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College Briefs Interim president In August, Richard Seagrave became the first engineer to serve as interim president of Iowa State University, succeeding Martin Jischke who left Iowa State for Purdue University. Seagrave’s personal goal while he leads Iowa State in its search for a new president is to ensure that undergraduate education is a top university priority. Other objectives include: (1) keeping the institution functioning smoothly; (2) “keeping the team together,” including the faculty and staff currently at Iowa State; (3) creating an atmosphere that will help attract top candidates for the presidency; and (4) preventing a repeat of this year’s $8 million budget shortfall in state funding. Seagrave came to Iowa State in 1957 as a graduate student. Ater teaching in Connecticut and California, he returned to Iowa State in 1966 as an associate professor of chemical engineering. He was named professor in 1971 and Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering in 1982. Seagrave has been recognized for excellence in teaching 15 times and has served Iowa State in numerous administrative capacities, including chair of chemical engineering and interim provost. Top honor Jim Bernard has been named Anson Marston Distinguished Professor of Engineering. He is the only active faculty member in mechanical engineering to hold this title. Bernard is recognized as a leading authority in advanced synthetic environments. In 1990, he founded the Iowa Center for Emerging Manufacturing Technology at Iowa State, now known as the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC). Under his direction, the center has become a leader in the application of virtual reality technology to challenges in engineering and science. He served as the chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Committee on Engineering Education, leading the development and acceptance of Engineering Criteria 2000 by the mechanical engineering profession, providing its greatest opportunity for innovation in engineering education in the last 50 years. A former DEO, Bernard is a co-founder of Engineering Animation, an Ames-based computer company specializing in Internet-enabled products. He joined the Iowa State faculty in 1983. New appointment Engineering Dean James L. Melsa has been named to the Board of Trustees of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association in West Branch. He will serve for three years. The appointment recognizes Melsa’s interest in Hoover’s career as a mining engineer. The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association is a non-profit group that supports the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum and National Historic Site in West Branch. The board has 70 members, including two grandsons of the former president. Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, was a native of West Branch. He is buried there with his wife, Waterloo native Lou Henry Hoover, near the tiny cottage where he was born in 1874. EDE director Rebecca Kellogg was recently named director for Engineering Distance Education (EDE) at Iowa State University. Kellogg, an adjunct assistant professor with the aerospace and engineering mechanics department at Iowa State, previously worked as a project engineer with Chamberlain Manufacturing Corporation in Waterloo, Iowa. Kellogg hopes to expand existing EDE programs and include those that have not traditionally been offered off-campus. In addition, she plans to offer more short courses through EDE and to continue to be responsive to industry educational needs and priorities. Dual degree program Thirty students are enrolled in a new program for mid- to upper-level engineering managers and executives offered jointly by Iowa State's College of Engineering and the University of Iowa's Henry B. Tippie School of Management. Participants in the 26-month program will earn both a master's of engineering in systems engineering (M.E.S.E.) and a master's of business administration (M.B.A.). The program is designed to prepare engineers and executives for the challenges of today's highly competitive international marketplace. Complete information on the Executive Engineer Dual Master's Degree program is available at www.eng.iastate.edu/dual-degree. |
