ECU engineering celebrates anniversary

A 20th anniversary celebration comes along just once, and Dr. Leela Goel Pawashe wasn’t about to miss it.

“I took a red eye (flight) from San Francisco this morning to come here, and I’m going back tomorrow, so that demonstrates how much ECU engineering means to me,” Pawashe said.

The East Carolina University Department of Engineering celebrated its anniversary with a gala on Friday in the Main Campus Student Center ballrooms. About 120 alumni, retired faculty and staff, current students and faculty, and program supporters attended, sharing memories, stories, smiles and hugs.

“It really did start with ECU engineering,” she said. “That’s where I first learned about ultrasound. It’s where I got my training. Truly, the education you get here is on par with anywhere you go. If you take advantage of what you have here and work with the faculty, you have so much opportunity for undergrads here.”

The Beginning

In the early 2000s, industries in eastern North Carolina needed engineers, sparking the idea of a general engineering program at ECU where local students could attend, graduate and support the local economy.

Dr. Paul Kauffmann, second from right, the first chair of the Department of Engineering, stands with ECU engineering alumni, from left, Aaron Spencer, Patrick Rhodes and Kyle Barnes, part of ECU’s first engineering graduating class in 2008, during the gala.

“The economic development people, they needed an engineering program to cement a number of their plans, a number of their strategic directions,” said Dr. Paul Kauffmann, the first chair of ECU’s Department of Engineering. “The idea that somebody from Bertie County or any other county could come to ECU, get an engineering degree and stay here and have an opportunity in which they wouldn’t have to leave home, no other engineering programs were like that. This is their home.”

ECU received approval to start its engineering program in the spring of 2004.

“It was a lot of fun, but very challenging — 12-hour days and long weeks,” Kauffmann said.

He said the university supported efforts to create lab and class spaces and even added course sections to classes such as ethics and calculus that the new engineering students would need. Kauffmann said newly hired faculty members helped develop the curriculum that became the backbone of more than 20 successful years.

“The faculty that came on early had faith in the program,” he said. “I was the tip of the spear, but there were a lot of wonderful people, a lot of good faculty here. Obviously, we would not have been successful without them.”

Leap of Faith

With a program established, ECU needed students. But a new and as of yet unaccredited program was not an easy sell to driven high school graduates.

“We took a leap of faith,” said Aaron Spencer, a member of ECU engineering’s first graduating class in 2008 and now the vice president of engineering at Jones-Onslow Electric Membership Corporation in Jacksonville.

He came to Friday’s celebration with two other members of that first graduating class — Patrick Rhodes, operations director at the Roberts Company, an industrial general contractor in Winterville, and Kyle Barnes, owner of Carolina Syndication, a real estate development company in Washington.

“All three of us came from rural areas, and we became best friends in the engineering program,” Rhodes said. “We were a little bit worried, a little anxious, I guess, because obviously it’s your first time in college, but it’s also a new program.”

Barnes said both the students and faculty took ownership of the program in those early years.

“I just love how much the professors poured into us and were a part of the vision from the start,” he said. “I don’t think we had anyone that was instructing and leading us who felt like it was just their job to show up every day. I think that made the difference that we were not just a number. I think the outcomes that we’ve experienced were because of the relationships we had with those that were instructing us.”

They specifically mentioned Dr. Gene Dixon.

“Gene Dixon, he’s probably responsible, to some degree, for a lot of people in that first class getting jobs. He got us making a paycheck,” Spencer said.

As Rhodes, Spencer and Barnes walked through the ballroom, they found Kauffmann, greeting him with big smiles and handshakes.

“It’s the most gratifying thing,” Kauffmann said. “Keeping up with students’ career progression, job titles, it’s really just a remarkable privilege to be able to play a role in that, and that for many of them if this program was not here, they wouldn’t have the same careers and lives. That is what it’s all about. Obviously, we want to make the world a better place, and this is one small way to do it. So, I love it and I’m proud of ECU for continuing to support the program.”

What’s Next

In the spring of 2008, 21 students graduated with engineering degrees, followed by four more in the fall, marking ECU’s first graduating class of engineers. Accreditation from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology quickly followed, and nearly 1,400 other students have turned tassels to become ECU engineering graduates.

“I think it’s been able to have the reputation to compete and stand alongside the other major engineering colleges in the state, and now have that respect and reputation to have that momentum to continue,” Barnes said.

ECU engineering students stand and applaud as they are recognized during the gala.

Rhodes said the Roberts Company for which he works has hired ECU engineering graduates and has hosted students for senior capstone projects.

“I think the program does what it was intended to do, get local people to a local engineering school and then get into the workforce in a local area,” he said. “So it’s helped all the companies, the local companies for sure. I haven’t heard one bad thing about it.”

In the ballroom on a big screen, a map of the United States slowly populated with color-coded dots listing the name and location of an ECU engineering graduate, creating a kaleidoscope of color.

“They’re all over the world, Europe, the West Coast, the Orient,” Kauffmann said. “But the number that are here locally, East Coast, spread across North Carolina, it is great to see that the original part of the plan came to fruition and is still continuing to come to fruition. That’s part of the positive feeling of coming back and seeing all this happen. It’s been happening and it’s continuing and prospering.”

Kauffmann stood on the stage with another former department chair, Dr. Barbara Muller-Borer, and Dr. Teresa Ryan, the current chair. In her remarks to the crowd, Ryan said she came to teach in ECU’s Department of Engineering in 2013 because of a culture of care for students and care for the educational process, something she said is still prevalent today. She sees it in every student who celebrates getting that first job with a faculty member.

“Every day, every day, there’s something. There’s some little bit of magic,” Ryan said.

She turned to look at the screen as dot after dot popped up on the map, knowing that each dot represented another student’s success story.

“It is humbling, and it is exciting, and it is the best thing in the world to have a part of the process that can fundamentally change the trajectory of somebody’s life,” Ryan said. “And I get to do that. We get to do that every day. And that’s just so cool.

“We get to do it every day, and we get to do it at scale — the scale of the region, the scale of the program and the scale of the individual stories that are out here in this room and all across the country. So that clip, it’s little dots and it’s little names, but it is this incredible kaleidoscope of stories. And that’s just very cool.”

She turned back to the crowd.

“And I’m going to simply honor the future by asking the current students who are here to please stand up,” she said. “It is our honor to serve you so that you become the next frame in that kaleidoscope.”

As the celebration began to wind down, Rhodes, Spencer and Barnes walked to an ECU engineering banner to pose for a picture.

“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years,” Rhodes said. “I hope to be here for the 40th and the 50th.”