The Leading Edge
This Fall, Aerospace Engineering is embarking in a new directive to more actively engage incoming freshmen in the engineering experience and the already strong aerospace community. Our approach is an integrated living and learning community, entitled "The Leading Edge." Interested freshmen are co-housed in a modern dormitory with a peer advisor, currently a Junior in Aerospace Engineering. Students are co-enrolled in AE245, our freshman Introduction to Aerospace Engineering, as well as two humanities courses related to Ethics and Diversity. This community will focus on developing future engineering leaders, and is the first step in a four-year career and leadership development plan within our curriculum. Leadership begins with understanding the needs of diverse people, and with unflagging ethical standards. As such, we will analyze American diversity through the study of ethnicity, race, religion and gender; and we will study the nature of morality and the applications of moral theory to practice. In addition to formal courses, students meet weekly with Dr. Hale to address case studies within the profession, and to engage in laboratory activities such as airfoil fabrication, wind tunnel testing and UAV flight testing. Technical developments of the aerospace profession will be reviewed in the context of what they are, how they came to be, and healthy discussions on whether they have improved or hindered the human condition. Formal and informal extra-curricular activities will be arranged to engage peer to peer and peer to educator discussions. Such communities have been shown to produce: 1) Higher achievement and greater productivity, 2) More caring supportive, and committed relationships 3) Greater psychological health, social competence and self-esteem. Although small this semester, with just six students, we will continue in Fall 2004 with a goal of twenty students.
