of Engineering looks to reform the curriculum by focusing on the core as a stepping stone.
Professor Robert Messler, associate dean of Engineering, said, “In order for RPI to remain in the top 25 [for engineering], they must look at what they are currently doing in core engineering and what other schools are doing” to continue to strive for distinction.
With the leadership of Kevin Craig, director of the core engineering program, to a Core Engineering Advisory Council has been formed in order to review courses and develop a preliminary paper due May 1, with hopes of having the new curriculum in place within three years.
“We must have the enthusiastic support of every engineering department,” Craig said.
“[The Council] must decide if the courses that are being offered are the right kinds or whether they should be in modified forms or maybe even a continuing track and not so compartmentalized,” said Messler.
In order to aid in this, Messler said that the committee would look at other schools with comparable programs and use their classes to judge which courses are obsolete and need to be updated and/or replaced.
“[The Student Advisory Council] agrees that the core engineering curriculum needs a review. I like what I’ve heard so far from Kevin Craig, and look forward to the opportunity to provide input to the process,” said Matt Rudary, a member of the Student Advisory Council for Engineering.
“We are trying to redefine what we feel is going to be a fundamental body of knowledge that we feel all engineering students should have that will support them in their departments,” said Donald Bunk, professor of mechanical engineering and council member.
Messler went on to say that “the faculty within the School of Engineering needs to develop a sense of ownership for the programs and classes here, and there should be a fight to teach the core engineering courses.”
The student advisory committee to the dean has been very active and proactive in developing programs that will attract and inspire students to love the core engineering curriculum, continued Messler.
“We don’t bring students to Rensselaer to study engineering, but to become engineers. Without a strong core program, we will have difficulty meeting that goal,” said Craig.
Craig is very eager to collect feedback from seniors and juniors who have been through the core program and freshmen and sophomores that are currently filling the requirements. He hopes for students to play an enthusiastic role in the revision process. Craig is encouraging students to contact him directly, stating that the constructive criticism they have received via surveys is not enough; upperclassmen need to play an active role in helping out students to come and inevitably creating a “world-class core engineering program.”
As part of maintaining a distinct engineering program the advisory committee is in the process of orchestrating programs including Engineering Discovery Week and Research Discovery Week. The former has been done previously but now will be on a much grander scale including lectures and presentations from current faculty about the innovativeness of their programs.
Messler added, “Research Discovery Week would raise awareness of the research opportunities.” However, it has not yet been decided whether it will be a fair or poster session.
Across the board the School of Engineering is working to bring interest back to the engineering field along with the Women in Engineering and Technology Program that has been working on initiatives “to encourage a mentoring relationship between incoming freshmen and upperclassmen,” says Andrea Mileo, chair of the Women’s Mentoring Program.
The Mentor program begins each summer when the incoming freshmen women are asked whether or not they want mentors. If they do, they are then placed with involved upperclassmen that will try to steer them in the correct path by helping them figure out the necessities for an RPI education.
This past year the program gave freshmen a chance to have leadership positions by joining committees and playing an active role in their social events. Most of the activities organized by the program occur in the fall in order to allow the students to build a good rapport early on in the year. Social events include ice cream socials, a luau, and Design Your Future Day.
Design Your Future Day is an annual program put together for high school sophomore and junior women interested in engineering, science and technology. On this past Design Your Future Day, students came to RPI and engaged in focus groups with people in their major and field. It was a chance for high school students to meet people with similar interests in the capital district region.
Bringing even more attention to the school is the research that is being funded by the U.S. Air Force, where computers are taught to reconstruct damaged speech and recover missing sounds by Professor Mike Savic of electrical, computer, and systems engineering. His research is geared to improving verbal communications for the military, improving hearing aids and possibly finding lost notes and words in music and written text. Savic envisions this project as being useful to historians and not limited to sound analysis alone.
Research seems to be a big thing for RPI this year. There is a great deal of study stretching across departments such as polymer studies with the Materials Science and engineering and chemistry departments, fermentation, and other biochemical research with the biology department, studies in fluid mechanics with the mathematics department, polymer membrane fabrication with the chemistry department, and research on lubrication and other interfacial phenomena with the Mechanical Engineering department. Research into state-of-the-art design and optimization of CVD reactors for semiconductor production is conducted jointly with the Center for Integrated Electronics and Electronics Manufacturing.
