Engineering, Liberal Arts Win Technology Awards
May 29, 2003
University Park, Pa. -- Two Penn State programs were honored by the American Council on Education for using technology as a tool for internationalizing the curriculum at a recent awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.
ACE bestowed six awards of $7,500 each. Penn State’s College of Engineering won one award, while the French department in the College of the Liberal Arts shared its award with the University of South Carolina because the project there was initiated at Penn State.
Funding for the new ACE awards was provided by AT&T.
At Penn State, the ‘Raison d’Etre program for introductory French students links them for the entire academic year with counterparts in English at the Lycee Paul Heroult in Saint Jean de Maurienne, France. Students on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean interact via live chat and video each week, construct a common web site, work in pairs via e-mail outside of class, and exchange visits during the spring break. The goal is to develop critical thinking, cultural knowledge, and intercultural as well as interpersonal communications skills.
The project dramatically increases interest in French classes for Penn State participants because they have to use the language in a live situation each week. Created by graduate student Hélène Gresso and operated for six years, the project became the subject of a doctoral dissertation by another graduate student in French, Lara Lomicka. When she took a teaching position at the University of South Carolina in 2001, she introduced the same program there for her students.
The College of Engineering’s “Alliance by Design” program for first-year engineering students introduces participants to the global economy by creating international teams with students from partner universities in France, annually, and also the United Kingdom. They interact via computer-based audio-visual conferencing and carry out their projects in collaborative computer-assisted design environments. It has run continuously since 1997 and, for the last five years, has been run in the honors section of the introductory design class, EDG 100. The design problems are always drawn from industries in France or the United States and documented on the web in bilingual websites.
The goal is to provide engineering solutions to industry-driven problems. Students continue their exposure to the global economy later in the curriculum by participating in international industry tours, internships and study programs. The course was created by Richard Devon, associate professor of engineering design.
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