CSU, Chico Part of International Engineering Consortium
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 5, 2000
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
CSU, Chico Part of International Engineering Consortium
A $209,000 federal grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) was recently awarded to aid in the formation of a consortium between California State University, Chico and five other North American universities.
The grant funds a project designed to help prepare engineering students to function effectively in the international business climate fostered by the North American Free Trade Agreement.
CSU, Chico and its five partners: North Dakota State University; the University of Manitoba; the University of Saskatchewan; the University of Zacatecas, Mexico; and the University of Yucatan, Mexico; began work on the joint proposal “Alliance for North American Mobility in Engineering” in the fall of 1999.
The Trilateral Program for North American Mobility in Higher Education is a joint endeavor between the United States, Canada and Mexico to promote a student-centered, North American dimension to education and training in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines.
The FIPSE funds were awarded to the two U.S. campuses, CSU, Chico and North Dakota State. Similar grants from the Canadian and Mexican sponsors will fund the Canadian and Mexican partners in the consortium.
Initial activities proposed for the project include the development and delivery of courses, via the Internet and virtual classrooms, to engineering students in participating institutions. These courses will combine, in an audio-visual format, English or Spanish language training and evaluation, with an introduction to foreign industrial culture.
Following the classroom experience, an exchange of a minimum of 48 engineering students among the three countries, 16 per country, is planned; more students will be involved as funds permit. Students will spend one or two semesters in academic residence and four to eight months in industrial internships in a country other than their own.
Project director on the Chico campus is Roy Crosbie, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of academic development for the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology. The NDSU project director, Orlando Baiocchi, is a former chair of electrical engineering at CSU, Chico. In March 1997 he moved to Fargo, ND, to take up the position of chair of electrical and computer engineering at NDSU.
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