A Message from the Department Head
As head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, I have had the profound privilege of witnessing our students, staff, and faculty going beyond our typical academic setting to support our community’s fight against this pandemic during this unprecedented time.
We are using our unique resources to solve important COVID-19-related challenges, including manufacturing and testing personal protective equipment to provide the highest level of safety to our frontline medical workforce and measuring bioaerosol emissions to determine best practices for a safe return to public gatherings. Our knowledge of manufacturing processes and materials technology has led to industry partnerships to design and build low cost, readily available ventilators, and our expertise in public health and air quality includes multi-institutional collaborations to promote initiatives for reducing health stressors in residential environments.
Even in the face of this pandemic, we continue to provide our students a world-class mechanical engineering education. Staff and faculty efforts to convert our entire spring curriculum to 100% online teaching in just ten days over spring break and our students’ ability to adjust to distance learning exceeded all expectations. Our students, staff, and faculty’s collective dedication and resilience prove our department is prepared to continue to educate the next generation of mechanical engineers despite the trajectory that this pandemic throws at us in the future.
A look at fall 2020
We are prepared for multiple scenarios regarding fall 2020 instruction, which consist of face-to-face, online, and hybrid (a combination of face-to-face and online) course delivery. As a department, we pride ourselves on the substantial hands-on educational component that we deliver to our students. Of course, this pandemic has presented a challenge to experiential learning. To the greatest extent possible, we are making every effort of continuing to provide our students with our foundational core experience of “design, build, test.” Synchronous instruction, whenever possible, will also give our students the opportunity for real-time interaction with their professors.
I am happy to announce that the department will offer an Aerospace Engineering Undergraduate Concentration beginning this fall, followed by a graduate certificate and a formal master’s degree in spring 2021. To support the initiation of our aerospace offerings, we are awarding four $5,000 scholarships to Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students who declare a concentration in Aerospace Engineering. The Aerospace Engineering program will expand our students’ career options by addressing the aerospace industry’s demand for more engineers within Colorado and nationwide.
I am pleased to welcome five new faculty members to our department community. The addition of these faculty will substantially increase our department’s teaching bandwidth and actualize my vision of reduced class size (i.e., all courses taught within the mechanical engineering department will have no more than 85 students per section). This faculty cohort brings over 140 years of combined teaching, research, and industry experience and will significantly enhance our offerings in thermal sciences, sustainable energy, and aerospace engineering. We are truly fortunate to have these new faculty on our team.
The health of our students, staff, and faculty’s remains our number one priority, and maintaining vigilance will further our contributions to public health, service to our state, and commitment to providing an accessible education. I invite you to learn more about our efforts, and I look forward to sharing the accomplishments of our department community for years to come.
Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University is about using our knowledge of materials, energy, and health to solve society’s global engineering challenges.
Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University is about using our knowledge of materials, energy, and health to solve society’s global engineering challenges.
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