Michigan is a very large state University situated in the small town of Ann Arbour near Detroit. Chemical Engineering is a large department, which has consistently been regarded as a top centre for many years. Currently headed by Ralph Yang, the department has 24 faculty and approximately 90 graduate students (35% overseas). There is a large intake of undergraduate students each year (150), which is rising.

The department has perceived that in recent years its ranking, although high, is lower than in the past. This has lead to an active campaign to assess where they believe that the future for chemical engineering lies, and what the areas most likely to yield new discoveries. In the light of this, department then decided how best to realign itself given its current resources, and how to attract new resources to the department. Michigan now believes that one of the strengths of the department is its diversity: from materials and their processing, biotechnology, polymers, colloids and complex fluids, surface science, reaction engineering, catalysis, transport phenomena, process control, simulations, electronic materials, electrochemistry, and learning and teaching. Michigan considers that it has a ‘holistic’ approach to science and engineering, as they put as much effort in teaching and learning, as they do research.

In addition to ‘mainstream’ chemical engineering research, the department has one of the very best and innovative learning and teaching research groups. Their facilities for undergraduate teaching are impressive, and include a virtual reality unit for molecular simulations and plant operation training.

One member’s research currently centres on the application of virtual reality to teaching. This came about partly by his MS project, and a chance discussion at an AIChE meeting. He saw a niche, and made a proposition to Michigan, who accepted it. He subsequently has generated a partnership with a company which manufactures VR equipment. The arrangement is that the company installed a $2M VR ‘cave’ at Michigan (including all of the computer, hardware, and video projection hardware) and maintains it. In exchange, the facility is essentially a showroom for the company, and they have a share of the user time.

VR is claimed to be good for: interactive learning, 3D animation and the demonstration of physical concepts, and industrial safety training. By the same token, VR is poor for: text (resolution is the problem), and precise calculations for valid answers because everything needs to be pre-calculated. It would appear that the advantages are that students like it and are motivated by it, there is emerging evidence that better understanding is achieved, and that the sessions lead to discursive questioning. The whole process and equipment needs to be made less cumbersome and more convenient.

The department recruits 15-20 graduate students per year. They will receive about 250 applications, of which 100 are from within the US; the remainder are from overseas, mainly from the Far East. About 5-6 of the overseas applicants will be accepted. A recruitment weekend is held annually, and involves bringing 40-50 prospective students to Michigan for tours and interviews, of which 35-40 will be made offers. The whole process takes about two months, and is considered very important by the whole department. It costs $30K-40K per year to fund a grad student, the first year of which is on departmental funds, with subsequent years through faculty research grants. Most students take five years to finish.

A chemical engineering undergraduate degree is seen in Michigan as a strong route into various graduate schools (medicine, dentistry, law, etc), and about 5-10% of the year group will do this. The rest have no difficulties in either going on to do a science or engineering higher degree, or to some kind of job.

With out of state tuition fees at $22K per year, it is cheaper to hire a postdoc. than to take on a grad student. Michigan is finding it hard to recruit US post-doctorates., since PhD graduates are able to command high salaries in industry. Therefore the majority of post-doctorates in Michigan are from overseas. The high salaries are what motivate many students, and, although they may never catch up on lifetime earnings, research is interesting enough to be an additional reward.

There remains a problem with the difference in the undergraduate curriculum, and what is studied at graduate level. This has lead to fewer graduates being interested in research careers. A route to change promoted by Michigan is undergraduate research projects. There is now a significant research element in the undergraduate course – ten hours per week for 14 weeks. This is an elective, and about 5-10% of the year group opts for it. One is a strong supporter of problem, rather than formula based teaching.

A particular speciality is the development of critical and creative thinking in undergraduates (and a member of staff has written a book on the topic). One way in which they promotes this is by giving groups of students $500 and an open ended design or research problem; also the AIChE student chapter competition is important. Another favourite tactic is to get students to write their own problem sheets. The department has a course on ‘the ways of thinking’. Colorado University also has such a course. Michigan is in the lead for promoting learning environments and styles which are synthesis driven, rather than analysis driven, which they believes is an important factor for the development of research skills and interests of undergraduates. Another teaching interest is in the ways of ‘visual learners’, and he is now experimenting with learning resources and courses based entirely on the web. He would like to see all students have a laptop as a matter of course. Although many students do have computers, not all do, and therefore he is unable currently to implement strategies that he would like to try out.

Computing based approaches confer some economic advantages, and are probably better for visual learners; whereas traditional lectures require discipline, and are more suited to audio learners. Though if the lectures are carefully planned, they can be quite good for visual learners too, but it requires a lot of effort to generate the suitable material.

Michigan generally receives 50 applications for one faculty position, with about three of those being serious candidates. All new members of faculty will receive a similar start-up package: $200K for experimenters, $50K for theorists, plus two grad students for two years each.

Most faculty teach one course per semester. A lecturer has about 12 contact hours per week (9 u/g and 3 p/g), and does research in the summer. He hopes to be given an assistant professorship in due course

• One faculty member considers it a pity that young faculty are generally told to ‘keep their noses clean’ with regard to teaching, and so they have little chance to be innovative, just when they are at their most dynamic intellectually. However, he says that the tenure systems generally work OK. In an effort to combat some of these attitudes, Michigan is starting to have some full time teaching staff. The main task of faculty is to get across the sense that "chemical engineering is fun!".

Chemical engineering has been missing opportunities in semiconductor growth and electronic materials in general. In addition, civil engineering took to environmental engineering more quickly than chemical engineering, and that chemical engineering is lagging behind in exploiting biochemistry and biomedicine. Many good chemical engineering depts now have substantial materials interests. "Electrical engineers & physicists do not see anything beyond their own areas", however, scientists have recently taken up the product oriented approach of chemical engineers, and there appears to be a strong move by engineers to focus on science.

• "there are too many good chemical engineers wasting time in ‘hole filling’, for example, reaction engineering. One contributing factor is that too many people have been interested in esoteric maths to notice some of the real advances in their areas."
• "Universities have been too aggressive on IPR, and so after wasting a lot of time, both industry and faculty have given up and don’t bother anymore."
• "The NSF has driven chemical engineering towards science (rather than more engineering activities), and this was because it was thought that the chemical engineering community was finding it hard to break new areas by itself."

The rest of his research is partly funded by a consortium of companies. It started by doing some consulting for Chevron in 1993, who then helped put the first four companies together; there are now eight. By keeping it at eight, the consortium has ‘cache’, and currently it appears to be holding up well. Each company pays $25K per year in ‘fees’ to be a member.

Someone who spent six months at UCL recently considers that the UK is ‘very traditional’ compared to the US, but there is some innovation. However the UK "does not have enough money, so how can it possibly compete with the likes of MIT?" However, the US is having trouble funding PhDs, as they are too expensive now. The big problem for the UK is the prestige (or rather lack of it) in industry for the Ph.D. He also reckons that it is a bad idea for people to do their B.Sc. and Ph.D. in the same place (which he found appeared to be the norm).

The UK undergraduate system is very good for strong students, as they ‘learn how to learn’, and independently, and faster than in the US. US students would struggle in the UK system. However, the system is not good for mediocre students, and it would appear that there are a lot of such students now, but for the moment, the final product (the UK graduate) is OK. US students are given more material, and have more contact hours per week per course. He perceived that more students in the US are serious about their subject than they are in the UK. And that in the UK, overseas students are better at asking questions, and are more motivated than ‘home’ students.

Mark Burns, Erdogan Gulari, Dale Briggs, Scott Fogler, John Bell.