The College of Engineering will begin consolidating two specialized majors into a single mechanical engineering department in the next academic year, as part of an effort to prepare students for more diverse career paths in the future, the school’s dean said.
Two years of planning went into the restructuring, which will dissolve the aerospace and mechanical engineering and manufacturing engineering departments, and create the unified department. Two new graduate programs, materials science engineering and systems engineering, will emerge from the overhaul, and students will be able to minor in an engineering discipline separate from their majors, according to a press release.
ENG Dean Kenneth Lutchen said students will benefit from having a broad basis in engineering.
“We are preparing them more globally for different career paths then we offered before,” he said. “We felt that by forming the concentration with the major we were doing a service to students because we are providing the foundation with the concentration.”
Lutchen said he began to plan for the upcoming changes as soon as he became dean in fall 2006. Twenty-three years at BU prior to being appointed dean offered Lutchen a wide perspective on issues in ENG.
“We spent a lot of time with the faculty internally and with external consultants trying to come up with an organization that really attended to the students’ needs,” Lutchen said. “We want them to see all kinds of practical applications to research.”
The ultimate goal of the college’s changes is to provide more opportunities for students in the future, Lutchen said.
“We want to prepare students for the foundation in engineering and also provide exposure to the different disciplines in America to set them up for long term success in life,” Lutchen said. “We wanted to restructure programs so that they had foundational degrees in the major engineering fields that exist in the nation and that we are very strong in.”
Blending the aerospace and mechanical and manufacturing engineering departments will result in the loss of academic majors for both programs, but the program will offer an all-encompassing mechanical engineering major allowing students to concentrate in either mechanical or manufacturing engineering. The student’s chosen concentration will show up on diplomas and transcripts, Lutchen said.
Students that finish their education and decide not to pursue a career in aerospace engineering or mechanical engineering have something to fall back on, and if they want to pursue aerospace engineering or mechanical engineering, they still can because they had it as their concentration,” he said.
Faculty and students have had positive reactions to the restructuring plan, Lutchen said. An faculty increase will accompany the change, he added.
Students offered mixed responses when interviewed about ENG’s changes. College of Arts and Sciences junior John Heaster, who was in ENG until last semester, said the distinctiveness of separate engineering departments set BU’s program apart from those at other schools.
“Many of the students in aerospace and manufacturing are very dedicated to their major, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them came to BU just for that major,” Heaster said. “While merging the programs into the mechanical department might simplify things and possibly lower costs, I don’t think it’s a positive change for the students and might make the College of Engineering less appealing to prospective students.”
ENG junior Michael Koan said he understands the reasoning behind the merger, but thinks the departments should not be lumped together.
“I understand Dean Lutchen’s need to consolidate resources, but combining these majors seems like a downgrade for the college,” Koan said. “It is true that aerospace and mechanical engineers take very similar classes, but they are also two very separate fields.”
ENG will retain all existing degree programs for its current students. Although the new system will begin in the 2008-09 school year, participants will not be able to obtain degrees until 2009-10, according an email sent to ENG students.