Trio skillfully construct something unique: A Monmouth engineering degree

Three Monmouth College seniors from central Illinois made history this spring as the College’s first engineering graduates.

After the College’s Commencement on May 14, Preston Rousey of Heyworth headed to Odessa, Texas, to work for Halliburton Energy Services; Caden Stasko of Streator went to work for Navistar, which has a core business focusing on the truck, school bus and genuine parts markets in North America; and Reed Wilson of Normal is weighing his options, including an interview with an architectural firm in Champaign, Ill., that went “really well.”

The journey was not an easy one, but Wilson said, “We just wanted it.”

“Track was a big help, too, as far as mental health,” said Wilson, a member of the Fighting Scots track and field team, who also majored in physics. “It was good to have a place to go to just take my mind off of homework for a while.”

Stasko said that “willpower” also played a factor.

“I barely made it through my freshman year,” he said. “I bombed a couple classes. Some people didn’t think I’d make it, but I kept pushing.”

“I just didn’t give up,” said Rousey. “I remember the groups I was in as a freshman, and every few weeks someone would say, ‘I’m switching.’ But I decided, ‘I’m going to stay.’ Is it more work than high school? Yes. Is it really difficult at times? Yes. But I just kept trying to make it and to work hard day-byday.”

Engineering professor John Iselin said that it’s been especially rewarding to be a part of the journey taken by Rousey, Stasko and Wilson.

“It’s been neat to see how much they’ve changed and grown,” said Iselin. “They’ve stuck with it. Engineering is a demanding major. Other students decided they couldn’t do it or that they didn’t want to work hard for it.”

In addition to having each other — sometimes as the only three students in a class — the engineering majors said they have received plenty of assistance from Monmouth’s faculty.

“The professors really want to help you,” said Wilson. “That’s the benefit of a smaller school. My girlfriend is in veterinary school at the University of Illinois, and she’ll contact a professor and not hear anything back for three weeks.”

Iselin, whose first semester on Monmouth’s faculty coincided with the seniors’ first year as students, said: “The reason Monmouth College exists is for undergraduate students. My entire career, this is what I’ve wanted to do — work with undergraduate students. My time isn’t divided between research, graduate students and undergraduates.”

Iselin said that commitment to undergraduate teaching — which is common throughout the faculty — pays big dividends for Monmouth students.

“We really do get to know our students very well, and we can tailor how we teach to individual students,” he said. “My role is meeting my students where they’re at and adjusting my teaching along the way to maximize what they learn. I’ve tried to do that everywhere I’ve taught, but since we’re a small school, we can do that on an individual basis at Monmouth.”

Iselin said that individual approach with students might call for “building them up,” or it might require advising them to “work harder, to dig in.”

One of the many classes the trio had together was their senior project course, which met in the engineering lab on the lower level of the College’s Center for Science and Business. On a mild spring afternoon, the students could be found at three separate stations in the lab, working out their shared design project, which Rousey called “a completely unique idea.”

Essentially, their project will allow swimmers to experience the same type of resistance workout in a larger pool — such as the College’s Pepper Natatorium — as those done in much smaller “endless pools.”

“It’s a swim resistance trainer,” said Iselin, “with additional resistance beyond the resistance of the water to improve swim performance.”

SEE ENGINEERING, PAGE 47