This Friday, March 28, UNI will host a celebratory ribbon cutting of the newly renovated Applied Engineering Building. The event is set to include remarks from Governor Kim Reynolds and university President Mark Nook. Tours of the building are set to follow the ribbon cutting ceremony. The ceremony caps off the two and a half years spent renovating the building. Renovations began in June 2022.
The ceremony commemorates the $43.9 million dollar renovation, which expanded the building by 40,000 square feet and renovated 60,000 square feet of existing building space. According to a UNI press release, the department also has an ongoing effort to raise an additional $4 million dollars through donations to continue to procure specialized software and equipment for students. The renovation also added a state of the art applied engineering laboratory and collaborative learning spaces. The Applied Engineering and Technical Management Department says that the renovation makes the building one of the most modern foundry laboratories in the world, and the building itself is used as a learning tool.
The Automation Engineering Technology program, Construction Management program, Electrical Engineering Technology program, Graphic Technology program, Manufacturing Engineering Technology program, Materials Science and Engineering program, Materials Science Engineering Technology program, Mechanical Engineering Technology program, Technology and Engineering Education program and Technology Management program are all housed within the state of the art Applied Engineering Building. According to the university, these programs all serve some of the highest-need sectors in Iowa in terms of workforce needs. The affordable four-year programs are projected by the university to increase enrollment by 75% by 2028, amongst other factors. The university says that through working with in-state and out-of-state industry partners, such as John Deere and Collins Aerospace, the program is aligned with industry hiring needs and will be in high demand after graduation.
The ten programs housed in the Applied Engineering building all offer first-year students the opportunity for hands-on learning, which the department says is essential for student growth and success. According to the Construction Management program, “Students learn attributes such as statics and strengths of materials, project planning and scheduling, and structural components of construction, with the goal of being ready to take on a project management or project engineering role immediately upon graduation.” Each program housed in the Applied Engineering building contains unique opportunities for UNI students seeking hands-on learning experiences. The Electrical Engineering Technology program is the only ABET-accredited program in the state of Iowa, where, according to the department, “Students focus on programming microcontrollers, debugging data acquisition systems, and simulating sequential logic circuits, just to name a few things. Every course in the curriculum includes multiple laboratory-based activities – something that makes UNI stand out in the engineering world.”
The ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the renovation will take place this Friday, March 28 at 11 a.m., at the Applied Engineering Building. The ceremony is open to the public, and those who cannot attend the event in-person but still wish to view can watch the livestream of the ceremony through the UNI YouTube channel.
