Engineering School has 40% Female Students!

September 30, 2007 — Lynne M Bailey

Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. The school opened in 2002 and it teaches Engineering in a non-traditional way: they used Project Based Learning and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. The small, tuition-free college is attracting a lot of buzz and making a mark as a new “Ivy” league school. Under the direction of Lawrence W. Milas, the president of the foundation, college President Richard K. Miller created a school that seeks to educate a different breed of engineer – entreprenuerial, ethically minded and collaboratively trained in he humanities as well as technology- to think critically, and boldly. Miller, on his President’s Message web page puts it this way, : “Olin will always be bold, innovative, flexible, and creative — just like the students we have attracted. Our curriculum emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, teamwork, hands-on design, business, creativity and communication.”

The article also noted that 40% of its student are GIRLS, a high percentage for an engineering school. The Class of 2011 consists of 79 new students (34 women and 45 men). So yes, this is a very small school, but it has some very BIG ideas. Perhaps if more universities adopted such an approach, they would attract increasing numbers of engineering students, and a greater number of women to a male-dominated profession.
Re-engineering Engineering

The Hands-On Approach: Building a different breed of engineer at Olin College. ‘In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.’
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007 NY Times Magazine Section
“WHEN NONENGINEERS THINK ABOUT ENGINEERING, it’s usually because something has gone wrong: collapsing levees in New Orleans, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. In the follow-up investigations, it comes out that some of the engineers involved knew something was wrong. But too few spoke up or pushed back – and those who did were ignored. This professional deficiency is something the new, tuition-free Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering wants to fix. At its tiny campus in Needham, Mass., outside Boston, Olin is trying to design a new kind of engineer.”

Read the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30OLIN-t.html?ex=1348891200&en=6c28466b3eb78d2f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

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