Chicago =97 Early in her career, electrical-engineering professor Sherra Ke=
rns
was called on the carpet after her students said they enjoyed her
introductory class in electrical-circuit theory. Fellow faculty members,
puzzled by the strong student response, told Kerns that if her students
liked the class so much, then she must not be teaching it properly.

 "Even today, the assumption is that engineering classes have to be painful
to be effective," said Kerns, who is now vice president of research and
innovation at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (Needham, Mass.).
"Professors who have happy students are suspect because their classes may
not be rigorous enough."

 At her new post, however, Kerns no longer has to worry about students being
too happy. Two-year-old Olin College, where Kerns also serves as a professor
of electrical and computer engineering, was cited last week as a top school
by the highly respected Princeton Review, partially on the basis of its
ability to keep engineering students happy. The school showed up on a host
of The Princeton Review's "top 20" lists, including those involving quality
academic experience, accessible professors and happy students =97 all traits
that have traditionally eluded engineering colleges.

 Moreover, Olin could provide a ray of hope to engineering education experts
who fret that too many U.S.-born students are leaving the curriculum for a
variety of reasons, including inaccessible professors, excessive emphasis on
theory and too little hands-on design experience.

 "The message here is that it can be done," said Robert Franek, The
Princeton Review's publisher and author of The Best 357 Colleges, which
cited Olin. "Olin is just as competitive as any of the top engineering
schools, yet they've been able to harness their energies to produce a good
quality of life and a great experience for the students."

You can read full-article on
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=3D45200041
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