Feature: MSU's College of Engineering: 100 Years of Helping Society
The collective impact and achievements of its alumni are being celebrated by the College in this centennial year.
Even before June 18, 1907—when George Bissell was appointed the first dean of engineering—the engineering program at MSU was in the business of conducting research, training great engineers, and positively impacting people’s lives. More than 100 years later, MSU’s College of Engineering is continuing that tradition.
“In keeping with the university’s mission, we are in the business of advancing knowledge, passing on knowledge, and diffusing knowledge,” says Satish Udpa, dean of the College of Engineering. “We advance knowledge through research, we pass on knowledge by training our undergraduate and graduate students, and we diffuse knowledge through our outreach activities.”
While we may not stop to think about it on a daily basis, engineers have had a huge impact on society. They have touched everything in our lives from the buildings, roads, and bridges we use every day; to the electricity that we consume; to the clean air that we breathe; to the food that we eat (which has been processed, handled, and manufactured using processes developed by engineers). In fact, says Udpa, there are more engineers living today than all of the engineers who have lived in the past. The National Academy of Engineering estimates that there are more than 2 million practicing engineers in the United States. This, says Udpa, is an indication of the impact engineers have, and of the demand for engineers.
According to Educating the Engineer of 2020, a report issued in 2005 by the National Academy of Engineering, “ . . . our world has changed more in the past 100 years than in all those preceding. By the end of the twentieth century, the developed world had become a healthier, safer, and more productive place, a place where engineering, through technology, had forged an irreversible imprint on our lives and our identity.”
“As the College of Engineering celebrates its 100-year anniversary, we are naturally engaged in looking back and marveling at the impact our college has had on society,” says Udpa. “And the greatest contribution has been the accomplishments of our alumni over the past 100 years.”
The first undergraduate degrees in engineering were awarded to three students in 1888. The college’s alumni today, nearly 30,000 strong, are located across the country and around the globe—including China, Europe, Korea, South America, and Taiwan. “The sun never sets on the Michigan State University engineering empire,” says Udpa. They work in every industry and niche – food, automotive, IT, steel, law, and medicine.
“Our centennial is also an occasion for us to contemplate our role in the future and consider how we will contribute toward addressing some of our most pressing contemporary national and international issues.”
And where will the college be heading in the next 100 years? It’s difficult to say what will be important in 10 years, let alone in 100 years, because priorities will inevitably shift, he says. Currently, the college is focusing its research in five major areas—energy, health, materials, security, and sustainability.
DEVELOPING SOLUTIONS FOR THE REAL WORLD
In 2006, the college received more than $10 million from Michigan’s 21st Century Jobs Fund, a $2 billion initiative aimed at bolstering the state's economy by helping create businesses that will reshape Michigan's future. “The competition for these funds helped us connect with industry in ways heretofore considered difficult,” says Udpa. “This is a great example of how universities can attract and diffuse knowledge into the real world.” Nine engineering faculty are involved in projects related to health, energy, materials, and safety and security.
The college recently received a substantial grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to partner with Ford Motor Co. on a research project that couples biofuels with efficient automotive engines. Much of this work will be conducted in MSU’s new Energy & Automotive Research Laboratories, which officially opened on August 24, 2007.
“We think that there are some exciting challenges in the area of biofuels,” Udpa says. “We fundamentally believe that the current approach to biofuels—namely the reliance on corn—cannot be sustained in the long run. So we are looking at cellulosic materials, like switchgrass or wood from poplar trees.” Researchers are also looking at sources of biodiesel—plants like linseed or canola that could be the basis for a new generation of fuels.
“The rest of the world seems to have the same kinds of aspirations as we have, which is to lead a comfortable life,” Udpa says. “So as other economies grow, the demand for hydrocarbons worldwide is going to grow.”
