Loras College announced it was awarded a $155,000 grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust to benefit students and faculty of the engineering program.
The grant will be utilized to enhance the instructional space and resources for the engineering program, as well as support enrollment efforts for engineering majors.
“This grant offers huge opportunities to Loras engineering,” Aaron Joy, PhD, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, said. “We will upgrade at least six different lab spaces and create two new labs. Students will have new chances to exercise what they learn in the classroom and even more opportunities for creative project work. Not just valuable for recruiting new students, these updates help our graduates continue to be competitive with students from any other engineering program in the country.”
The funding will assist in the continuing growth of the engineering program, which has experienced an almost fifty percent increase in first-year enrollment over the past five years. That growth is projected to continue at a similar pace for at least the next three years.
Among the areas that will see upgrades to enhance student outcomes are the thermodynamics, electronics, innovation and fluid mechanics labs, as well as the metal and wood shops.
“On behalf of the entire Loras community, I am grateful to our friends at the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust for their ongoing generosity to the College. In this case, the Carver Trust is providing a significant upgrade to benefit our students and faculty in Loras’ outstanding engineering program,” President Jim Collins (’84) said. “I am excited to watch the enhanced learning experiences that will come about as a result.”
Loras’ engineering program is one of only five programs in Iowa accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, the global accreditor of college and university programs in applied and natural science, computing, engineering and engineering technology. ABET accreditation assures that programs meet standards to produce graduates ready to enter critical technical fields that are leading the way in innovation and emerging technologies and anticipating the welfare and safety needs of the public.
Loras’ engineering program engages students in a rigorous and comprehensive study of the fundamentals in engineering, mathematics and science required to analyze, design, build, test and operate electromechanical systems in a manner that emphasizes interdisciplinary leadership that contributes to the profession and to society.
