By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Bowling Green State University hopes a new software engineering major will compute with new students.
The University Board of Trustees approved the new major Friday. The new major will equip students to enter an expanding job field. When the measure was considered by Faculty Senate, Professor Robert Dyer said that the openings were growing by 17 percent a year.
In introducing the new major, Provost Rodney Rogers said it aligned with areas of strength that already exist within the university.
President Mary Ellen Mazey said it also fills a niche. When talking with prospective students about what they’d like to see at BGSU, engineering is the top request.
Now, BGSU will have a software engineering program as part of its offerings.
The Department of Computer Science, which is within the College of Arts and Sciences, already has a specialization in software engineering that was established two years ago.
This will be only the second such program in the state, Rogers said.
He knows of at least one student now studying out of state who plans to transfer to BGSU.
David Levey, chair of the trustees, asked how faculty would be hired for the new program.
Rogers said that the department has a strength in software and has hired one professor in each of the last four years.
The specialization now enrolls 17 students, according to the proposal. The university expects to enroll 50 students in the new major in the first year and have 200 within the first five years.
“It’s a very rigorous program,” Rogers said.
The major must now be approved at the state level.
The possibility of another new major related to engineering was mentioned when the trustees approved the naming of the Stephen and Deborah Harris RIXAN Robotics Laboratory.
The lab, which now under construction, will allow the College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering to go ahead with the creation of a degree in mechatronics, an interdisciplinary field that combines electronics with a number of other engineering disciplines.
Also, the trustees approved changing the name of the aviation program from Bachelor of Science in Technology to a Bachelor of Science in Aviation. This will be consistent with industry practices, Rogers said.
When the matter was approved by faculty senate, Carl Braun, the liaison for the aviation program, said that often graduates have to explain their degrees to prospective employers. Students and graduates have been requesting the change.
Rogers also reported to that applications and students who have been accepted to the university for the fall, 2017 class, are both up by 2 percent from the same time last year. More students have also made housing deposits. Applications for transfer students are running a little behind.
Rogers also expressed confidence that the university will meet its goal of retaining 80 percent of the students who entered the university this fall. That rate dipped to just under 76 percent last fall.
