3/13/2020 – Spring break 2020 message to Boilermaker Engineers from CoE Associate Dean Alina Alexeenko

From: Alina Alexeenko
To: Purdue Engineering Undergraduate Students
Subject: Spring break 2020 message to Boilermaker Engineers
Date: Friday, March 13, 2020 5:41 PM

Dear Purdue Engineering Students,

I am writing to you on behalf of the College of Engineering during the time that we are all experiencing major changes to our daily lives, here in Indiana and in communities far away. The campus routines that we all enjoy will be different for the next few weeks. Not being around friends, classmates or missing favorite places on campus filled with buzz of activities surely may feel disappointing.

For all of us involved in undergraduate education at Purdue, the biggest professional joy is in interactions with you, our students. For the nearest future we need to redefine how these interactions will happen but we are determined to make it work for the best of everyone’s safety and your learning. Here are some thoughts on what we can do together.

1) Take care of yourself and those around you. Keep informed of Purdue’s response to COVID-19 on this website and follow recommended health and safety precautions. If you are an officer in a student organization, take pro-active steps to maximize safety of your fellow students. Look out for communications from SAO and Vice Provost for Student Life. Know that the staff in student services areas, such as advising, program offices, academic success centers, and housing, are ready, able, and willing to assist and support you, even if we might not be able to do it in person.

2) Everyone’s input is needed and welcome to optimize remote classes. Please share your ideas with instructors, academic advisor and us at the Office of Undergraduate Education. We will work together to find best possible solutions.

3) Keep on engineering with kindness, patience and …grit! We can approach the current challenge as a complex engineering problem which according to ABET includes “one or more of the following characteristics: involving wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues, having no obvious solution, addressing problems not encompassed by current standards and codes, involving diverse groups of stakeholders, including many component parts or sub-problems, involving multiple disciplines, or having significant consequences in a range of contexts.” Such complex problems are exactly what Boilermaker Engineers are being trained to address.

As in engineering design we will all need to apply creative decision making and our knowledge of science and engineering while being friendly, considerate, full of resolve and tolerant of some uncertainty and delays.

Be Safe and Boiler Up!

Alina Alexeenko
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education
College of Engineering
Purdue University