Evolution from a biomedical model
The College is building on its experience with developing interdisciplinary graduate programs. The same circumstances driving the creation of today’s interdisciplinary programs helped bring about one of the College’s first interdisciplinary ventures—Biomedical Engineering.

“Back in the 1960s, with the advent of heart-lung machines and the like, medical folks began to see the value of having engineers around,” recalls Matthew O’Donnell, Jerry W. and Carol L. Levin Professor of Engineering and chair of the College’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.

“Machines were becoming too complicated for them to understand or optimize by themselves.”

Faculty and administrators from Michigan Engineering and the School of Medicine joined forces to create a Biomedical Engineering program. Over the next two decades, explosive technological advances in medicine—in fields such as bioelectrics, biomechanics, and biotechnology—helped turn the Biomedical Engineering program into what it is today: a full-fledged department within the College.

The 30th anniversary of the program, celebrated in 1994, was a turning point. “The sense was that the older bioengineering types were pioneers who had been traditionally trained,” says O’Donnell. “Our newer folks were getting much more life-sciences content along with their engineering background. That, coupled with new funding opportunities and demand from industry, made it clear that Biomedical Engineering had become a separate discipline.”

Manufacturing and Automotive Engineering: interdisciplinary programs come of age
The Program in Manufacturing (PIM) may be on a similar track. PIM, which began eight years ago with six students, gives engineers advanced, cross-disciplinary training in such skills as business administration, management, product development, manufacturing efficiency, and quality control.

“Industry needs engineers who can find comprehensive solutions to technical problems,” says Debasish Dutta, associate professor, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, and director of PIM. “So, the manufacturing engineer of today or tomorrow must be able to cope with a variety of issues that transcend his or her core discipline.

	Graduate student researchers in the Biomedical Electronics Laboratory are studying ultrasonic techniques as a means of providing a direct and lasting cure for many cardiac arrhythmias.

“The ability to cross disciplines is vital in this technological age, where the problems facing industry are multi-faceted and complex,” he explains. “By crossing disciplinary borders, and mixing and matching courses, we can create degrees that are in high demand by industry.”

Students who enter the 30-credit program in pursuit of a master of engineering in Manufacturing are required to have two years of previous full-time engineering work experience. “On average, our students have between four and five years’ work experience,” says Dutta. “We’re not getting students from other departments, but bringing in new ones who would not come to the University otherwise.”

Two years ago, for instance, General Motors Corporation (GM) chose PIM as its distance-education provider for employees who are interested in receiving master of engineering in Manufacturing degrees. The program is now offered to GM employees in the United States and Mexico, and is expected to be extended to company sites worldwide.

The Automotive Engineering Program has been roaring down the same road. “We started out as a niche program, but evolved into a true interdisciplinary program of the College of Engineering,” explains Dennis Assanis, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, and director of the College’s Automotive Engineering Program. “We’re cutting across departments as in a matrix organization to define a new product: the automotive systems engineer.”

“We developed our curriculum in concert with the Big Three—Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler—as well as their top-tier suppliers,” Assanis says. “Uniformly, they expressed a need for engineers who understand automotive systems. Many engineers can do component design perfectly, but don’t have an appreciation for the larger system. So, we thought we had a good niche right away.”

Eight students comprised the first Automotive Engineering class when the program began in 1995. Today, enrollment exceeds 110. About 40 are full-time graduate students, while most others work at jobs with the Big Three automakers and study part time. Frequently, they participate in distance learning via videotaped courses that are delivered to their work sites by the College’s Center for Professional Development (CPD).

Like PIM, Automotive Engineering graduate students are required to have at least two years of relevant work experience in order to be accepted into the 30-credit-hour program.

The next generation: new interdisciplinary programs blossom
Financial Engineering is one of the College’s newest interdisciplinary graduate programs. Combining the strengths of various departments within Michigan Engineering and the School of Business Administration, Financial Engineering helps students expand their knowledge in the fields of finance, economics, computer science, industrial engineering, mathematics, and statistics. Enrollment for the program has surpassed 30.

This Fall, two more interdisciplinary programs—Pharmaceutical Engineering and Plastics Engineering—are expected to be formally launched. As for the horizon, discussions are underway concerning the organization of programs in E-commerce Engineering and Media Arts Engineering.

	More than 100 students are pursuing an advanced degree in Automotive Engineering through the College of Engineering, many of them taking courses in the workplace thanks to distance-learning technologies employed by the College’s Center for Professional Development. This program—developed in concert with the Big Three automakers—teaches engineers to think in terms of ‘systems,’ not just components.

Pharmaceutical Engineering is a natural for an interdisciplinary degree program, says Henry Wang, professor, Chemical Engineering, citing the pharmaceutical industry’s $100 billion in annual sales, accelerating advances in science and technology, and the aging Baby Boomer population.