The college is slated to receive more than $12 million of the $125 million that MSU secured in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to establish the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. “This grant is forcing people in the plant sciences, natural science, social sciences, and engineering to sit down together and come up with solutions. I think that’s an important development,” Udpa says. “It’s exciting to see the dialogue that takes place with the plant scientists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers. This dialogue never used to take place before. I don’t remember seeing a plant scientist in this building for 100 years! Now, we see people coming here on a regular basis, having conversations. That, to me, is exciting.”
But is there one silver bullet to the energy problem? Probably not, Udpa says.
MSU researchers also expect to secure some $20 million in research funding for hybrid electric vehicle work within the next five years. Other technologies being explored by the college include thermoelectric materials, solar cells, and wind. And in the future, says Udpa, nuclear technology may once again enter the picture.
In June 2007, the college dedicated its Structural Fire Testing Facility—the first of its kind in a U.S. university setting. It features a natural gas–fueled test furnace capable of reaching temperatures in excess of 2,200°F. Housed in an addition to the existing Civil Infrastructure Laboratory, the enormous furnace measures 8 by 10 by 5 feet. It simulates what happens to structures in an actual fire. This new facilitywill draw faculty from other institutions and government agencies to work collectively with faculty at MSU in developing new materials, sensors, and design methodologies that will ensure that our infrastructure withstands natural and man-made fires.
The newest initiative in the college is the Engineering and Health Initiative. “The primary purpose of this initiative is to look at new ways to address issues relating to health,” Udpa says. “Many of our faculty members are developing technologies for medical diagnosis and therapy and we want to be able to translate those technologies to the market, to the clinical setting. But more important, we want this to be a setting where we have frequent collisions of ideas between faculty in engineering and faculty in the health sciences disciplines. We want our faculty to have opportunities to interact with people in medicine, to find out what opportunities are out there, to come up with solutions to problems. When we have the solutions, we want to make sure that the technologies that we develop are appropriate.”
THE NEXT GENERATIONS OF ENGINEERS
“One of the biggest challenges for the field of engineering is the diminishing level of interest among young people in science and technology,” Udpa says. In a recent study conducted by the Raytheon Corporation, of the 1,000 11- to 13-year-olds surveyed, 84 percent said they would “rather clean their room, eat their vegetables, go to the dentist or take out the garbage than learn math or science.”
“That’s a frightening statistic,” Udpa says.
For many years, the college has been proactive in exposing high school students and middle school students to engineering through its strong K-12 outreach program. Now, in response to this disturbing trend, the college is targeting young people as early as fourth grade, offering hands-on activities that will get them excited about engineering and science. One of the most popular is the LEGO Robotics program. The college also works with teachers and guidance counselors to discuss K-12 initiatives and collaborations, offer research experience for teachers, and assist with proposal writing.
A NEW WAY OF TRAINING ENGINEERS
Each year, nearly 700 students graduate from the college with an undergraduate or graduate degree. “This college has done a remarkable job of adding value to the student,” says Udpa. “We take the ‘raw material’ and at the end of four years you see somebody walking down the hall in a three-piece suit, ready to take on the world.And we need to ensure that these new engineers thrive in the new economy. It’s part of our plan to make sure that our graduates are equipped for this new century.”
The college realizes that there is a need to train today’s engineers in a slightly different manner. Long known for having one of the best senior capstone design programs in engineering in the country, the college recently instituted a pilot “cornerstone” program that introduces freshmen to engineering design during the first week of classes.“In the past, during their first two years, our students would take mathematics, physics, and chemistry, but not get a real taste of engineering,” says Udpa. Some of them would get discouraged and drop out of the program because they would “fail to see the connection between what they were studying and what they were aspiring to be.”
In addition to design, undergraduates are exposed to research early on in the program. Last summer, more than 100 undergraduate research assistants worked side by side with graduate students and faculty in our research labs.
Last fall,the college also launched The Center for Spartan Engineering, to assist students in obtaining their career goals through research experience, cooperative education, internships, service learning, and post-graduation employment. The Center offers seamless career exploration and connections for students, alumni, employers, and faculty.
