The Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics (MEM) has released a
new strategic plan that describes an exciting vision for education and
research in mechanical engineering education at Drexel in the coming years.
The
MEM Strategic Plan provides a roadmap for advancing the department to advance in four key
areas: education and the student experience, research impact, outreach, and
departmental culture. Each goal identifies specific initiatives to be
launched over the next five years, including new departmental spaces to
network-strengthening seminar programming and activities to increase MEM’s
diversity and inclusiveness.
“Despite being one of the oldest engineering disciplines, mechanical
engineering has widespread applications in developing solutions to modern
problems,” said
Jonathan Spanier, professor and department head. “Energy efficiency, AI-guided automation,
new healthcare tools and techniques, and sustainable manufacturing are all
impacted by the work of mechanical engineers.”
MEM’s comprehensive strategic plan emerged from more than a year of focused
and collaborative effort by faculty, staff, students, and alumni, who
sought to reimagine the department with an eye toward addressing society’s
most pressing challenges. In doing so, they established a collective
mission, vision, and set of core values that center community, inclusivity,
and creative problem-solving, with an emphasis on empathetic and
human-centered engineering.
“It is important to us that the plan will be a living document — one that
we revisit regularly and adapt to new challenges and opportunities,”
Spanier said. “Drexel’s educational model, co-op in particular, responds to
the needs of a transforming world; accordingly, our plan is built to adjust
to the shifting landscape that MEM engineers will enter and considers
deeply their ethical, societal, and environmental responsibilities of
engineers as they build for a better future.”