The idea began with a casual conversation
at a Richmond cocktail party. Two executives, Steven
A. Markel and William H. Goodwin Jr., were chatting
about the separate fund-raising campaigns they were
leading for the business and engineering schools at
Virginia Commonwealth University. Each school was planning
to expand.
As they talked, Markel and Goodwin
hit upon a novel plan. Why not combine their efforts
and put the schools together into one integrated campus?
Markel says that he believes that the combined resources
of the two schools will provide VCU with a tremendous
academic advantage. “VCU is an educational powerhouse
that is quickly gaining in national reputation,”
he says. “I’m committed to helping the School
of Business provide the best possible education to the
business leaders of tomorrow.”
VCU officials seized upon the idea
as a way to bridge the gap between business and engineering. “This is something that the business community
has been asking for,” says Peter Wyeth, VCU’s
vice president of university advancement. “They
want graduates who are prepared for the real world
and
who understand their counterparts in the organization.”
Engineering schools across the commonwealth
are surveying the business landscape and finding that
engineering students can no longer exist in an academic
vacuum. University officials say that integrating other
disciplines into existing engineering programs helps
promote research in new areas and produce students who
are better-prepared for the business world.
Virginia
Commonwealth University
The site chosen for the two VCU schools is a vacant
10.8 acre parcel across the street from the existing
engineering school in downtown Richmond. The $199 million
project will include a new business school, the second
phase of the engineering school, two dormitories, an
executive conference center and underground parking.
In addition, a historic property on the site will be
renovated to house VCU’s Adcenter, its award-winning
graduate advertising program. The state has appropriated
$25 million for the project with the remaining $174
million being funded by private donations.
Robert J. Mattauch, dean of the School
of Engineering, and Michael Sesnowitz, dean of the School
of Business, say the goal of their combined approach
is to get students in business and engineering to communicate.
They note that, according to legend, businesspeople
have little appreciation for the need to invest in research
and technology — their first their solution tends
to be “cut the R&D budget.” Engineers,
on the other hand, have a reputation for selecting the
most expensive solution to a problem — with little
regard for the bottom line. Mattauch says working in
a collaborative environment will bring the two disciplines
closer together. “Overall it will improve the
curriculum and stimulate a better working environment
for the students and the faculty,” he says.
The VCU School of Engineering is
not limiting its crossover efforts to the business school.
A major initiative is under way to have engineering
faculty and students work closer with VCU’s medical
college in the emerging life sciences field. For example,
Dr. Gary L. Bowlin, in the Department of Biomedical
Engineering, is perfecting a process similar to that
used in spinning cotton candy. He is using electro-spinning
technology to fabricate nano-scale fibers for tissue
engineering. The fibers bind together into a mass, forming
whatever shape Bowlin wants.
One immediate use of this technology
is the generation of certain compounds found naturally
in the body, like fibrinogen. By manufacturing sheets
of this material, he can create a bandage that not only
stops bleeding but also creates a cellular-level superstructure
that accelerates the regeneration and healing of the
wound.
Old
Dominion University
Old Dominion University also is taking steps to integrate
engineering with other fields. Last year ODU completed
a $19.6 million center combining engineering and computational
sciences, encouraging research in areas like fluid dynamics,
modeling and simulation. In fact, modeling and simulation
work at ODU has contributed to Hampton Roads becoming
a national center for military applications in this
emerging technology.
A Suffolk-based consortium including
ODU and private companies, the Virginia Modeling, Analysis
and Simulation Center (VMASC), is involved in advanced
modeling and simulation research. The military is using
modeling and simulation to develop, test and evaluate
procedures and equipment as well as train military personnel.
Several prominent companies have offices and laboratories
in southeastern Virginia to support the military, including
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Litton, Booz-Allen
& Hamilton, Computer Sciences Corp. and Logicon.
Northrop Grumman Newport News and NASA-Langley Research
Center are also important users of simulation technology.
