This NUE in Engineering program entitled, "NUE: Development of an Undergraduate Certificate Program in Nanoengineering for Training the Workforce of Tomorrow", at Wayne State University (WSU), under the direction of Dr. Guangzhao Mao, will create a Nanoengineering Undergraduate Certificate Program (NUCP) that will target current engineering students as well as B.Sc. degree holders who wish to expand their educational background. Rather than creating a new degree program, the NUCP will offer accelerated and in-depth training on nanotechnology at the undergraduate level in the form of a certificate program. The Program seeks to meet the demands of Michigan's largely manufacturing economy and also the high-tech industries currently settling in the state. The NUCP seeks partnerships with major Michigan companies as well as start-ups in the Detroit Tech Town area to create an engineering curriculum that meets industrial demands. To that end the project team has established partnerships with BASF and DTE Energy. The primary objective of the proposal is to create the NUCP for specialized undergraduate training in nanotechology. Other objectives are: 1) to teach emerging technologies at the undergraduate level, 2) to train a new adaptive workforce, and 3) to retrain working engineers and professionals. In order to achieve these objectives, a certificate program consisting of four new courses will be created: 1) NE5300 Introduction to Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine, 2) NE5100 Nanoengineering Laboratory, 3) NE5200 Scale-down Engineering: from Engineered Sysems to Nanotechnology, and 4) NE5300 Nanoengineering Reesaerch and Capstone Design. The courses will be taught by faculty members from different engineering departments with emphasis on integration of teaching and research, as well as cross-disciplinary teaching. In addition, the engineering faculty will collaborate with faculty from political science and economics at WSU to conduct program evaluation.
The NUCP will provide a mechanism for undergraduate students, many with diverse backgrounds, to acquire specific knowledge and skills in nanoengineering beyond their traditional disciplinary training. The expected impacts on the undergraduate curriculum are as follows: 1) Courses offering multidisciplinary training in nanoengineering will be created and integrated into one certificate program. 2) Existing research infrastructure will be used in undergraduate education. 3) Undergraduate students will obtain research-level career training. 4) Retraining will be offered to working engineers, enabling them to advance their careers in Michigan and elsewhere. The NUCP will: 1) prepare the future workforce for careers in emerging technologies, 2) focus on relevance to systems and devices, and 3) invigorate undergraduate engineering education by developing new teaching modules that cross traditional departmental and disciplinary boundaries.
