The University’s programs in business and engineering are growing, and they have outgrown Oak Hall within which they are housed.
Within the Department of Business, a new program in risk management and insurance studies was created in response to a national shortage of college graduates who are trained for careers in the insurance industry, a field with a significant employer presence in Ohio. To accommodate this expected growth and provide an outstanding environment for teaching and learning, a large business classroom suite and collaboration area is needed.
On the engineering front, the University has launched three new engineering majors – electrical, computer, and biomedical engineering – which join the institution’s already-successful and ABET-accredited programs in civil and mechanical engineering. To accommodate expected growth in these programs, the University has already taken steps to create classroom, lab, and office space for additional faculty and for almost 200 new undergraduate engineers. A state-of-the-art engineering design studio – fabrication lab is still needed to ensure the hands-on experience that will prepare our engineering students for success in their field.
Today, 315 of Mount Union’s roughly 2,000 undergraduate students are majoring in programs of the Department of Business, and 100 are pursuing minors in business, accounting, or economics. The engineering program has grown rapidly in the past seven years, now serving 170 students and preparing for further growth.
The physical proximity of the University’s business and engineering programs in Oak Hall is part of the University’s strategy to foster connections between the two programs. Students in the University’s robust entrepreneurship program partner with engineering students to develop prototypes of new products, learning the practicalities of creating new products. Engineers, in turn, experience a sense of real-world circumstances that exist in the world of business; an engineering solution isn’t a business solution until it successfully addresses constraints of budget, timeline, and deliverables.
