Engineering faculty are considering changes in the curriculum that will increase the diversity of engineering students, expand the foreign experience, create a larger core of courses for all engineering majors, offer a liberal arts minor for engineers and improve professional activity among faculty, said Robert Balmer, dean of engineering.
“If engineering is to flourish at Union, it must become much more than a set of traditional engineering programs,” said Balmer. “We have come a long way toward this goal over the past six years with the GE Foundation's curriculum development grant, and now we are in the final phase of this project.”
Balmer said he hopes the work will culminate in a theme called “Converging Technologies for a Changing World.” The concept, most frequently used in reference to telecommunications, also refers to a wide variety of industries and technologies that are joining to create new products and solve new problems. Examples are bioengineering, mechatronics, intelligent systems and smart structures, Balmer said.
“Students will be introduced to converging technology concepts used in industry today, culminating in a senior capstone course where students work on converging technology problems,” Balmer said. “Our graduates will not only be familiar with the concept of converging technologies, they will also have classroom and laboratory experience in several leading areas.”