With a tug and a crash, a section of wall came tumbling down outside the Eberhard Center, making way for a new Grand Valley building designed to help transform Michigan's economy.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm and four members of the Michigan Legislature were among the muscles pulling the rope that felled the wall on Oct. 14 in a ceremony to mark the beginning of work on the new $16 million John C. Kennedy Hall of Engineering.
The new facility will be located between -- and offer connections to -- the Eberhard Center and Keller Engineering Laboratories. The three-story, 51,800 square foot building will house classrooms, offices and labs.
Granholm said the United States will only be able to compete if it creates "a workforce of workers who love to learn, a workforce of knowledge workers - and that's what engineers are."
That's particularly true in Michigan, which has traditionally been strong in manufacturing. "We know that it is through our intellectual capital that we will be able to compete and succeed," Granholm said.
President Mark A. Murray said the new facility will help the program "continue to produce innovators and people who are going to help build the future of this region and this state.
The building is named for John C. Kennedy III, the president and CEO of Autocam Corp. and a former Grand Valley trustee. He spoke during the ceremony, as did Seymour K. Padnos, chairman of the board of Louis Padnos Iron and Metal Co. Also present were state Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, state Sen. Bill Hardiman, state Rep. Michael Sak and state Rep. Jerry Kooiman.
Murray cited successes of the program, which has grown from 50 students 20 years ago to more than 700 today.
"We have many employers here who use our students in internships, work with them on their senior design projects, and ultimately hire them," Murray said. "And we hear nothing but good feedback."
Grand Valley engineering students have a nearly 100 percent placement rate every year. Between 96-100 percent of Grand Valley students pass the Fundamentals of Engineering exam each year, while the national rate hovers around 70 percent. That exam is required to become licensed. Students get professional experience along with their studies through a cooperative education program that provides real-world opportunities with local companies. The co-op work is woven with classroom work through the junior and senior years.
The students also learn how to be responsible citizens in the program. Professor Shirley Fleischmann spearheads projects that teach engineering principles while helping improve the neighborhoods surrounding Grand Valley's downtown campus. Students learned about heat transfer by insulating a home owned by The Other Way Ministries. And each semester, Grand Valley students invite 5th graders from the nearby Sibley Elementary into the engineering labs for an event, exposing them to a university and to the dream of a college education and teaching them lessons about engineering.
