Drexel Honors Charles Vest During National Engineers Week

February 22, 2010 Advocacy to engineer solutions for the 21st century was part of the critical dialogue that took place during Drexel University’s 2010 Engineers Week celebration. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and industry gathered for a week-long celebration to focus on hot topics such as the 14 Grand Challenges of Engineering deemed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) to be the most serious obstacles facing man-kind; including controversial issues such as prevention of nuclear terror and the future of energy. Dr. Charles Vest, president of the NAE and president emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, congratulated the Drexel community on working to establish answers to the problems of the Grand Challenges of Engineering.

“If we're going to solve these Grand Challenges, we'll have to change our innovation process. Making universities and engineering exciting, creative, adventurous, rigorous, demanding and empowering is more important than fulfilling all the little points of a curriculum” says Dr. Vest.

A spirited crowd embraced Dr. Vest’s ideas as they came to honor him at the 2010 Engineer of the Year dinner held at the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. The 2010 Engineer of the Year Dinner was the capstone event to a series events held February 15-20 celebrating National Engineers Week at Drexel. The 8th annual Engineers Week festivities kicked off with the Egg Drop Competition, followed by an Engineering Career Fair co-hosted with the Steinbright Career Development Center, an expert panel discussion on sustainability, an Honors Day Ceremony and High School Day.

“This was ideal timing to raise awareness on the Grand Challenges of Engineering while thanking our engineers for their passion to the field. The future is in our hands and we will continue to engineer tomorrow!” says Dr. Selcuk Guceri, dean of Drexel University’s College of Engineering.