Mechanical Engineers Partner with Stevens' Online Courses

Stevens Institute of Technology and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME International), one of the world's principal engineering organizations, have agreed to co-sponsor online graduate programs for ASME members through WebCampus.Stevens, the unit that delivers the Institute's e-learning courses.

The agreement is one of the first that ASME, a 125,000-member organization, has signed with a university to deliver online classes to its members.

Founded in 1880, the ASME conducts one of the world's largest technical publishing operations, holds technical conferences and offers professional development courses for its members, and sets many industrial and manufacturing standards.

"ASME and Stevens have come full circle," said WebCampus Director Robert Ubell. "ASME was founded at Stevens in the spring of 1880." Ubell finalized the agreement with ASME in January.

A recently published history of Stevens relates the story of ASME's founding: "On the morning of April 7, 1880, some 80 of the most prestigious American engineers arrived in Hoboken .. They entered the gas-lit Stevens Institute auditorium to attend the organizational meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the first professional society for mechanical engineers ." [From History of Stevens Institute of Technology by Stevens history professor Geoffrey W. Clark, Jensen/Daniels Publishers, 2000). Robert Henry Thurston, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stevens during that era, served as ASME's first president from 1880-82. Thurston is known for having established the first model mechanical engineering curriculum and laboratory.

This new agreement with ASME is the second Stevens has signed with a giant professional organization in a year. WebCampus.Stevens began offering online graduate-level courses worldwide last spring. Shortly afterwards, Stevens concluded an agreement with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), considered the world's largest technical society with about 330,000 members, to co-sponsor WebCampus online courses.

"Our aim is to deliver graduate engineering e-courses to working professionals everywhere," said Stevens School of Engineering Dean Bernard Gallois. "These co-sponsorships open Stevens' quality curriculum and faculty to engineers from two of the world's highest-ranking professional societies."

In February, WebCampus.Stevens, will offer eight online courses, including two new offerings, to students worldwide - some as far away as Kenya, Hong Kong and Norway. Web courses began just a year ago with three courses. With classes being introduced this spring, WebCampus will have had nearly 200 online student enrollments. The program delivers graduate courses in engineering, computer science, management, and teacher education. WebCampus.Stevens can be found online at webcampus.stevens.edu.

More information about ASME is available at its web site: www.asme.org.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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