Purdue increases number of mechanical engineering graduates
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University awarded 174 bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering in spring commencement ceremonies, and combined with the 2005 August and December graduates, the total is 278 degrees awarded for the 2005-06 academic year — the most since the post-World War II era."In the 1940s and 1950s, the Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering was bursting at the seams with soldiers back from the war," said Dan Hirleman, the William E. and Florence E. Perry Head of Mechanical Engineering. "After a down period in the late 1990s, we are again graduating a large number of bachelor's and master's degree students in mechanical engineering, but unlike that era, more than 20 percent of the mechanical students who received their degrees in May were women."
Leah Jamieson, interim dean of the College of Engineering, said, "Most of the improved quality of life in the last 50 years in the United States can be traced to engineering innovations. Purdue engineers of all disciplines, including mechanical, are highly sought after by industry, government and graduate schools."
Hirleman attributes the increase in the number of graduates to the efforts of the mechanical engineering faculty.
"We've worked to modernize the curriculum to stay ahead of the emerging trends and provide an environment for engineering students of all backgrounds to address society's engineering needs," Hirleman said. "Equally impressive is that 37 doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering were also conferred this year, an all-time high for our school.
"There are only two other mechanical engineering programs in the nation that reached this combined number of graduates and per faculty graduation of doctoral candidates last year."
The Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering, with 51 faculty and more than 1,245 undergraduate and graduate students, offers specialties in 11 areas: acoustics and noise control; bioengineering; combustion; energy utilization and thermodynamics; design; fluid mechanics and propulsion; manufacturing and materials processing; heat transfer; mechanics and vibrations; nano/micro technology; and systems, measurement and control.
The school operates two major satellite research facilities, the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories and the Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories (formerly the Thermal Sciences and Propulsion Center), as well as more than 30 additional instructional and research laboratories.
In the 2005-06 academic year, Purdue's mechanical engineering undergraduate program was ranked seventh nationally, and its graduate program was ranked eighth in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.
Writer: Cynthia Sequin, (765) 494-4192, csequin@purdue.edu
Sources: Dan Hirleman, (765) 494-5688, hirleman@ecn.purdue.edu
Leah Jamieson, (765) 494-5346, lhj@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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