Industry Partnerships Assist Programs for Accreditation
- Conference
- Location
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Salt Lake City, Utah
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2018
- Start Date
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June 23, 2018
- End Date
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July 27, 2018
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Civil Engineering
- Page Count
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15
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--30657
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/30657
- Download Count
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537
Paper Authors
Ronald W. Welch The Citadel
Ron Welch (P.E.) received his B.S. degree in Engineering Mechanics from the United States Military Academy in 1982. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1990 and 1999, respectively. He became the Dean of Engineering at The Citadel on 1 July 2011. Prior to his current position, he was the Department Head of Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at Tyler from Jan 2007 to June 2011 as well as served in the Corps of Engineers for over 24 years including eleven years on the faculty at the United States Military Academy.
Robert J. Rabb P.E. The Citadel
Robert Rabb is an associate professor and the Mechanical Engineering Program Director at The Citadel. He previously taught mechanical engineering at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy and his M.S.E. and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching interests are in mechatronics, regenerative power, and multidisciplinary engineering.
Kevin C. Bower P.E. The Citadel
Dr. Kevin Bower is a Professor and Assistant Provost for Academic Operations at The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina. Dr. Bower’s teaching research interests are in improving active learning environments, authentic assessment, and the development of classroom pedagogy to improve professional skills in engineering students.
Abstract
Educating engineering students is rewarding and challenging. It is an exciting time to be an engineer and engineering educator, but with limited resources and reduced budgets, finding more opportunities to support academics is not an easy task in a primarily teaching institution. As a result, looking outside the institution and traditional resources can promote multiple engineering programs, add relevance, and connect industry to academia. Connecting industry partners to the institution has helped in organizations meeting their community service project goals, filling internship and full time employment needs, and adding academic expertise to solve some technical problems. Students benefit from seeing the relevance of their academic work to real world problems, exposure to industry professionals and employment opportunities, and limited use of equipment the institution does not have. The institution benefits from increased exposure to potential students and great marketing tools. Many partnerships can be used as part of a very effective college recruiting plan.
This paper will present how one university develops and uses industry partnerships to provide a number of different academic resources. These resources support capstone projects, advising and evaluation of capstone projects, research projects as well as financial support for the projects, adjunct professors, dedicated internships and members of advisory boards providing financial support and curriculum input. In a time of ever decreasing resources at the state level, public universities are moving to operate similar to a private institution. Additionally, during these times the building of new programs requires the leveraging of the resources of private organizations. Analysis of examples of program development and enhancement using industry partnerships will provide a number of best practices.
Welch, R. W., & Rabb, R. J., & Bower, K. C. (2018, June), Industry Partnerships Assist Programs for Accreditation Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30657
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