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Do IT this week: Layering
Engineering program seen as vital to public safety
By Carol Biliczky
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Aug 16, 2009
If George Haritos was trying to recruit students for his newest academic program, he would stress that it is critically important and saves lives.
Haritos wouldn't be referring to cardiovascular medicine or protecting the ozone layer but to corrosion engineering.
The University of Akron will accept its first students for the program in fall 2010.
It will be the country's first baccalaureate program in corrosion engineering, and Haritos believes it is essential.
''It's a huge problem in the United States that has not been properly addressed,'' said Haritos, who is dean of UA's College of Engineering. ''It's a huge issue with safety.''
The latest estimates from the U.S. General Accounting Office put the cost of corrosion at $400 billion a year, $22 billion of it for the Department of Defense alone.
Roughly $7 billion is spent nationwide each year to maintain, monitor and replace pipelines, according to the National Association of Corrosion Engineers. The yearly cost to the water industry is more than $36 billion.
In 2004, Congress mandated that the Department of Defense establish a corrosion mitigation plan to reduce the costs of repairing and replacing everything from ships to rocket launchers.
Since then, the department's Office of Corrosion Policy and Oversight has given two grants totaling $2.235 million to UA to train experts to fight corrosion.
UA is using the seed money to outfit labs, hire faculty and administrators, and market the program to teens who have never given a thought to a bridge crumpling beneath their feet.
Haritos hopes that UA will be able to persuade about 25 students to enroll in the program each year, saving industry from retraining chemical or civil engineers for jobs in corrosion engineering. The UA students eventually will take courses in a 35,000-square-foot home for engineering that UA plans to build in a parking lot next to the Buckingham Center on Wolf Ledges Parkway.
University seeks funding
The facility is estimated to cost $10 million, but only $4 million is in hand. The university will complete only the shell and a few offices by December 2010 while it seeks the rest of the funding, said Ted Curtis, UA vice president for capital planning and facilities management.
''It's on a fast track because the engineering program is growing so rapidly,'' said Curtis, who is advertising for architects for the project.
The college is based in the Auburn Science and Engineering Center, but has outgrown its space as it bucks a statewide trend, said Haritos, who is president of the Ohio Engineering Deans Council.
While enrollment at most of the 14 engineering programs in Ohio have flatlined or grown modestly in recent years, UA's has expanded by almost 40 percent between fall 2004 and fall 2008. Last fall, 2,200 graduate students and undergraduates were enrolled, Haritos said.
Growth in engineering
With a growth of 25 percent between 2004 and 2007 alone, UA had the fourth most rapidly growing engineering program of the 150 largest in the country, according to a study by Haritos' office.
He chalks up the growth to better publicity about programs and faculty and a prettier campus that appeals to students.
Now he aims to use those assets to market his newest program, which is formally called the Corrosion and Reliability Engineering program, or CARE for short.
Students will be able to extend their study from four to five years if they want to spend a year co-oping in jobs with the aim of making themselves more employable after graduation.
Some also might study at similar corrosion engineering programs that Haritos and other UA administrators have visited in Australia and Germany.
Eventually, Haritos plans to add graduate programs in corrosion engineering to UA's offerings.
Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com.
If George Haritos was trying to recruit students for his newest academic program, he would stress that it is critically important and saves lives.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Akron, OH
Posted 08:06 AM, 08/16/2009
Good for Akron U. One day they may regain their world class engineerin' college fame.
norton, oh
Posted 08:17 AM, 08/16/2009
who cares about the looks of the campus, that just attracts more accounting majors into the engineering dept. people who dont care about looks and only about swcience should be allowed in.
Methron, OH
Posted 09:01 AM, 08/16/2009
Betamax, yep and good morning, angrystudent, hope you fnd happiness and good morning also, hello Ohio.
Tallmadge, OH
Posted 11:19 AM, 08/16/2009
Heaven Can Wait pretrial tomorrow @ 1:30pm
Akron, OH
Posted 12:55 PM, 08/16/2009
@angrystudent, what?
Orrville, Oh
Posted 03:09 PM, 08/16/2009
Corrosion is the process Mother Nature uses to return all elements to their original form!
Akron, OH
Posted 05:11 PM, 08/16/2009
That's pretty boss of UA to secure funding from the DOD for the nation's first Corrosion Engineering Undergraduate program. Maintaining and repairing aging infrastructure will be providing jobs for years to come.
akron, oh
Posted 12:47 PM, 08/17/2009
@angrystudent,
There always has to be one person who complains about good news.
