Ronald W. Rousseau
School Chair &
Cecil J. "Pete" Silas Chair
Contact Information
Building: Ford ES&T
Office: 1378
Phone: 404.894.2867
Fax: 404.894.2866
email
Mailing Address
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
Links
Message from the Chair
Spring 2006
Recent curriculum revisions have caused us to think about some of the characteristics we seek to develop in our students. Without question, almost anyone asked would say that we want our graduates to be competent in the modern aspects of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. In fact, most of the time and effort associated with formal instruction is devoted to ensuring that ChBE students know how to work with mass and energy balances, thermodynamics, transport phenomena, and so forth. A graduate without competence cannot perform the tasks expected of a chemical engineer, and so it is right that so much effort is spent developing that characteristic.
But there is growing awareness of the importance of other characteristics, some of which are interrelated and all of which assume competence, that we should work to inculcate in our students. These include creativity, integrity, leadership, teamwork, initiative, global perspective, and confidence. To illustrate why these are important, I would like to tell you about my recent experience in visiting with one of our graduates. The story actually begins with me trying to put together a presentation for a group of campus development officers that described the evolution of Chemical Engineering. In the presentation I had a slide illustrating our discipline’s contributions in the development of the world’s energy and chemical enterprises. On the slide was a photograph showing the impressive structure of the Hoover/Diana Platform in the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn’t two weeks later that I was in Deci Autin’s (ChE ‘80) ExxonMobil office in Houston, and there on the wall was a much larger version of the same photograph. It turns out that she was the technical and start-up manager of the platform’s operation. Deci was back in Houston temporarily from her new assignment as manager of deepwater oil and gas development projects in Nigeria, and I was fortunate that her calendar had placed her in Houston during the time of my visit. She was so enthusiastic about her work that I was ready to sign up for a tour of duty on the project! Imagine Deci doing the kind of work she’s doing without a global perspective or integrity or leadership or any of the other characteristics mentioned above: I can’t, and I bet you can’t either.