4-20-04
BEHREND WORKSHOP FOCUSES ON COLLABORATION
IN BUSINESS AND ENGINEERING
Penn State Behrend will bring business and engineering faculty from several universities and from Penn State University Park to Erie on Friday, April 23 and Saturday, April 24, for a conference that focuses on collaborative educational programs in business and engineering.
"We've invited faculty from Clarkson University, the University of Illinois, and Auburn University to join us, in addition to faculty from University Park. These are schools that, like Penn State Behrend, have collaborative undergraduate programs in business and engineering," said Dr. Robert Simoneau, director of Behrend's School of Engineering and Engineering Technology. "Our purpose in meeting is to share information and determine the best practices used by each institution, so we can learn from one another and improve our programs."
This workshop is the culmination of activities funded by a $176,000 grant that Penn State Behrend received from the GE Foundation several years ago. The grant has been used by faculty in business and engineering to develop and teach a collaborative course in small product realization, to conduct research on collaborative programs on business and engineering, and to host this workshop.
More than fifty students have benefited from the collaborative course in small product realization developed and taught by Behrend faculty members Jana Goodrich, lecturer in management and marketing, Dr. Ralph Ford, associate professor in electrical and computer engineering, and Dr. Robert Weissbach, assistant professor of electrical engineering technology.
The research on collaborative educational programs done by Dr. Diane Parente, assistant professor of management, and Ken Fisher, professor of engineering, has led to a development of a new course that will be offered in fall 2004. The course will concentrate on developing skills identified by practicing engineers and project managers as those vital to new engineers: project management skills, a teamwork focus, and an emphasis on quality.
"The job skills needed by the engineering manager of tomorrow will be different," said Parente. "We need to develop courses that will prepare both business and engineering students for the future. This workshop will provide insight and ideas to help develop those courses."
Media Contact: Loretta Brandon 814-898-6063 (O) e-mail: lzb6@psu.edu
814-898-6063 (O)
E-mail: lzb6@psu.edu