Why Go South?

by Dean Dennis Depew

In the past two weeks, we’ve had visitors walk our hallways from two continents – South America and Europe.

Two weeks ago, 11 of our colleagues from the Dublin Institute of Technology and Hochschule Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany visited and jointly announced a student-exchange agreement with Purdue and Penn State. Under the agreement, Purdue and Penn State will jointly receive $180,000, and the two European institutions will jointly receive 180,000 euros for the next four years to pay travel expenses for students to study abroad for a semester. The European Union-United States Atlantis Program, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education, is the funding entity, for the collaboration.

And this past week, colleagues from TECSUP, a Peruvian non-profit higher education institution and leader in technology, experienced a whirlwind orientation to Purdue and our college with a day and one-half of departmental presentations and tours and another half day touring Discovery Park and meeting with International Programs.

You may ask, “Why a visit from a technology institution located in Lima, Peru?" There are a number of reasons as to what led up to this visit, a couple of which are the main reasons we visit any international institution of learning.

• To expand our students’ educational experience, better preparing them for and making them more marketable in a global workforce
• To improve discovery and learning output by bringing various cultures of thought to research topics within our college and our disciplines

(At Right: Steven E Widmer, associate professor of MET, shares information about the college's hydraulics lab with Alberto Manuel Garcia, academic director of the TECSUP Lima campus, and Mario Revera, general director of the Lima campus.)

Prof. Frederick W Emshousen brought TECSUP to our attention and accompanied me to our first visit in May. TECSUP is a unique educational entity. Started in 1984, TECSUP offers educational access to students, regardless of their financial resources, to attend college and specifically to study technology careers that match the nation’s industrial workforce needs. Over 55 percent of TECSUP students have monthly family incomes that fall lower than $500 (US dollars). In addition, TECSUP offers industry professionals the opportunity to refresh and specialize through short courses in a variety of industry-related technologies.

TECSUP’s start up, implementation and development has been supported with donations from more than 200 private companies and international donors. It currently operates two campuses, one in Lima and the other in Arequipa. In addition, technical workers are enrolled in TECSUP’s workforce Internet training.
(At Left: May 2007 visit to Lima, Peru. Pictured are Jorge Bastante, head of electrical technology; Mario Rivera Orems, director general of TECSUP; Juan Inchaustegui Vargas, president of TECSUP 1; Dean Depew; and Alberto Bejarano Heredia, academic director of TECSUP 1)

It is expected that within the next three years, 7,900 technical workers and 840 students pursuing technical degrees will participate in the virtual courses in areas such as informatics, business applications, and engineering.

International partnerships continue to be a priority for the University and our college. We have found match-ups in China, Ireland, and Australia, but up until this point we didn’t have a partnership in a very large continent – South America.

TECSUP aligns well with our college — its educational programs, highly regarded faculty, state-of-the-art facilities for instruction and research, and close connections to business and industry. Its mission is also conceptually similar to the land grant mission of Purdue.

In August, Profs. Athula Kulatunga, Don Buskirk, Rod Handy, and Bob Herrick traveled to Lima, Peru to visit TECSUP and participate in an energy conference. Through the three visits, we have come to understand better how we can benefit from one another and are now in the process of developing a memorandum of understanding that will allow us to move forward with faculty and student exchanges.

In the News

Computer graphics technology professor spends a week teaching in China

James Mohler, associate professor of CGT, spent a week in October teaching at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, China. While there, he taught a mix of undergraduate and graduate students about his main research interests – raster and vector images and Web development.

He said the experience was educational in a number of ways, but what he took away most from the experience is how similar the institutions are.

"I discovered that both Purdue and HIT have unique computer graphics programs, and we face the same kinds of challenges," he said. "In fact, I would say that Purdue's computer graphics technology program is more similar to HIT's than to any other program in the United States."

Mohler said that similarity will undoubtedly lead to teaching and research collaborations in the future. In February, a group from Harbin will travel to Purdue, and next May, Mohler and Clark Cory, an associate professor of CGT, will take 15-20 students to Harbin, where they will spend a week researching computer graphics technology issues and collaborating with Chinese students, and to Beijing and Xian, where they will spend a week exploring the cultural sites of those two cities.

It was Mohler's second visit to China. His first was in May, when he and a group of technology faculty and staff from the Office of International Programs visited as part of a Faculty Development in China grant to assess opportunities for teaching and research collaboration.

The May visit to China is open to both undergraduate and graduate students and is designed for computer graphics technology students but open to all students in the college. Students will receive 3 credit hours upon completion of the program. Those interested can contact Mohler at (765) 494-9089 or jlmohler@purdue.edu

MET students to present at Automation Fair in Chicago

Students from Purdue University's Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology will demonstrate the latest in manufacturing technology at the annual Automation Fair on Nov. 14-15 in Chicago.

Six of Brad Harriger's students in the College of Technology's computer-integrated manufacturing program will attend the trade and exhibition fair, sponsored by Rockwell Automation.

The Purdue group will set up an interactive display that will feature computerized and automated equipment that can scan a participant's name card and produce an engraved name badge in minutes. Participants also can be entertained while they wait by playing a target shooting game developed by the students that uses the same automation equipment to control it. More Info. News

Technology faculty involved in study to help reduce drug-resistant hospital infections

A group of Purdue University researchers is among those conducting a study of Indianapolis hospitals to see if implementing new clinical procedures can reduce the number of deaths and illnesses caused by drug-resistant staph infections.

Heather Woodward-Hagg, an assistant professor of industrial technology and a researcher at Purdue's Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering, is the implementation director of a study that is looking at whether a prevention model can help reduce the transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known commonly as MRSA, in a hospital setting.

Also involved in the project are Matthew Stephens, a professor of industrial technology, and Laura Lucas, a visiting assistant professor of building construction management. More Info.

College of Technology at New Albany discussing degree program in BCM

Purdue University has teamed with two organizations in forming an exploratory committee of leaders in the southeastern Indiana and Louisville, Ky., area to gauge interest in offering a degree program in building construction management at the university's New Albany location.

Leaders from Greater Louisville Inc. and One Southern Indiana, Chamber of Commerce and economic development agencies for the Louisville metro and southern Indiana regions, respectively, will lead the effort along with Purdue.

Robert F. Cox, head of the Department of Building Construction Management at West Lafayette, said Purdue has been holding discussions with business and educational leaders since spring to assess interest, industry need and potential student count for a degree program. More Info.

Project Lead the Way students visit College of Technology campus in Anderson

Twenty-five students from Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers will visit the Purdue College of Technology at Anderson on Nov. 8, where they will put their technical skills to use by building an electrical circuit.

The students, most of whom are involved with Project Lead the Way, a national nonprofit program that teaches engineering and technology to middle and high school students, worked with professor Russell Aubrey and other members of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology to build the circuit.

After their project is completed, the Hamilton Southeastern students attended a talk by Tim Wedge of the National White Collar Crime Center, who discussed "High-Tech Crimes: The Challenges of Combating Computer-Literate Criminals." More Info.