Four new majors to be added to Hose-Rulman

On Tuesday, March 27th, Jerald Gakubowski announced that four new majors were coming to campus: Early Childhood Education in the Applied Biology and Biomedical Engineering department, which will now be the ECEABBE department; Music, in the Physics and Optical Engineering department, which will be re-named POEM, which will let them get rid of that silly ‘H’ that used to be in their name; Interior Design, which will be in the Civil Engineering department ICDE; and Physical Education, which will be in the department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, now PECSSE. Faculty and students alike are having mixed reactions about the new majors on campus.

“This will be an excellent opportunity for students to take courses in a major closely related to theirs. Having more liberal arts degrees on campus will be very beneficial to students,” explained Gakubowski, who has been working with faculty to develop interdisciplinary programs and minors that encourage students to branch out.

One junior EE is excited about the new Early Childhood Education program at Rose, since Rose will now be opening up a daycare. “I hate little kids, so at first, I was really upset,” she confessed. However, her attitude towards this all changed when she heard some of Gakubowski’s ideas for integrating the new ECE major into other curricula. “The chemistry and biology department will use them in their experiments, and there has been some speculation that they will be used in dissection!” she exclaimed.

Students taking PH111 starting next year will find out that there will be much less kinematics and much more wave and vibration analysis.

Another change is that Dick Ritteon, a professor in the POEM department, is giving up his role as Director of the Pinely Observatory so that he may spend more time giving elementary piano lessons in the Musical Accoustics lab. “Planets are cool and everything, but ever since Pluto was kicked out from planet status, fewer students have been coming by, so I’ve decided to do something on a microscopic scale.” Ritteon is working with Fat Perro on developing new materials for piano strings and shells.

“Interior design is just fabulous!” gushed Fabio Fernando, one of the new professors in the ICDE department. “I just LOVE the chance to be working with all of professors in this department. They’re all real sweethearts,” bubbled Fernando. Fernando explained that in order to better merge the labs, the soil lab would be converted into a paint and dye lab so that students could better understand mixing colors and what colors go well together. Students in the IDCE department will also now take an introduction to Interior Design, where teammates will need to make sure everyone is a snazzy dresser and gives friendly, personal presentations of their work.

Nuck Chorris is the director of PE courses in the PECSSE department. Lary Caxer is also having all CSSE professors teach one section of Fundamentals of Physical Development I, II, or III each year to better integrate themselves. Chorris is giving a Fast Track version course over the summer, where he will be assisted by Gelton Raves and Loger Rautzenheiser. Raves will be teaching mountain biking and Rautzenheiser will be helping them optimize their movement vectors. Chorris is also considering teaching special sections of Ballroom Dancing and Nuck Kwan Do. All freshmen will be required to take three sections of physical education.

Pilot sections of these courses begins this summer. Contact Man Doore for information on registration.