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Session 2213

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AND BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING WITH A CHEMICAL ENGINEERING FOUNDATION

Melanie McNeil, Art Diaz, Michael Jennings, and Claire Komives Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, San Jose State University

ABSTRACT: Chemical Engineering principles are utilized in a variety of industries such as semiconductor processing, environmental engineering and biotechnology. One main characteristic of these fields is their multidisciplinary nature. Thus, parts of the chemical engineering curriculum can be an integrated into the training of engineers desiring to work in these fields. We will describe an industry-driven engineering Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) degree program and a Biochemical Engineering emphasis that have been developed at San Jose State University (SJSU). The EHS program includes a strong foundation of Chemical Engineering courses even though it is housed in the General Engineering Department. The Biochemical Engineering emphasis is incorporated in the Chemical Engineering program. The development of the EHS program can be used as a model for the incorporation of Chemical Engineering courses as the foundation for other multidisciplinary degree programs. We will describe the assessment method which has been developed for the EHS program and the Biochemical Engineering emphasis and our first steps at implementing this assessment.

Introduction

The Chemical Engineering curriculum traditionally has been recognized for its breadth, partially due to the number of courses taken outside the discipline (e.g. chemistry, materials, circuits, etc.). More recently the multidisciplinary nature of the curriculum has increased due to the incorporation of examples of newer technologies such as semiconductor processing, biotechnology and environmental engineering into the majority of the required courses. Chemical engineering students are exposed to a variety of new technologies. However, some of those technologies are developing into official degree programs and concentrations in their own right. It is feasible that significant parts of the chemical engineering curriculum can form the foundation of these chemical-intensive fields as they develop into degree programs. In the rest of this paper, we will describe two programs at SJSU, one an EHS degree program outside of Chemical Engineering and one a biochemical engineering emphasis within Chemical Engineering, that were developed to include a solid foundation of traditional chemical engineering courses. We will describe how the curriculum for each program was proposed and accepted, the safeguards we included in the initiation process in order to assure a viable curriculum was proposed, and the

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Jennings, M., & McNeil, M., & Diaz, A. (2002, June), Environmental Health And Safety And Biochemical Engineering With A Chemical Engineering Foundation Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10963