 "Photo: Aaron Gould/ The Olympian")
Olympic College and Washington State University’s plans to offer a four-year mechanical engineering degree on OC Bremerton’s campus have been approved by the OC Board of Trustees.
Because of high demand for the program in Kitsap County, WSU is planning to hire adjunct and full-time resident professors for the program.
According to OC Dean of Math, Engineering, Science and Health Judith Brown, her office currently receives four to five inquiries per day about the program.
According to Dr. Judith Brown, dean of math, engineering, science and math, State Sen. Derek Kilmer started the process when he procured 30 full-time equivalent moneys for OC to entice universities that might be interested in sponsoring a mechanical engineering program.
“The establishment of this program would increase the pool of local candidates, and we expect that that would add to the candidates that would be interested in a career at the shipyard,” said the Engineering Division Manager for Fluid Systems and Mechanical Engineering Gary Van Horn.
Jeff Brown, the OC engineering professor who pushed for the program at the most recent board meeting, said that several studies back up the idea that engineering is in high demand in Kitsap County. The Kitsap Economic Development Alliance did a study in 2007 showing that engineering is in high demand among local employers, and last spring a University of Washington study of current OC students showed that they overwhelmingly wanted a mechanical engineering program to be offered at OC.
There is interest in the program from other community colleges, especially from Tacoma Community College—two TCC students have already applied to WSU for the program.
“I did an informal survey in one of my classes in the fall, and I had eleven students that are graduating this spring that said they were interested in applying to this,” Jeff Brown said.
Though officially the program has not been approved by the Higher Education Coordinating Board, WSU is so confident it will be that it has already begun accepting applications into the program and hiring faculty for it.
“We’re hoping to start with 15 juniors in fall 2010,” Jeff Brown said. “Then fall of 2011, those 15 would be seniors and we would add 15 more juniors.”
Though it had no official input into the decision, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is excited about the prospect of Kitsap County producing its own engineers. Each year, PSNS hires between 90 and 130 engineers to join its engineering workforce of approximately 1,200, Van Horn said.
According to salary.com, the average expected salary for an entry-level mechanical engineer is almost $60,000 per year. PSNS did not disclose the average salary of its mechanical engineers.
OC, as a regional college, according to Judith Brown, is a step up from a standard community college and gets $6,500 in state funds per FTE. Though the engineering program will cost $12,000 per FTE, WSU has committed to using its own funds to pursue this for the first two years.
The budgetary cycle in Washington state’s legislature is a two-year cycle, the current one ending in 2010. WSU and OC plan on lobbying the legislature after this first year with successful results of the program to persuade it to provide the amount of funding that the program really costs.
A freshman WSU student from Port Orchard who heard about the program is planning on deciding to come back to Kitsap County for the rest of his college career.
Paul Daily, a former running start student at OC, wants to come back because it’s closer to home, it’s cheaper—both for tuition and because if he does come back, Daily plans on staying at his parents’ house—and the opportunity for recreation a large city like Seattle offers.
“Here in Pullman there isn’t much to do,” Daily said.
OC will host much, but not the entire program. Every summer, the WSU students at OC would travel out to Pullman for one to two weeks for labs.
“It’ll be like an engineering summer camp,” Jeff Brown said.
WSU will be filling the role another Washington state university has on OC Bremerton campus. St. Martin’s Benedictine Catholic University will be at OC for its last quarter spring 2010, but that may be news to some.
“I hadn’t heard anything about St. Martin’s leaving Olympic College,” said St. Martin’s OC Extension Campus Coordinator George Stevens.
St. Martin’s, as described by Stevens, is not focused on full-time students like WSU, but on non-traditional students who may work during the day and go to school at night.
“We’re not in competition with WSU,” Stevens said. “We welcome the additional benefits to the students at OC.”
The Catholic university employs five adjunct professors to offer classes at OC, as well as offering telecourses direct from Lacey, WA.
But other sources say that St. Martin’s will not be offering classes after the end of the 09-10 school year.
“St. Martin will be discontinuing here at OC,” said Vice President of Instruction Mary Garguile. “WSU will be meeting with their students and hopefully taking them in.”
OC Students that are interested in applying to the program should email Serena Erickson, the Science, Engineering and Math Advisor at SEMadvisor@olympic.edu.
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