ODU has also brought more business
management discipline to its engineering program through
its Department of Engineering Management and Systems
Engineering. The deans of the business and engineering
schools meet regularly to look for common areas of interest.
One program developed through this collaboration is
ODU’s minor in engineering management. The minor
stresses business skills such as decision making, interpersonal
communications, project management and leadership. “These
are the skills that employers are telling us they need
in engineers, scientists and other types of positions
at high-tech organizations,” says Dr. Linda Vahala,
associate dean at the Frank Batten College of Engineering
and Technology.
Virginia
Tech
More than seven years ago Virginia Tech saw the need
to integrate its engineering and science programs to
be more competitive in attracting federal research grants.
With the goal of breaking into the top 30 research universities
in the country, Virginia Tech created the Institute
for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS).
Based on detailed analyses of factors that contribute
to national rankings at top-tier universities, the institute
has emerged as a vehicle to move the university upward
in national research rankings.
The focus is on multiprincipled investigative
work — gathering small teams of three to four
people to work on getting research grants. “These
are very competitive grants,” says Rodd Hall,
director of ICTAS. “The grants come from large
federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation,
the National Institutes of Health and the Department
of Energy.”
The institute is entrepreneurial
in nature, offering a strong link to economic development
for the region. One goal is technology transfer, turning
university research into commercial products. The institute
focuses on problem-oriented, real world solutions, providing
better resources to obtain better results. One product
that can be traced to ICTAS is the radio-controlled
drone plane now in use in Afghanistan and Iraq for security
and reconnaissance missions.
George
Mason University
George Mason University faces a somewhat different challenge
from Virginia’s other research universities. GMU
is in the heart of Northern Virginia’s technology
corridor and many students work full or part time in
local high-tech industries. These students want skills
they can put to work immediately. “We have more
than 3,000 IT companies within 15 minutes of our campus,”
says Lloyd J. Griffiths, dean of the School of Engineering
and Information Technology. “Most schools have
summer internship programs while our students can intern
all year round because of the strong demand for employees
in the work force.” (Fairfax County’s current
employment rate is about 2.5 percent)
Griffiths notes there is little manufacturing
in Northern Virginia “so our engineering program
has to adapt to what the local business community needs.
We’re not just another engineering program. We
have integrated engineering with information technology
so that the program is IT-based, not science-based.”
One of the constant demands from
the local information technology sector is for graduates
with a well-rounded info-tech background combined with
solid management training. Based on feedback from industry,
GMU’s School of IT & Engineering developed
a new bachelor’s degree in information technology.
The program is designed to educate high-tech workers
in current principles and practices in IT and their
applications. It will produce graduates who are well-versed
in the latest technology, but their primary role in
a company likely will focus on the management of IT
assets, rather than the development of intellectual
property. The combination of technology and management
disciplines sets this program apart from traditional
IT programs. Program graduates fill the jobs that focus
on the application of IT in an increasing number of
disciplines — including Web development, computer
graphics, telecommunications, and information security.
University
of Virginia
The University of Virginia offers a number of interrelated
engineering courses that link engineering to focused
study areas like materials science, information systems
and aerospace. Once area in particular that takes advantage
of the universities massive medical research capabilities
is biomedical engineering. This emerging discipline
is becoming one of the most important research areas
of the new millennium — affecting human health
and the environment. Biomedical engineering traces its
roots to U.Va. as far back as 1967, with the program
constantly evolving as research and technology evolve.
A new bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering
was approved in 2003, with 110 students currently enrolled.
Moving up the graduate level, the
research begins to take sharper focus, in areas like
cardiovascular bioengineering, with studies at the molecular
level to real-time MRI cardiac imaging and targeted
drug delivery. There are also advanced studies in tissue
engineering and regenerative medicine. “Linkages
across disciplines are growing ever more important,”
says Thomas Skalak, professor and chair at the Department
of Biomedical Engineering. “One of our core beliefs
is the discovery of knowledge via big science, as well
as the development of biomedical product ideas originating
in the mind of the individual.”
