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WIP Paper: Engineering Materials Related Courses at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez (UPRM) after Hurricane Fiona Crossed the Island in September 2022

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Materials Division (MATS) Technical Session 2

Tagged Division

Materials Division (MATS)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

5

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44060

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44060

Download Count

177

Paper Authors

biography

Jayanta K. Banerjee Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Jayanta Banerjee is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez (UPRM). Dr. Banerjee received Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo and M.Ed. from Queen's University, both in Canada. He had worked in India, Germany, Canada, USA and Latin America. He is a Life Member of ASEE and a senior member of ASME. He has published in the areas of Mechanics of Materials as well as in Engineering Education. As hobbies, he travels extensively and writes stories and poems in English, Spanish and Bengali.

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Abstract

On September 18, 2022, the Hurricane Fiona entered Mayagüez with a wind speed of 150 mph and dwelled longer than five hours since she moved with a linear velocity of only 5 mph! Our campus was totally devastated, and there were neither class lectures nor real labs for over two weeks. Immediately thereafter, the campus was again closed for a week due to the students and workers strike. This hampered very seriously all our undergraduate and graduate courses, and particularly those courses related to materials science and engineering, because such courses are offered in several departments in our engineering faculty as well as in the faculty of pure sciences. For example, in our Mechanical Engineering Department, we offer courses on Biomaterials in cooperation with the Department of Biology. The present paper illustrates how we handling the current situation in teaching , research and services related to materials science and engineering for not losing a full semester in this Fall. Furthermore, there is a move that in the coming semester the class schedules will change from five days a week to four and half days a week , thereby leaving the Wednesdays afternoon only for "extracurricular activities". We have to accommodate both time schedule and available space for lecture halls as well as lab spaces. This is again a challenge for the materials courses and in the allied fields because they are much larger in numbers for properly distributing over four and half days a week. Hence, this is really a "Work in Progress" real situation during the next two semesters. We will report more development of the current situation and its challenges during the ASEE Annual Conference in Summer 2023 .

Banerjee, J. K. (2023, June), WIP Paper: Engineering Materials Related Courses at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez (UPRM) after Hurricane Fiona Crossed the Island in September 2022 Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44060

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