Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Arthur Heinricher; Brian Savilonis; David Spanagel; Robert Traver; Kristin Wobbe

Great Problems Seminars: A New First-Year Foundation at WPI Arthur Heinricher1, Brian Savilonis2, David Spanagel3, Robert Traver4, Kristin Wobbe5AbstractThe Great Problems Seminars are a new program designed to engage Worcester PolytechnicInstitute’s first-year students with current events, societal problems, and human needs. Eachseminar starts with an important global problem and helps students to find a place where they canmake real progress, no matter how small, in solving the problem.Four WPI faculty representing Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, and Humanities developedand delivered two Great Problems Seminars in 2007. Feed the World

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Elif Kongar; Paul Kontogiorgis; Nancy L. Russo; Tarek Sobh

and manufacturing as the leading contributor to gross domesticproduct in the world today. As the global economy has become more integrated, and the demand for aworkforce required to run service-focused organizations in an efficient manner grows, the level andvariety of skills needed in this new service economy have also changed and grown. In particular, thegrowth rate of technology-driven service industries is significantly outpacing the growth in other service-oriented sectors. It has been argued that women in general possess many characteristics that make themoptimal candidates to fulfill this workforce gap. However, the percentage of women enrolled inengineering, technology and related programs have been dropping. This paper attempts to

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

David A. Gray

context of control charts provides significant feedback that allows primary employees to evaluate their own process, and 3) The only way to improve the output of a process is to change it, ergo, “If you do not like your grade, change your process.” These three ideas paint a realistic picture of the college enterprise, and provide the students with context that allows them to evaluate their own progress and to make decisions directed toward improvement.Messiah College’s engineering department has long had concern for successful transition of first yearstudents into the academic rigors of our engineering program. Reflecting this concern, we

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

John Adams; Charles Kochakian

systems engineering concepts and introducing economicconcepts and business benefits through implementations such as found in Supply Chain andWarehouse Management (SCM/WHM). In addition, RFID is a natural place to introduce ethicalas well as global engineering issues. The course includes selected RFID projects incorporatingbusiness student participation on multidisciplinary teams. As a result, the department has beenable to tailor the course to specifically addresses ABET1 outcomes 3 (d), 3 (f) and 3 (h). Earlyexperience in multidisciplinary teamwork has been favorable, one example provided by a teamthat evaluated possible adoption of RFID by the college’s library. The role of assessment indeciding to adopt this course, and the assessment of the

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Hudson V. Jackson; Evelyn A. Ellis

Early and Continuous Exposure to Engineering as a Profession: Career Imprinting in Grades PK-12 Hudson V. Jackson, PhD, P.E and Evelyn A. Ellis, Ed.D United States Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut, U.S.A.AbstractIn recent years, there has been much discussion about declining interest in engineering programsthroughout U.S. colleges and universities. Several possible causes for the decline have been identified andare fodder for debate: (1) PK-12 educational systems are not adequately preparing students tocomprehend the connections among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) andfuture career opportunities and (2) College engineering curricula need to be more

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

David I. Schwartz

would be lost, a more complexmodel would offer greater insight into how a game changes state. Deciding which game components andstates should contribute (and to what degree) to a score needs further work. 8Finally, educators may wish to introduce mathematical concepts from a game design and analysisperspective. Ultimately, scoring could provide an essential link between theoretical fundamentals andsoftware implementations.7. AcknowledgementsI would like to express my gratitude to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, New Yorkfor providing a Visiting Faculty Research Professorship for the summer of 2007 and a subsequentextension grant. Research into wargame design and development methods

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Mir M. Atiqullah

. Albeit new inour Mechanical Engineering Technology department, two students were selected to participate in aresearch involving defects in composite materials. These students did have minimal background incomposites from the general Engineering Materials course. These minority students were supported bysummer scholarships from Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (PSLSAMP).The issue of defects and their effect on the mechanical properties of composites is of great concern amonghigh end users. A limited set of experimental investigation with defective composite flat panels wasselected for investigation. One of our adjunct faculty offered access to his fabrication facility andguidance to the students for fabricating these

Collection

2008 Northeast Section Meeting

Authors

Saikat Ray

U.S.A. have only an M.S. program with no (or a verysmall) Ph.D. program. A representative list of universities compiled by the author using the ASEEdatabase can be downloaded fromhttp://raysaikat.googlepages.com/us_univ_classification.txtIn this list, the universities are separated into different categories based on the number of graduatingstudents at different levels. The list shows that almost 75 universities in the U.S. have a graduate levelthat (almost) exclusively serves M.S. students. These graduate programs are primarily teaching orientedand resemble undergraduate-only schools in many ways; e.g., 3 or more sections per semester of teachingload on the faculty members is quite common. The M.S. programs serve as a convenient source