Owl - Winter 2010

              TABLE OF CONTENTS
Letter from the Dean..........................1
Commencement..............................2-3
Tau Beta Phi News.............................2
Bellarmine winner..............................3
Math & Science awards.....................3
New grants.........................................4
HSEA inspires students.....................5
SOE freshman workshop....................5
Faculty achievements........................6
Farewell, Dr. Dukkipati.......................7
New board members..........................7
MSMOT news.....................................8
www.fairfield.edu/engineering
Winter 2010
Letter from the Dean
January 2010
At the May 2009 Commencement
ceremonies,
and for the second time in the last three years, an engineering major, Noah Benjamin, was awarded the Bellarmine Medal for the highest academic record compiled during the four years of undergraduate studies. Noah had a straight 4.0 GPA. Two years ago it was Anthony Kunz, a student in mechanical engineer­ing, who won the Bellarmine Medal. We are understandably savoring the success of these two SOE graduates, and of all our other students who excel in academic work, in industrial internships, senior design projects, and in the workplace after gradu­ation. At 134 credit hours, the undergradu­ate engineering curriculum is not an easy one to navigate. Similarly, the curricula of the SOE master’s programs, with a year-long capstone class as a graduation require­ment, can be quite challenging. It takes per­severance on the part of the students, and a desire to succeed academically based on their vision of their future life as creators of original technology that will advance the human cause.
We are fully aware that the six billion individuals on Earth, separated by ethnic­ity, language, faith, culture, and national self-interest, constitute a very complex social system. While 20th-century technol­ogy in communications and transporta­tion could bridge the physical separation among peoples and establish multiple lines of interaction, the current consensus is that in the 21st century, technology divorced from social engagement, will not solve the world’s problems. Hence, the responsibility of engineering educators is being reconfig­ured, from just imparting to their students technical skills and engineering knowledge, to adding a foundation of social responsi­bility, environmental sensibility, and eco­nomic values that spans national borders. This is a duty that all practicing engineers in the academy and industry who serve as teachers and mentors to the younger gener­ation must undertake without reservations. It is my hope that their Fairfield education has empowered our own engineering alum­ni to heed this call.
Given limited earthly resources, it is proper to ask what are the main challenges that 21st-century engineering must tackle in the interest of humanity. The National Academy of Engineering has recently identified 14 such challenges awaiting solu­tions in this century, with clean water for all and the mapping of the human brain prominent among them. The 2009 issue of Engineering in the National Academies lists research reports and symposia proceedings
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
continued on page 4
A PUBLICATION OF THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING