Category: News

Based on student, alumni, and employer feedback, the Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering is now offering a unique opportunity for students to hone and develop professional skills. Inspired by and in collaboration with the College of Agriculture certificate program, MEERCat is piloting a Leadership Development Program (LDP) to improve students’ leadership and professional skills and prepare them for the workforce. “We are thrilled to introduce this new opportunity for students in Mechanical Engineering,” says MEERCat Project Coordinator Ruth Rothstein. “We know the LDP focus on leadership and experiential learning will be an excellent complement to the outstanding technical education PME offers.” As another initiative of MEERCat’s REvolutionizing computer science and Engineering Departments (RED) NSF grant, the LDP is an opportunity for students to improve communication, leadership, and entrepreneurial skills. LDP…

The Mechanical Engineering Education Research Center at Purdue (MEERCat) is partnering with the Purdue Center for Instructional Excellence to develop and deliver a student-centered teaching and learning, interactive seminar series for faculty members in the School of Mechanical Engineering. This collaboration leverages a growth and development model to promote the use of active learning and evidence-based teaching practices in the classroom, with the aim of producing tangible improvements in overall teaching effectiveness and student engagement. The Mechanical Engineering Active Learning Series (MEALS) consists of ten, one-hour long lunch seminars organized on the first Tuesday of the month during the 2018-2019 academic year. MEERCat Executive Director Ed Berger shares his hope that MEALS will create an effective community of practice and lay a sound foundation for in-classroom growth and holistic teaching…

June 13, 2017 by Alex Brown Purdue University has launched a center to better transition mechanical engineering students to the work force. The Mechanical Engineering Education Research Center at Purdue, or MEERCat Purdue, will create a research consortium with industry partners that focuses on the transition. The university says the center will leverage $6 million of federally-funded research in collaboration with faculty from the Purdue's School of Engineering Education and the School of Mechanical Engineering. Executive Director Edward Berger, associate professor of engineering education and mechanical engineering, says the center "gives a powerful identity to the basic research and research-to-practice projects we’re working on to improve student outcomes and professional formation." "This is a first-of-its-kind research consortium that focuses on the massively important challenge of the school-to-workforce transition," said Berger. "Everyone…