“We want to make sure our students have the right kinds of experiences before they graduate,” says Udpa. “In the past, our graduates would get into entry level jobs, perform routine engineering tasks, and prepare themselves for the next tier of jobs. Today, those entry-level jobs are gone; people are competing to get directly into those second-tier positions.”
The goal of The Center is to help students get the kind of exposure and training that they need to step into those jobs. The Center works closely with alumni and industry to make sure this is accomplished. By 2010, the goal is for 90 percent of the college’s graduates to have completed an internship or co-op.
A new Women in Engineering Program has been developed to draw women—faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students—into the college. The goal is to create a nurturing environment in the College.
Currently, enrollment in the college is about 19 percent women—although it’s much higher in the chemical engineering and biomedical areas. “But if you look at the classical disciplines of engineering, we have done a lousy job of communicating to women that it’s a good profession,” Udpa says.
Study abroad experience is also an important part of the equation.
“Globalization is here,” says Udpa. “We want to equip our students with the skills to survive in this global economy.” The college offers study abroad programs in Australia, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, and France. The program in Volgograd, Russia, is one of the largest study abroad programs among single-campus universities in the United States.
About 20 percent of the college’s graduating seniors have had a study abroad experience; the goal is to increase that number to 30 percent by 2012.
THE RENAISSANCE ENGINEER
“We want our engineers to be ‘Renaissance engineers,’” Udpa sums up. That is, engineers who have depth in a certain area, but also have the broad ability to connect with people in other disciplines, “people who are able to look at a problem from a 50,000-foot level, yet have the ability to zoom in to study it.”
For that to happen, says Udpa, you need an immersive environment. “While classroom teaching is effective in certain ways, one of the best ways to train people is to immerse them in the right kind of environment.“
That immersive environment has taken the form of The Residential Experience for Spartan Engineering, which will launch this fall. This living and learning option will deliver cutting-edge education, hands-on learning, and residential program experience. In addition to engineering design and computer labs, classrooms, areas for tutoring and study, and offices for academic advisers, faculty and student organizations will be located within the residential setting and close to the Engineering Building to strengthen the sense of community. The setting also will give employers visiting campus a place to interact with freshmen.
Educating the Engineer of 2020 states: “In this global knowledge age with its serious problems and opportunities, we need the best and brightest students to pursue careers in engineering, and we need a large percentage of them to earn PhDs in the areas of engineering that can lead to innovations that will keep us free, secure, healthy, and thriving in a vibrant economy.”
ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE, PASSING ON KNOWLEDGE, DIFFUSING KNOWLEDGE
Whether advancing knowledge, passing on knowledge, or diffusing knowledge, MSU’s College of Engineering intends to lead the way.
“What is not going to change over the next 100 years is our strong commitment to advance knowledge and transform lives,” Udpa says. “That is a commitment that we will adhere to no matter which century we’re talking about.”
Laura Luptowski Seeley , '80, received her degree in Journalism. She is director of publications and public relations for MSU's College of Engineering.
SURVIVING THE GREAT FIRE
On Sunday, March 5, 1916, a fire destroyed the Engineering Building and shops and nearly marked the demise of the engineering program at the Michigan Agricultural College (MAC) in East Lansing.
All that was salvaged was some electrical equipment worth a few thousand dollars. Over the years, there had been repeated discussion about combining the state’s engineering studies to create a single program in Ann Arbor. Now there was a renewed effort by the state legislature to do so. A Detroit Free Press correspondent predicted that the fire signaled the end of MSU’s engineering department.
But the naysayers were wrong. Ransom E. Olds, Lansing’s industrial leader and a personal friend of MAC President Frank S. Kedzie, gave $100,000 toward rebuilding the engineering program at MAC.
Thus it came to be that the R. E. Olds Hall of Engineering, a near replica of the original building erected on the same foundation, was dedicated on June 1, 1917.
On June 5, the M.A.C. Record reported: “R.E. Olds was present in person and, in turning over the keys of the building to Dean Bissell, he said, ‘It is my observation that the students turned out of this college are better fitted on the average than those from any other college in the country.’”
