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The Center for Design Education (CDE) reflects the Department of Engineering's commitment to engineering design, other aspects of which include the appointment in 1991 of the (endowed) Fletcher Jones Professor Engineering Design, the addition of a new laboratory-intensive wing to the engineering building, a concomitant major upgrade of laboratory instrumentation and computer-aided engineering design facilities, as well as the Department's 35-year commitment to Engineering Clinic as a pioneering approach to capstone design education.

The Center for Design Education (CDE) evolved quite naturally from a predecessor (founding) organization, the Engineering Design Center, in 1995. The “design center” was first envisioned as an integrated network of computing facilities and laboratories that would support the Department's multidisciplinary engineering program and enhance its emphasis on engineering design. In 1995, the original vision of the “design center” was broadened and extended to include programmatic activities that would focus on design education and related design and pedagogical research. This new vision was dedicated as the Center for Design Education, and it set about advocating the centrality of design in engineering education.

The CDE's principal activity has been the organization of a series of biennial workshops on topics of interest to design teachers, researchs and practitioners. The first three Mudd Design Workshops were focused on Computing Futures for Engineering Design (1997), Designing Design Education for the 21st Century (1999), and, co-sponsored by the Hixon-Riggs Forum, Social Dimensions of Engineering Design (2001). The fourth Mudd Design Workshop was held in July 2003, taking on the broad topic of Designing Engineering Education (2003), and keynoted by Dr. William A. Wulf, President of the National Academy of Engineering. The fifth Mudd Design Workshop will be held during 19-21 May 2005 under the rubric of Learning and Engineering Design.

The CDE has also been involved in other efforts intended to propagate and disseminate the values of design in engineering education in particular, and in education generally. This has included supporting the HMC Partnership in Engineering Problem Solving (PEPS) program, as well as involving students in summer research projects on design-related topics.

At a still later time, the computing and laboratory facilities that were the focus of the original “design center” were housed in their own new organization, the Engineering Computational Facility (ECF), with its own director. The ECF provides HMC students with the opportunities to use state-of-art tools to do engineering design and applied research. It supports the Engineering Clinic, classroom and laboratory course work, as well as faculty and student research. A more detailed history of how the CDE and the ECF evolved is available.

The Harvey Mudd College curriculum maintains exceptional rigor in engineering, science and mathematics, along with an unusually strong emphasis on humanities and social science — all in support of its mission of socially responsible scientific and technological leadership. The broad, unspecialized Engineering curriculum maintains a strong emphasis on design, from the first year on through Engineering Clinic, and it also strongly emphasizes a “hands on” approach to “real world” problems. The Center for Design Education is a logical outgrowth of the ethos of the Harvey Mudd approach to engineering education.

Contact Information:


Director Mailing address:

Clive L. Dym, PhD, PE
Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design

E-mail: clive_dym@hmc.edu

Phone: 909-621-8853

FAX: 909-621-8967

Center for Design Education
Department of Engineering
HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE
301 East Twelfth Street
Claremont, CA 91711-5990

 

For information or comments about this WebSite please contact Clive Dym, who
last updated this Web page on 15 October 2004.

Home About Mudd Design Workshops HMC Design Courses ECF Engineering Clinic Links

15 October 2004 / clive_dym@hmc.edu