Virginia Tech announces major changes in freshman engineering program
Virginia Tech's Division of Engineering Fundamentals (EF) is announcing a number of changes, including offering graduate degrees, effective the first summer session of this year. Simultaneously, the division will become the Department of Engineering Education (EngE) effective the first summer session.
"To say that there are changes underway in Engineering Fundamentals at Virginia Tech might well be the understatement of the century," said Hayden Griffin, division director.
In existence since 1968, the division has primarily taught and advised the freshmen engineering students at Virginia Tech, one of the five largest engineering programs in the country.
"The new name signifies the program's expansion into rigorous and quantitative educational research and the recognition of its continuing commitment to the creation and utilization of modern teaching techniques as applied to engineering education," said Hassan Aref, dean of the College of Engineering. Aref initiated these changes after he assumed the deanship in April 2003.
"The mission of the new department is still to provide a modern, student-focused introduction to engineering for our 1,500 first year students." Griffin said. "We are adding to this mission an increased emphasis on conducting research and offering courses and programs to alleviate the current national shortage of engineering and technology teachers."
The freshman course sequence was completely redesigned this year, largely due to the addition of the computer science department to the college of engineering. An object-oriented approach to both software and engineered systems is featured in this redesign, including a new first semester course with a computer science component and an advanced design approach.
A major addition to the department will be a graduate program. The proposed graduate degrees are: Master of Engineering Education; Master of Science in Engineering; and Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering Education.
Faculty are developing new courses: The History, Practice and Teaching of Engineering; Teaching Concepts for Engineering; and Design of Engineering Laboratory Courses. A new course offered this spring, Preparing for the Engineering Professoriate, has 23 students enrolled and is designed to prepare engineering graduate students for university teaching careers.
The diversity of the faculty in the department reflects trends in engineering. Faculty hold degrees in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and nine different engineering disciplines. One-fourth of the engineering faculty for freshmen is female, one of whom is the faculty adviser for the Virginia Tech Chapter of the Society for Women Engineers. Four new faculty members are being actively recruited for EngE in the areas of academic assessment and engineering communications.
Increasing the expertise of the department is the addition of a new faculty member for the 2004-05 academic year, Janis Terpenny. She is the co-director of the National Science Foundation's Center for e-Design. The concept of this center is used by industries for distributed real-time collaboration and sharing of design information. The Virginia Tech portion of the center will have industrial affiliates and arrangements for faculty across the university to work directly with industry in developing the necessary engineering tools of the future.
Funded research projects in the division include a recent success, Bridges for Engineering Education (BEEVT), a National Science Foundation planning grant. This grant has participating faculty from EngE, civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, mining and minerals engineering, technology education, teaching and learning and the School of Education. BEEVT participants are working to develop a modern framework for engineering education, to support the development of a new Technology Education Master's/Licensure, and to create an ongoing dialogue, or "bridge" between the university, public schools, and industry in the general area of engineering education. Six other major research proposals in engineering education are underway at Virginia Tech.
The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 5,600 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top 30 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.
