Nov. 7, 2001

Contact: Robert Lowery (509-963-1487/fax 509-963-2301/e-mail: loweryr@cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - As a way to allow for program expansion, Central Washington University’s two-year-old master of science in engineering technology (MSET) will relocate from The Boeing Co.’s Auburn facility to Highline Community College beginning winter quarter.

As a way to help make the move “seamless,” The Boeing Charitable Trust Organization recently approved a grant request of $70,000 to fund the procurement of much needed laboratory equipment, according to Dr. Gerard Woodlief, Boeing’s Engineering Focal to CWU, who authored the grant request and also serves as an adjunct professor in the MSET program.

“The beauty of this program is that it started out at Boeing and now it’s going strong,” he adds. “Now we can move it off-site and get some diversification among the MSET student population. That’s important, since we have to keep in mind that this is not Boeing’s degree program; it’s Central’s. We were happy to play a major role in launching it, and we are definitely deriving a tremendous amount of benefit from it. However, it’s important that everything be done to ensure that it is capable to stand on its own financial base, which I’m sure that it will.”

Dr. Walt Kaminski, CWU industrial and engineering professor and program coordinator, points out, at present, just one of the students enrolled in the program is not a Boeing employee. “We haven’t even tabbed any other companies, or the general public yet,” he says. “This program has tremendous potential. It’s a high-quality program and the only master’s degree program of its kind in the state.”

Central’s multi-disciplinary MSET program is designed to broaden the technological backgrounds of persons holding bachelor’s degrees in the engineering technology, industrial technology, or related engineering disciplines.

“Corporate downsizing, global market pressures and rapidly expanding technology require a new type of engineering technologist, someone who can function comfortably on a changing career path,” Kaminski says. “The tools for lifelong learning and research are the crux of our program.” As far as Boeing is concerned, Woodlief points out the program is helping to “immediately inject graduate-level engineering knowledge into the company.”

“We need employees who can come in with hands-on engineering knowledge. That’s what an engineering technology degree provides, as opposed to a theorist. Now, engineering technology is all that Boeing wants and nobody is geared to provide it like Central is. To us, Central is a prime source for obtaining engineering technology employees, both at an undergraduate and graduate level.”

At present, 29 students are enrolled in Central’s MSET program. For information about winter quarter enrollment, call (509) 963-1756, or visit the program Web site at www.cwu.edu/~iet/mse.html.

The MSET program is also offered in Ellensburg. In addition, the university has received pre-approval from the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board to offer the program at the CWU Lynnwood Center beginning in 2003, Kaminski notes, adding, “There are so many people out there hungry for a master’s degree.”

Woodlief says, “There is a good amount of interest from Boeing in attempting to partner with Central’s industrial and engineering technology department on the development of some other specialized, graduate-level engineering programs as well, such as the development of a master of science engineering technology degree in aerospace.”