Engineering deans hold forum

The Undergraduate Engineering Advisory Board held a "Dialogue with the Deans" this week in an attempt to give Engineering students the opportunity to discuss policies and issues with the administration. The UEAB, a student organization which acts as a link between the students, faculty and administration in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, invited Dean Gregory Farrington, Associate Dean John Keenan, Associate Dean of Educational Development and Special Programs Jacob Abel to respond to student questions and concerns. The forum focused on advising, hands-on projects and curriculum, topics selected by students, according to Michael Joel, head of the advisory board. The current advising system, which Keenan described as "faculty-centered," is designed to aid students not only in course selection, but in career searches and major selection as well. "While the system works well some of the time, it doesn't work at least some of the time," Keenan said. Student questionnaires, distributed by the UEAB, the Engineering Student Activities Council and Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, are designed to help the administration correct the current problems. Engineering students are encouraged to complete the questionnaires and return them to the Towne Building. Hands-on projects, the second major topic of discussion, are also a great concern for students interested in co-op type programs. "Hands-on is a hot phrase, and it looms large here," Abel said. The administration, he explained, is attempting to increase the number of available internships through alumni programs and encourage students to take on their own projects. But students complained that encouragement alone is not enough. "[We learn] so much theory, but [we] have to wait till senior year to apply it," one student commented. Abel countered that summer programs and hands-on experiences, like the school's solar car project, give students these opportunities. "We have a lot of experiences that I would call hands-on, brains-off," Keenan said. "And that's the problem." This can be corrected, he explained, by developing new experiments rather than reconducting traditional ones. Finally, the directed discussion turned to curriculum changes and options. One student argued that the Engineering School requires its students to take too many humanities courses, rather than focusing on gaining additional depth in Engineering subjects. Farrington's response was emphatic. "My conviction is that in an ideal world, we have too little humanities-type curriculum and in the ideal world, the people in the humanities have far too little science and engineering," he said. "It's not enough to know engineering and mathematics and calculus?you have to be able to figure out how this fits into the greater human condition and you have to be able to articulate your ideas," he added. The directed discussion was followed by questions from the approximately 50 students in the audience.