Southeast Missouri State University released a news statement announcing a partnership with the University of Science and Technology, aiming to make the path for Southeast Missouri engineering students a little closer to home.
Through the new engineering pathway program, students can complete their first two years at SEMO before continuing at S&T in Rolla. The program currently offers streamlined pathways in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, with each course in the first two years designed as a one-to-one match with S&T’s curriculum.
Brad Deken, chair of SEMO’s Department of Engineering and Technology, said that this one-to-one structure is what separates the partnership from a typical transfer agreement.
“The courses you are taking in your first two years at SEMO are the same courses as what you would be taking at S&T,” Deken said.
According to Deken, the goal is for students arriving in Rolla to have the same preparation as students who began their engineering education there.
“Missouri S&T definitely has a reputation. I mean, it is a hardcore engineering school,” Deken said. “And I know for some students, it can be a little daunting going from, you know, Southeast Missouri to what they perceive as a big engineering school.”
For Missouri S&T Dean of Engineering Eric Borrok, the partnership is also aimed at students looking for more affordable ways to begin college closer to home.
“Finding that kind of a partnership where we could work with somebody to keep students closer to home first, before they were to come here, I think is a good thing for both universities,” Borrok said.
Deken has personal experience making that transition.
Although born in Poplar Bluff, Deken attended what was then the University of Missouri-Rolla, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. He remembers moving from a smaller Southeast Missouri town to a school hours away.
Based on numbers alone, SEMO has slightly higher student enrollment according to UnivStats, an aggregator of raw institutional data. However, S&T’s introductory classes have historically been larger crowds.
“In the chemistry class I went to in my freshman year, there were 300 students in the class. We do not have those numbers in classes here at SEMO, and so that is a completely different environment,” Deken said.
In Deken’s perspective, SEMO stands as an important intermediate step, allowing students to build a sense of comfort before making the transition to S&T.
“Getting to know your classmates, getting to know your instructors, will be much easier in those first two years,” Deken said.
Despite the cultural contrast between both institutions, the partnership is not intended to keep students entirely separated from S&T during those first two years. Both universities plan to introduce SEMO students to S&T’s campus, student organizations and engineering opportunities before they make the official transition.
Borrok said the move is not a traditional transfer, but that students will already be part of the S&T community.
“We want people to feel like it's kind of like they're already part of the community here, just sort of waiting to come,” Borrok said. “The opportunities are sort of wide open, and all our departments and faculty departments would be able to think about things and work with people on how to do stuff like that.”
Ultimately, both administrators see the partnership as a way to address the larger need for engineers in Missouri.
“I’m trying to think of the last time a company has told me, ‘We have plenty of engineers,’” Deken said. “We need to produce as many as we can locally so that they will want to return locally to work.”