FROM THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR

Dear friends of Cal Poly M.E., I am happy to report that no pandemic can suppress our student’s ability to learn and grow into amazing engineers ready to tackle important problems.

This past academic year, our dedicated faculty and staff were able to provide in-person laboratory experiences for nearly all our classes so our students could receive our famous hands-on, Learn by Doing education. Also, due to generous support from our corporate partners and people like you, we provided Learn by Doing at-home kits for labs that could not be held in person. I cannot thank you enough for that support.

In this issue of News to M.E., you will learn about how our students were able to complete fantastic senior projects and advance research initiatives despite the many obstacles brought on by the pandemic. In this year of change, you can also read about how the faculty and students are looking closely at social justice issues through the lens of engineering design with a new course offering by Dr. Ben Lutz. Also inside, you can catch up on personnel changes with several long-time faculty and staff members retiring, and sadly, we lost a long-time faculty member, Dr. Frank Owen.

I hope you enjoy this issue, and if you are ever in San Luis Obispo and would like to see the changes in the program, please do not hesitate to contact me through the M.E. office.

Sincerely,

Jim Widmann Department Chair

Jim Widmann