It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and MSU Dean of the College of Engineering Leo Kempel is ready to go home. But he’s still got one appointment to attend to at the end of a busy week. That doesn’t faze Kempel, though. He’s as lively as ever.
“We have fun here,” Kempel said.
He has reason to smile — as do many involved with the MSU College of Engineering. There’s a lot to be excited about, he said.
Of all the happenings taking place in the MSU College of Engineering, though, the most notable are the rapid series of additions to the college.
One of these is the Department of Biomedical Engineering, which was approved by the MSU Board of Trustees in October 2014 and officially became a department Jan. 1, 2015.
Biomedical engineering is the practice of applying engineering and design concepts to medicine and biology for health care purposes. One technology most often associated with biomedical engineering is the construction of prosthetic limbs.
While this has been available for engineering students as a concentration for several years — in the chemical, materials science, biosystems, mechanical, electrical and computer engineering departments — it had yet to become a department on its own.
Currently the college is going through the process of hiring a chairperson and getting faculty in place, said Kempel. It is their goal to be able to offer a graduate program beginning January 2016. As for an undergraduate program, it will likely be several years before they have the resources to be able to offer that.
In addition to biomedical engineering, the College of Engineering has also been going through the steps to add another department to encompass computational mathematics, science and engineering.
This department is working its way through the different governing committees on campus before it can officially be approved as a new unit. Like biomedical engineering, it will be awhile before an undergraduate program can take root. But hopes are that enough will be done by January 2016 to begin offering it as an undergraduate minor and graduate program.
The reason for many of these changes, says Thomas Wolff, associate dean for undergraduate studies for the College of Engineering , is because MSU was late among the Big Ten in adding departments like these. But having them now puts them on pace with the nation’s elite.
“If you look at it, the people we compare ourselves to are the strongest colleges in the country,” Kempel said.
He said in the long term, the goal for the college “is to be seen as the fastest rising college of engineering in the nation,” due in large part to the things the college is doing today.
As for where many of the new faculty, classes and research will take place, look no further than the Bio Engineering Facility, a four-story research building currently undergoing the final parts of its construction. The building cost $60.8 million to build, with $30 million of which coming from the state and it is the university’s aim to have the building functioning by December 2015.
Another thing these changes do is demonstrate how far the college has come. Wolff, who’s been at MSU for 27 years and is set to retire in about a year and a half, said it’s been great to see the college grow. Everything from the college’s increased enrollment over the years, its 96 percent job placement rate and even to the opportunity the college presents to students to participate in research their freshman year has added to the experience, Wolff said.
“It’s a fantastic time,” Kempel said. “It’s so much fun because the institution is making a real investment in enhancing opportunities for students and faculty right now. And so being dean of a college that has it’s focus in (so many disciplines) ... it’s really a great time to be dean here.”
