Engineering Now 2009
 
 

Mechanical Engineering (ME)

Department head credits fee for accreditation approval

Virginia Tech's Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department ranks 17th among graduate schools and in the top 15 percent for undergraduate education, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report surveys. But despite its strong reputation, Ken Ball, ME department head, was concerned a few years ago when he knew the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) would be coming to visit during the 2008-09 academic year.

Ball credits the engineering fee for allaying his fears. With this dedicated revenue stream, he was able to authorize the purchase of needed lab equipment and vital improvements to the more than 50 year-old Randolph Hall. As an example, it was not uncommon to see the daisy-chaining of electrical extension cords from one classroom to another due to the lack of power outlets. The department desperately needed this upgrading of the ME classrooms, labs and tools — used by its students every day.

“Without the engineering fee, we would have been in jeopardy of not getting full accreditation,” Ball said while sitting in his Randolph Hall office.

ME is one of the most popular curriculums among the College of Engineering's departments. According to May 2009 graduation data, 242 students graduated in ME, nearly twice as many as the second most heavily enrolled department, chemical engineering with 138 students. “Students would have been disappointed, and faculty frustrated,” Ball said.

Because ME is currently attracting more students into its classes, the amount of money flowing into the department from student engineering fees is significant. A good deal of money this year has gone to the department's two core labs, 4005 and 4006, where students practice the principles of measurement, measurement standards and accuracy, detectors and transducers, digital data acquisition principles, signal conditioning systems, and readout devices statistical concepts.

Before the engineering fee, much of the equipment was so old, dating back decades, that the students were not allowed to touch the pieces. Some of the ME faculty recognized the equipment from their undergraduate days at Virginia Tech. Lab instructors would demonstrate the experiments most times  because of the fragility of the equipment. Students could only watch. The hands-off approach wasn't an issue of trust, but economics. If a student accidentally broke a piece of equipment, it could shut the labs down as the item was repaired. With dozens of students flowing into and out of the lab, schedules would have been thrown into disarray.


”If you can't let students touch the equipment because if they damage it, it will shut down the lab, that's not a good thing,” Ball said. “Students need that hands-on experience with the lab equipment. The entire effort is needed and wanted to give students the best educational experience they can get.”

And they are. New lab equipment has students working with tabletop robotics and laptop computers that make instant measurements of small engines down to milliseconds. Tablet PCs are used in various classes and labs, also bought with engineering fee funds. 

Marty Johnson, an associate professor of ME, says until recently scales used in lab experiments were so antiquated students had to record data by eye and hand. Once a normal routine in labs, this method is now considered ancient, as valuable information is lost in the time it takes to record such data. Johnson added that lab equipment now used in classes is equal to that used in commercial labs and facilities where students will work after graduation or during college internships or summer jobs. “It's the equipment being used in the outside world, so students are getting that experience here and now,” Johnson said.

Those tabletop engines, laptops, computerized scales and other tools require maintenance and regular upkeep. The fees also go toward paying those personnel, as well as graduate students who can lead or help lead lab classes.  With such help, faculty members are free to do research or plan classes. That helps existing faculty members, and helps to recruit new assistant professors keyed on working with new technology. “They want to be part of that culture,” Ball said.