Goshen College and Notre Dame agree to creation of collaborative engineering program

GOSHEN, Ind. – Goshen College and the University of Notre Dame have agreed to create a collaborative liberal arts and engineering program for undergraduates, similar to Goshen's prior agreements with the University of Illinois and Case Western Reserve University, and Notre Dame's agreements with Saint Mary's College, Bethel College and a half-dozen other private liberal arts institutions across the country.

Under this dual-degree program, a student takes three years of liberal arts and preparatory engineering courses at Goshen followed by two years in Notre Dame's College of Engineering. Upon successfully completing the program, each student receives two degrees: a Bachelor of Arts degree (B.A.) in physics from Goshen and the Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in engineering degree from Notre Dame. The program is available through all the departments in the College of Engineering.

"The University of Notre Dame shares the fundamental Christian values of Goshen College, and academically Notre Dame is one of the finest engineering and scientific schools in the country. This agreement thus provides students entering this program with all the advantages of the close Christian community of a small liberal arts college, and the vibrant intellectual community of a major research university," said Goshen College Professor of Physics Carl Helrich. "I firmly believe that this is the way all engineers should be educated. With a background rooted firmly in the liberal arts, the binary engineer is much more capable of engaging the problems facing modern society than is a person educated in a straight engineering program."

Since 1998, there have been 47 graduates from the Goshen College Department of Physics, of which 40 percent have entered the engineering profession and 54 percent have a Ph.D. or are presently in a Ph.D. program in either physics or engineering, according to Helrich. He doesn't have records of anyone who entered the Goshen engineering program and failed to complete the program.

"Our new partnership with Goshen College is exciting for a number of reasons," says Cathy Pieronek, M.S., J.D., assistant dean for academic affairs in the College of Engineering at Notre Dame. "Many of the goals set out by the current presidential administration will require a strong engineering workforce. Notre Dame and South Bend have made commitments to developing a high technology research infrastructure with Innovation Park, the Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery and Ignition Park. This will allow us to develop engineers who have all of the benefits of a strong liberal arts education from Goshen and an equally strong engineering education from Notre Dame and enable them to develop creative solutions to problems in the areas of, among other things, energy, the environment and our country's aging infrastructure. We also hope that this program, like our similar programs, will inspire local students to consider engineering as an inspiring career choice that will make a difference in society."

The University of Notre Dame is one of a handful of truly national universities, with a student body drawn from across the United States and more than 100 foreign countries. Current enrollment exceeds 11,700 students, which includes more than 3,300 graduate and law students. Offering a student-to-faculty ratio of 8 to 1, the College of Engineering graduates approximately 250 undergraduates annually. But Notre Dame is much more than numbers and enrollment statistics. Like Goshen, education at Notre Dame has always been linked to its values, which lends to its unique spirit and incorporates tradition, scholarship and technological innovation.

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college's Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron's Best Buys in Education, "Colleges of Distinction," "Making a Difference College Guide" and U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" edition, which named Goshen a "least debt college." Visit www.goshen.edu.