There were no further attempts to move the engineering school to Ann Arbor. In 1962, the engineering program moved to the new building on Shaw Lane. That building was renovated and expanded in 1989. In 1997, the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Institute for Materials Research (known as the Dow Wing) was completed.
NOTED MSU ENGINEERS
- Walter H. Meyer (BS chemical engineering ’48), 1922–2004, spent his career at Proctor and Gamble developing such products as Pringles and Prell shampoo and reinvigorating Crisco.
- Joseph Colucci (BS mechanical engineering ’58), a member of the National Academy of Engineering, was part of the General Motors Research Laboratories team that developed the catalytic converter and unleaded gasoline.
- Joon Moon (BS chemical engineering ’60), established several companies in consumer products, plastics, and the swimming pool industry, through which he developed the chemicals used in several popular household products.
- James R. Von Ehr (BS computer science ’72) was co-creator of Aldus FreeHand, which revolutionized the desktop publishing industry. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Zyvex Corporation, a leading nanotechnology company in Richardson, Texas.
- Martha L. Gray (BS computer science ’78) is director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology (HST). Gray was among the first researchers to explore how mechanical forces influence cartilage metabolism.
- Brian Kent (BS electrical engineering ’80), a senior scientist for the Air Force Research Laboratory, led a group of engineers in a critical analysis of the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
- Molly Brennan (BS computer science and Honors College ’82), former Engineering Group Manager for Truck and Bus Engineering at General Motors Corp., was an engineer and driver for the Sunraycer team that won the first World Solar Challenge in November 1987—setting four speed records (Guinness Book of World Records). A two-time All-American in track, she was named MSU Sportswoman of the Year in 1982. She won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1981-82.
- Tamara Reid-Bush (BS mechanical engineering ’90; MS ’94, PhD ’00, mechanics with specialization in biomechanics), a visiting assistant professor in mechanical engineering, helped develop Steelcase’s Leap seat, an ergonomic chair that is Steelcase's bestselling chair. Bush was profiledon DragonflyTV, a children’s science show on PBS.
- Honda Shing (MS ’88, PhD ’92 computer science), a successful entrepreneur and software engineer, co-founded InterVideo in 1988. InterVideo soon became a leading provider of digital video disc (DVD) software. Their first product, WinDVD, an application for viewing DVDs on a PC, corresponded with the initial surge in demand for DVD drives.
- Rachel Hutter (BS electrical engineering '93) joined Walt Disney World in 1997 and was part of the team that built Animal Kingdom. She received the 2005 Emerging Leaders Award in quality assurance from the Society of Women Engineers and was chosen Central Florida Engineer of the Year in 2006.
- Zhihui Huang (PhD civil engineering '05), a structural engineer with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP, in San Francisco, CA, helped design the new Freedom Tower at New York’s World Trade Center. He also helped spearhead several new and innovative high-rise projects in China—including the 70-story Jinta Tower in Tianjin.
SOME NOTEWORTHY FACTS:
- The College of Engineering has produced two Churchill Scholars and eight Goldwater Scholars in the past nine years. Robert Friederichs, a materials science and engineering major, was selected as a 2007 Goldwater Scholar.
- For more than 35 years, the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science has held the nation's best record for winning and placing in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) National Student Design Competition.
- Biosystems engineering student Michael Wiederoder was selected to receive a 2007 Department of Homeland Security Undergraduate Scholarship. His research will focus on creating biosensors that will recognize pathogenic bacteria.
- College of Engineering graduates are recruited aggressively in Michigan and around the world by companies ranging in size from small startups to Fortune 500s.In addition, more than 250 employers and 350 undergraduates typically participate in experiential education opportunities each year.
- MSU’s first computer, MISTIC (Michigan State Integral Computer) was built and housed in room 500 of what was then the Electrical Engineering Building (now the Computer Center). Lawrence W. Von Tersch, then director of the computer lab and later dean of the College of Engineering, and Julian Kateley, then computer science instructor and later professor, helped build MISTIC. It became operational in October 1957 and was replaced by the CDC 3600 in June 1963.
