- September 10th, 2006, 9:43 pm
#29483
LU working to create engineering programWhat a great opportunity to reach new students and reach out to the local community.
Ron Brown
rbrown@newsadvance.com
September 9, 2006
When Liberty University took ownership of the former Ericsson plant in 2004, the little building down the hill was an afterthought.
Now, it is the launch pad for a budding school of engineering.
The small building, which has an upper floor built entirely of fiberglass, is a perfect lab for testing wireless communications equipment, such as walkie-talkies and cell phones.
There’s no metal to interfere with electronic-magnetic emissions.
The half-million-dollar building, which was once slated to become a campus concession stand or locker room, could one day house experiments on equipment used by the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies.
“We’ve become educated about this building,” said Ron Sones, the director of LU’s Center For Computer and Information Technology. “It is a lab that is very rare in the country, let alone in this area. We now realize the jewel that is in our midst.”
Sones is a key player in LU’s emerging engineering programs, which should be operational by fall 2008.
The first degree programs submitted for school approval are electrical engineering and computer engineering. They should be followed in rapid succession by software engineering and industrial engineering.
After gaining campus approval, the engineering major will be presented for approval to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, LU’s two primary accrediting agencies.
The program also hopes to get approval from the American Board For Engineering and Technology, which oversees the specific development of engineering schools nationwide.
Sones, who has been pushing the idea of a LU engineering school for about two years, said the engineering programs will become a community asset.
“The underlying themes of all of our engineering emphasis is to not only build an academic program, but to build it in concert with the local engineering firms who have expressed an interest in partnering with us, not only financially but in terms of the direction we’re going,” he said. “Hopefully, it will lead to some of our students getting internships or jobs with local businesses and staying close to the area.”
Sones said LU’s engineering program will have a strong research component.
“As we are hiring faculty that is one thing we are keeping in mind, finding people who will be willing to join our faculty not only as teachers, but as someone willing to do research.” he said.
“In the engineering disciplines, one of the features that attract and retains students is getting undergraduates involved in research early on. We hope this is a multi-faceted winning solution for the school, the students, for the Department of Defense and the local community as well as we attract these research minds.”
The school is applying for a federal grant to help purchase the “very expensive” equipment needed to do research in its lab.
Currently, the school’s Center for Computer and Information Technology offers degrees in computer science, Web technology and management of information services.
“These new engineering programs will add to the breadth of what we’re doing,” said Boyd C. Rist, LU’s provost and vice president of academic affairs.
Rist said the engineering programs should enhance LU’s recruitment.
LU’s admissions office has had just under 500 inquiries about engineering programs since 2004.
“We think there is demand out there for this program,” Rist said. “And we think there are students who would come to Liberty that currently don’t come to Liberty because we lack such programs.”
The engineering program could help solidify the academic credentials of the 35-year-old school.
“We’re interested in the program because of the type of student it would attract,” Rist said. “Generally, that student has a higher academic profile, is more serious about college work and is more likely to persist and graduate.”
Rist said engineering graduates do well in the job market.
“These are high demand degrees,” he said. “We think we can build a quality program that will give the students something that is very marketable.”
The engineering program would likely draw financial support from companies seeking future workers and government agencies seeking sound research.
“These are programs that can attract considerable external support,” Rist said. “There are some good grant opportunities. We have ideas about how to attract individuals who would provide funded scholarships for students in this program and ways to build endowment for research professorships.”
LU is already putting together the components of the engineering program.
“We’ve looked at this pretty carefully and pretty comprehensively and we can’t, at this point, poke any major holes in the idea,” Rist said. “We’ve already done some faculty hiring in anticipation of getting these programs up and running very quickly.”
Rist said the ultimate goal is to have a full-blown school of engineering.
“As we add programs, we will reach a point in terms of the sheer variety of programs and number of students that we will want to elevate it to the status of a school,” he said. “It’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of how rapidly it’s going to happen.”
- By ECC29
- By Purple Haize