“This new program will cover the entire pharmaceutical process, from discovery through drug delivery,” says Wang. “The College of Pharmacy here is one of the best in the nation, but it’s targeted more on the science and technology side of things than on the industrial side. In Pharmaceutical Engineering, the entire process will be covered, including regulatory and legal issues.” The degree is a joint 50/50 venture between the U-M Colleges of Engineering and Pharmacy.

Like Automotive Engineering, this foray into interdisciplinary graduate education has a geographical advantage due to a large concentration of pharmaceutical companies in the Great Lakes region.

Wang adds that the excitement was palpable among industry leaders at a symposium held last Fall to discuss the program: “They’re very enthusiastic, which is understandable since the program is being driven by them, as well as by interested faculty and students. In a couple of years, this could well be one of the major programs offered here.”

Plastics Engineering is also an outgrowth of industrial demand, according to Stacy Bike, associate professor, Chemical Engineering, who has been closely involved with the Center for Advanced Polymer Engineering Research (CAPER) at the College.

“Plastics are continually under development and are becoming more and more prevalent in applications where other materials, like metals or ceramics, may have been used,” says Bike, who also serves as associate director of PIM. “We’re seeing more plastics used, especially in automobiles, to replace parts that have traditionally been made of metal.”

Because the behavior of a polymer in a particular application may not be as well-known as a metal, the need to understand its complex reactions is more acute. “That’s why people who are well-versed in plastics are needed—professionals who can take the traditional design methodology from metals and apply it to plastics,” says Bike.

With five clearly defined interdisciplinary graduate programs aimed at professional engineers, the College of Engineering is one of the few engineering schools in the nation that has systematized its approach to developing these types of programs.

“Our success with PIM and Automotive Engineering helped pinpoint the need to formally manage the development-administration-dissolution life-cycle of such programs,” notes Stephen Director, Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering.

Because interdisciplinary programs present operational challenges that differ from traditional programs, College administrators began brainstorming ideas for an infrastructure that could coordinate existing programs and launch new ones. The outcome was the Office of Interdisciplinary Professional Programs—known as InterPro.

InterPro
Automotive Engineering, Financial Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, Plastics Engineering, and the Program in Manufacturing now stand under the InterPro umbrella.

“We wanted to create an environment where these sorts of programs would flourish,” says James Bean, associate dean for Graduate Education. “We see the future, particularly the professional parts of graduate education, as being heavily oriented toward multi-disciplinary programs. That’s where we’re seeing the growth.”

InterPro’s mission, he says, consists of four goals:
• building cooperative relationships among different departments and units
• providing financial and administrative support
• maintaining strong interdisciplinary professional programs
• serving as an incubator for new graduate interdisciplinary programs

InterPro will serve as the conduit for incorporating the best practices of existing programs into new ones. It will also provide the staff and resources, including curriculum templates, that budding programs may need. Associate Professor Dutta has been named as InterPro’s first director. He will continue as director of PIM as well.

A major part of Dutta’s role as InterPro director is to monitor the pulse of industry: “We want to see where opportunities exist for creating new programs. Then we can identify faculty, offer resources, encourage the formation of a program, and launch it.”

Not every proposal for a new interdisciplinary program will work, he adds: “Some may not have enough substance. InterPro should be a kind of quality screen for determining what comprises a good idea and, eventually, a good program. Moreover, it can facilitate the dissolution of programs that are no longer of interest. Programs, unlike departments, have finite lives. We can ramp up, maintain, or ramp down.”

Twin beneficiaries: students and industry
The interdisciplinary programs offered by Michigan Engineering typically attract students with broad interests, Dutta says. “They’re not just focused on engineering or business, but understand the need to be fluent in various disciplines in order to be successful.”

Although companies are now reaping the benefit of employees who’ve trained in interdisciplinary programs, there was a period of adjustment.

	In the Precision Machining Laboratory, associated with the Program in Manufacturing, students perform research leading to the development of advanced error compensation techniques.

“Companies have done some redesigning of their own internal structures to better take advantage of these kinds of students,” explains Bean. “In the early 1990s, it was somewhat of a struggle, because engineering and business were structured separately. It took a while to change the culture.

“There’s actually been a co-revolution,” he says. “Our educational processes have changed to become much more interdisciplinary, and so has the corporate structure. Students from programs like ours now flourish in the new corporate structures.”

Tushar Porwal, who is pursuing both a master of engineering in Manufacturing degree through PIM and an MBA through a fellowship offered by his employer, GM, knows what an interdisciplinary education means for him.

“The world is becoming so competitive,” he states. “Everything these days is global, fast-paced, and Internet-paced. You have to be on top of manufacturing, great at business strategy, and know how to use your finances. There’s not just one driver in business to be successful—you have to know everything, because there isn’t time to do things wrong.”