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Cover Story
Research and
Graduate Education
From the Dean
Marston Muses
Readership Survey
| From the Dean “In this incredible new facility, we have the wondrous opportunity to use our minds and our dreams to make the world a better place . . . ” Many called it an impossible dream, now we call it Howe Hall. This building represents the fulfillment of some of the dreams of a young couple from Muscatine who came to Iowa State College in the 1940s to obtain an education. They probably didn’t dream of having their names on a building at Iowa State when they were students. However, his engineering education, her loving support, and their willingness to do whatever was needed to make their dreams into reality, led him to become the leader of one of the United States’ largest corporations. They saw the possibilities in the dream of this build-ing and had the vision to provide the leadership that made it a reality today. I want to especially thank Stan and Helen for helping to make this dream come true. This building is also the realization of a dream of a new model of engineering education—a model that emphasizes learning rather than teaching and recognizes the importance of real-world relevance to fully develop the skills of the engineer. This model demands active involvement of students to construct and apply the knowledge gained. The new model ensures that engineering graduates celebrate diversity, have global perspective, function effectively in teams, understand the value of time and costs, and are capable of effectively communicating their ideas. Finally, the new model ensures that graduates have the skills required for and the motivation to engage in life-long learning. It has been said that man, uniquely of all animals, has the ability to dream—to imagine things that don’t exist. Of all the powers with which we have been endowed, surely that must be the greatest. Engineering, in its simplest form, represents the ability to give life to these dreams— impossible dreams that told us that we could lift from the earth and land on the moon, dreams that we could close the distance between continents through computers and the Internet, dreams that scientists could peer into molecules and gaze at galaxies at the edge of the universe, dreams of technologies that could save lives and improve the quality of life. In this incredible new facility, we have the wondrous opportunity to use our minds and our dreams to make the world a better place, to think beyond the science and technology of specific engineering subjects to the social, economic, political, and environmental needs of all. Only the scale of our imagination can limit what engineering can accomplish.  —Excerpted from the dean’s speech at the dedication of Howe Hall, October 23, 1999. |
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