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view . fall 2012 . CEI
their former spaces in the basement of Essex Hall, says
Dr. Edwin Tam, assistant dean of engineering.
“You can walk down the halls and see the signs on the door
and get a clear sense of what’s going on inside them,” says Tam.
Much like a sports franchise that constructs a new arena
to attract top-notch players, Dr. Saif says “The CEI will be
a drawing card for the best and brightest young minds in
engineering across the country.”
“We needed this facility in order to deliver to our students
the first-rate education they deserve,” he says. “The building is
an attraction. With parents and students, when you bring them
on to campus and show them around, you need to have a story
to tell them. The program itself is important, but the facility is
just as important.”
Engineering at UWindsor
Students play an important part in building the world of
tomorrow and in maintaining the world of today.
UWindsor’s unique climate of co-operation between
academic, business and industry sectors gives students access
to state-of-the-art engineering facilities and outstanding career
opportunities.
The engineering programs at the University of Windsor
are designed to develop professional competence, and by
breadth of study, to prepare students to solve the technical
problems of society and the global environment. All engineering
undergraduates tackle the fundamentals in a common, first-
year program. Students can then focus on an engineering
specialization from the following fields:
• Automotive Engineering
• Civil Engineering (with Environmental option)
• Electrical Engineering
• Industrial Engineering (with Automotive Manufacturing
Systems Engineering, Supply Chain Engineering and a
minor in Business Administration options)
• Mechanical Engineering (with Environmental and
Materials options)
All Engineering programs are available as co-op with
competitive entry.
The Centre for Engineering Innovation was designed with
nothing but the most modern teaching methods in mind,
according to Veronika Mogyorody, the University’s academic
architectural advisor.
All of its features were created with the idea of stimulating
a team environment and encouraging social interaction, but
perhaps the most innovative and versatile learning space in
the building will be the 350-seat, BMO Collaborative
Learning Forum.
Until now, students might attend several lectures a week in
one of many locations scattered around campus and then go
to a lab in another location to put into practice what they had
learned in their classes.
With the new learning space, instructors will be able to
accomplish all of that in one room.
The hall is divided into tiers, which are more like zones,
with tables that are perpendicular to the front so students can
face each other in clusters, but also listen to the lecturer at the
front. An instructor could deliver a 20-minute lecture, have
the students break out into group lab sessions for another 20
minutes, and then reassemble to discuss their results.
“You can have the lecture and the lab all tied together in one
space,” says Dr. Mogyorody, who is also a faculty member in the
Visual Arts and the Built Environment program. “You can break
out into groups without being in four different rooms. It’s a
whole new way of learning and really requires a different kind
of teaching.”
Edwin Tam, associate dean of engineering, said the new
space will allow for much more productive use of teaching and
learning time.
“It’s difficult to do interactive, peer-based learning if you
don’t have the right kind of facility,” he says. “This will be a
much more efficient way of learning. You can use different
forms of teaching all in one space, whether it’s PowerPoint
presentations, group discussions, video or desk work. If the
instructor wants to be more innovative, the building really lends
itself to that.”
In fact, the building was designed to help promote the
concept of CDIO—Conceiving, Designing, Implementing
and Operating—that has become a recognized contextual
standard for engineering education. It’s based on the notion
that beginning engineers should be able to conceive, design,
implement and operate complex value-added engineering
products and systems in team environments. They should
be able to participate in engineering processes, contribute
to the development of products, and do so while working in
engineering organizations.
BMO LEARNING FORUM:
INSPIRING MINDS
