May 8, 2008

EPICS to hold national conference at Purdue

The EPICS Conference on Service-Learning in Engineering and Technology annually draws about 100 faculty, professionals and students from universities and companies from around the nation. The conference's dinner session is expected to draw 200 to the Holiday Inn Select City Center, 515 South St., Lafayette.

EPICS, or Engineering Projects in Community Service, is a program that creates teams of undergraduates who earn academic credit for multiyear, multidisciplinary projects that solve engineering- and technology-based challenges for community service and educational organizations.

"The goal of the conference is to bring together universities that are working with engineering, computing and technology-based service-learning projects and programs," said William Oakes, an associate professor of engineering education and EPICS director. "There will be a poster session for service-learning courses on May 21 at 3:15 p.m., and there will be a poster session for EPICS programs during the May 21 dinner. We are thrilled to have our new provost, Dr. William R. Woodson, as our featured dinner speaker."

Natalie Kubat, EPICS national coordinator, said an eight-minute video about EPICS that highlights students, industry partners and projects will be shown during the dinner.

Founded at Purdue in 1995 by Leah Jamieson, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering, and Edward J. Coyle, a former Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering, the program involves 30 departments at Purdue and 30 community partnerships.

EPICS programs are now operating at 18 universities in the United States and one in New Zealand.

In addition to the university partnerships, several high schools also started implementing the EPICS model with help from the national office, housed at Purdue. High schools in Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, California and New York have begun EPICS partnerships, and planning is now under way for a large-scale nationwide rollout.

Purdue's College of Engineering is made up of 11 schools and departments: aeronautics and astronautics, agricultural and biological, biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical and computer, engineering education, industrial, materials, mechanical, and nuclear. The college also includes the divisions of construction engineering and management, engineering professional practice, ecological and environmental engineering and programs such as EPICS, Minority Engineering Program, Professional Practice Program and the Women in Engineering Program.

In addition to the more than 6,215 undergraduate students, the college enrolls 2,277 graduate students.

Writer: Clyde Hughes, (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu

Sources: William Oakes, (765) 494-3892, oakes@purdue.edu

Natalie Kubat, (765) 494-3750, nkubat@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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