So what is re|course about?

re|course is our initiative to take Purdue ME to the next level of innovation, productivity, and performance. Mechanical engineering, the first engineering department at Purdue, continues to lead in exploring “what’s next?” for Purdue Engineering.  In recognition of our national leadership, the National Science Foundation (NSF) selected Purdue ME to participate in its bold REvolutionizing engineering & computer science Departments (RED) program. 

Learn more about what NSF is doing and why it matters.  Here’s background on our successful NSF proposal.

In launching RED, NSF looked for national leaders to guide the transformation in over 300 engineering schools across the country. We were the first mechanical engineering program selected by the NSF to participate in RED.

Check out our research site to learn more about the research being done in tandem.

So here is our approach. It may surprise you.

To prepare ourselves for the future, we will be transforming the culture within the ME department. By that we mean we will actively work to change the patterns in the way we think about each other, behave toward each other, and do things together. All of us: faculty, staff and students.

This is the core lesson of transforming engineering education. Culture matters. The soft stuff is the hard stuff. And you transform culture by working together, building collaborations, and creating new, more powerful learning experiences. For everybody.

Right now, undergraduate engineering education stands as a daunting barrier between a student and his or her career. What if we viewed the undergraduate experience not as an ordeal, but as an opportunity for students to discover the joy of engineering and, for faculty and staff, the joy of guiding our students in this discovery? With re|course, we will focus on building new collaborations to design this future.

What’s the end game?

If we pay attention to the soft stuff, if we change the culture of engineering education within Purdue ME, we will not only design more powerful learning experiences, we will find more productive ways to use our time and resources. Our bet is that we will discover innovations in engineering education that we can’t even imagine right now. And in the process, we will continue to produce the finest mechanical engineers in the world. In five years’ time we think other engineering schools will be coming to Purdue ME to learn about our transformation.

By investing only one hour of your time each months, you can join us on this journey. Start now. Connect to our core team. In a brief conversation we’ll explore how you can contribute to transforming ME.  

Yes! connect me up!