As part of an ongoing outreach effort to enhance the global perspective of students, the Iowa State University College of Engineering has established a collaborative graduate program with a German university.
Jonathan Wickert, dean of the College of Engineering at Iowa State, and Dieter Leonhard, president of Hochschule Mannheim, have signed an agreement on a joint master’s and PhD program. Under the new program, Mannheim and Iowa State graduate students will be able to use research facilities of both research institutions for scientific purposes.
Mannheim master’s students in mechanical and chemical engineering, and engineering management, will have access to the program. Iowa State students in the graduate programs of mechanical, chemical, and industrial and manufacturing systems engineering are also eligible to participate. Both universities noted their intention to expand the program in the future.
“Our college looks forward to continuing our collaboration with the Hochschule Mannheim,” Wickert said. “We are firmly convinced that the outstanding engineering education that our graduates and undergraduates receive in Mannheim and Ames will strengthen the global competency and qualifications of our students.”
According to Leonhard, “This is a very special agreement. For the first time we are basing our approach on the American structure of graduate and undergraduate studies and are truly entering new territory in terms of higher education policy. We are particularly pleased to enter this new path together with ISU with its excellent engineering education and see this also as a confirmation of our outstanding engineering education at Mannheim. We are also convinced that this will be an attractive opportunity for our undergraduates nationwide.”
The two universities know each other well, having exchanged engineering students for more than a decade—a venture that was initiated by John Deere. The cooperative exchange has yielded results: Thorsten Baldus, who studied mechanical engineering at Mannheim and is now a display interface engineer at John Deere at Waterloo, Iowa, finished his PhD in industrial and manufacturing systems engineering at Iowa State in 2006.
The new agreement systematizes this approach, thus opening such opportunities to a larger number of graduate students.
Contacts:
Jonathan Wickert, College of Engineering, Iowa State University, (515) 294-9988
Eric Dieterle, Engineering College Relations, Iowa State University, (515) 294-4881
Bernd Vogelsang, Hochschule Mannheim, +49 621 292 6418