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Clark School’s Professional Graduate Programs Achieve Record Growth |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 11, 2008 CONTACT: Paul Easterling COLLEGE PARK, Md.–In another year of record growth, the Office of Advanced Engineering Education (OAEE) at the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, conferred 116 Master of Engineering degrees and 27 Graduate Certificate of Engineering degrees through part-time programs for working professionals, the largest graduating class in the Office’s nearly 15-year history. “Looking back, the growth has been phenomenal” says George Syrmos, OAEE executive director. “And with over 500 students active in the program we expect the number of graduates to continue to increase – in fact we’ve had a 35 percent increase in the number of applicants for this fall over last fall.” The program offers courses in 20 different engineering specialties to meet the professional education needs of technology companies and their employees in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. Courses are available on campus, at remote sites throughout Maryland and online. “The key to our growth is our knowledge of the market,” explains Syrmos. “The Clark School’s administration and faculty determine the engineering specialties companies and individuals need today, such as Fire Protection Engineering, Project Management, Reliability Engineering, and Energetic Concepts (munitions), and guide us in offering these in classroom and on-line formats.” Looking towards the future, Syrmos foresees that, “There will be an explosion in the state’s graduate engineering education requirements due to Base Realignment and Closing, which will bring thousands of technical people to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds (APG) from Ft. Monmouth, N.J. We already have an outstanding Systems Engineering Program at APG and will expand our Software Engineering curriculum to meet the needs of APG technical staff.” The Office’s Master of Engineering degree program, started in 1994, provides practice-oriented, part-time graduate education to working engineers and technical professionals to meet their schedules. The program now has 924 graduates. The Graduate Certificate in Engineering program, which began in 2000, helps engineers stay current on the latest technologies, or move into a new field, without obtaining a full Master’s degree. That program has awarded 107 degrees to date. About the A. James Clark School of Engineering The Clark School, situated on the rolling, 1,500-acre University of Maryland campus in College Park, Md., is one of the premier engineering schools in the U.S. In U.S. News & World Report's annual rating of graduate programs, the school is 17th among public and private programs nationally, 11th among public programs nationally and first among public programs in the mid-Atlantic region. The School offers 13 graduate programs and 12 undergraduate programs, including degree and certification programs tailored for working professionals. The school is home to one of the most vibrant research programs in the country. With major emphasis in key areas such as communications and networking, nanotechnology, bioengineering, reliability engineering, project management, intelligent transportation systems and space robotics, as well as electronic packaging and smart small systems and materials, the Clark School is leading the way toward the next generations of engineering advances. Visit the Clark School homepage at www.eng.umd.edu. ###
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