100118

Page 1

utdailybeacon.com

@utkdailybeacon

Volume 136, Issue 13

Monday, October 1, 2018

Distinguished members and faculty of the College of Engineering turn over dirt for the ground breaking ceremony on Sept. 28, 2018. Juan Casem / The Daily Beacon

Inside: • Rebecca Koszalinski, assistant professor in the College of Nursing at UT, was recognized by Johnson & Johnson in their “Nurses Change Lives” ad campaign. Staff Writer Taylor Moore talks about Koszalinkski’s experiences on page 2. • Rising Nashville country band Old Dominion will play in Knoxville on Oct. 4. Staff Writer Valerie Lick previews the performance on page 4. • Staff Columnist Lauren Adams gives a tasty recipe for Crock-pot Vegan Chili in her column “Make Lunch Not War” on page 5. • The Lady Vols practiced for the first time this season on Sunday. Contributor Noah Taylor breaks down the excitement of the upcoming season for the coaches and players on page 6.

Ground breaks on new engineering complex Coleman Numbers Contributor

On Friday afternoon, Interim Chancellor Wayne T. Davis and Interim Dean of Tickle College of Engineering Mark Dean led a groundbreaking ceremony for the new engineering complex. According to Davis, the new complex will replace Estabrook and Pasqua Halls in housing all of the university’s freshman engineering programs, the Department of Nuclear Engineering and a number of research and faculty laboratories that will be available to all engineering students. The 228,000 square foot and $129-million-dollar complex is funded in part by donations from prominent alumni of the engineering program, Mr. John Tickle and Dr. Min Kao. The rest of the cost is covered jointly by the university and a $90-million-dollar commitment from the state of Tennessee. Tickle graduated from UT’s industrial engineering program, and Kao received his doctorate in electrical engineering from UT in 1977. “The program is an excellent example of the power of leveraging alumni commitments, campus commitments and state commitments to create (facilities such as) this innovative, state of the art engineering

complex,” Chancellor Davis said. John Tickle, who spoke briefly before the groundbreaking, said that the College of Engineering should continue to strive for excellence. “We’ve come a long way (but) … you don’t quit. You’re coming up the hill, and then when you get to the top of hill, that’s when you’ve really got to start working hard,” Tickle said, referring to the immense growth that the College of Engineering had experienced since his time there. Dean said that the new engineering complex will be essential to this mission of excellence. “Our growth is around 10 to 12 percent … in the freshman class, and if we continue to grow at that rate, this building is going to be key to making sure that we deliver to the freshmen all of the types of education fundamentals that we need to deliver,” Dean said. “For (the College of Engineering) to be competitive, we have to have facilities like we’re building here,” Dean added. While the ground was only ceremonially broken Friday, the engineering complex has been an ongoing project. “Our college began discussions in late 2011 and early 2012 relating to the need for finding expanded space for our national ranked Nuclear Engineering Department and to replace the facilities being

used by our freshmen engineering programs,” Davis said. Davis thanked the college’s Assistant Dean for Research William Dunne for his leadership in the project. “Dr. Bill Dunne worked continuously for the last six years in overseeing the design of the overall building spaces for all who will occupy the building … (he coordinated) the efforts of all of the faculty and staff who help provide input to the design,” Davis said. Dunne joined Davis, Dean, other speakers at the event and other leading members of the project in donning white hardhats and breaking into the soil with golden shovels. The groundbreaking ceremony featured two more speakers: Dr. Wesley Hines, head of the Nuclear Engineering Department, and Jenny Patel, a 2017 mechanical engineering alumna and a biomedical engineering PhD student. Hines highlighted some of the resources which the engineering complex will offer its students, including 23 new nuclear engineering laboratories — some of which possess “unique research capabilities that you will find nowhere else in the world.” Patel recalled her and her classmates’ time in Estabrook Hall. “We did not realize Estabrook would have such a high impact on

us … It’s where we would meet faculty for research positions, where we would join student organizations and where we would have some of our first engineering experiences,” Patel said. “Estabrook is very special to me … but I’m excited for the future,” Patel added. Patel urged future engineering students to take advantage of the state-of-the-art facilities that the Complex will offer, such as the Min H. and U. Fan Kao Innovation and Collaboration Studio. Allison Campbell, a sophomore majoring in material science and engineering, shared her thoughts on the new complex. “(I’m excited to see) how they structure the new curriculums … as well as the new innovation studios, what kind of projects will center around that … to see how the EF (engineering fundamentals) curriculum changes up,” Campbell said. Davis concluded the event, expressing the university’s excitement for the complex to be built. “It is truly an exciting time for the college and university … the funding has been secured, the design has been completed, and we are nearing the beginning of the construction phase,” Davis said. The grand opening of the currently unnamed engineering complex is projected for 2021.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.