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NEWS & EVENTS: CURRENT NEWS
Pamela Goldberg, director of the Gordon Institute's
Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, Wins Award for Excellence in
Entrepreneurship Education
 Pamela Goldberg, director of Tufts University's
Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, has won the Acton Foundation's national
award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education. Goldberg was one of 27
college educators from across the United States to win this year's award.
"We believe that entrepreneurs are people who want to change the world by
using their talents and gifts to create something in service to others," said
Rick O'Donnell, president of Acton Foundation. "It takes guts to take the kind
of risk entrepreneurs are willing to take. But there are things a person can
learn to increase the odds for success once they decide to take that leap. Great
teachers like Pamela Goldberg work to make people smarter, wiser and better
prepared."
Goldberg and other winners were initially nominated by their students and
then judged by a panel of master entrepreneurship teachers at Acton School of
Business, an intensive one-year MBA program in Austin, Texas.
Goldberg has been director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at
Tufts' School of Engineering since its inception in 2002. The program, which is
housed within Tufts' Gordon Institute, provides courses and hands-on education
opportunities for Tufts students interested in founding their own companies or
working in entrepreneurial environments.
The program is open to all students in Arts, Science and Engineering and has
the mission of preparing leaders who will bring excellence and innovation to the
organizations they create or join. Completion of coursework leads to a minor in
entrepreneurial leadership.
Robert J. Hannemann, director of the Gordon Institute, said the center has a
critical role in preparing Tufts students for an increasingly competitive and
entrepreneurial world. "We aspire to be a leader in entrepreneurial studies, and
it is gratifying that Pamela has received this national recognition," he said.
Before coming to Tufts, Goldberg was director of business relations at Babson
College in Wellesley, Mass. While there, she was involved in establishing the
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Mass. Goldberg has also held
entrepreneurial positions in both for profit and non-profit start up ventures.
She launched the investment banking arm of State Street Bank after having worked
in mergers and acquisitions for Citibank and Banker's Trust in New York.
The Acton award includes a cash prize, a trophy and admission to a two-day
seminar on entrepreneurship teaching.
The Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence is a nonprofit
organization established in 1997 to help teachers develop skills and instruction
methods that they will need to educate aspiring entrepreneurs. The Foundation's
case-based entrepreneurship curriculum allows teachers and students to simulate
the experiences of real entrepreneurs in creating a successful business.
Tufts Gordon Institute Taps Industry Leader as Next Director; Rob Hannemann to Advance Engineering Education Leadership
 Tufts University's School of Engineering has announced that entrepreneur and educator Robert J. Hannemann will serve as the new director of the Tufts Gordon Institute effective Sept. 1. Subject to board of trustee approval, Hannemann will have a secondary appointment as a professor of the practice in the department of mechanical engineering at the school.
"Rob's depth and breadth of experience, as an educator, engineer and entrepreneur, makes him an outstanding choice for continued leadership of the Tufts Gordon Institute," said Linda Abriola, dean of the School of Engineering. "Rob will continue to push the boundaries of TGI to produce top-notch engineering leaders who have far-reaching entrepreneurial vision."
Hannemann currently serves as executive vice president of Thermal Form & Function, Inc., a startup company focused on advanced, energy-efficient cooling of electronic products, and as founder and principal of Atlantic Technologies, which provides business planning and development, product strategy and financing to fledgling enterprises. Before founding the company, Hannemann spent a number of years in the telecommunications industry, most recently as CEO and director of Hopkinton, Mass.-based Lasersharp Corporation. Prior to that he rose through the ranks of Digital Equipment Corporation in both general and engineering management positions.
"Rob's career path is one to which we hope our students at TGI will aspire," said Nancy Buczko, associate director of Tufts Gordon Institute. "He has lived and breathed the world of bringing products to market."
"Rob Hannemann is recognized as a technical expert, as well as a respected corporate leader," said Vincent Manno, associate provost and head of TGI's search committee. "The search committee saw his combination of thoughtful engagement and keen ability to analyze challenges as important precursors to bringing the Gordon Institute to even greater prominence in engineering leadership education."
"Entrepreneurial companies are increasing in importance as engines of growth in the 21st-century economy," said Hannemann. "At TGI, we seek to prepare students for real-world entrepreneurship, as well as intrapreneurshipusing those entrepreneurial skills within an established business framework to produce new and creative results. In building and growing TGI, we will practice what we teach.'"
Trained as a mechanical engineer, Hannemann was part of the engineering faculty at the University of Maryland for two years. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and symposium papers, as well as co-author of a book on electronic system design. Most recently, he has been a senior lecturer in the mechanical engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As a professor of the practice in mechanical engineering, Hannemann will be part of a new school-wide initiative to bring hands-on engineering practice and expertise from industry into the curricular and research efforts of the school. Hannemann plans to bring his experience and business contacts to bear on the education of the next generation of engineering leaders.
"TGI is fortunate to be a part of the School of Engineering and Tufts University, as well as being located in greater Boston, with its wealth and diversity of industries and businesses," said Hannemann. "I'm looking forward to establishing close ties and working relationships with the engineering departments, other Tufts schoolssuch as the Fletcher School and Tufts University School of Medicineand industry partners to enrich the TGI experience for our students and enable us to carry out initiatives that would likely be beyond the reach of TGI alone."
Hannemann grew up in Chicago and graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1970 with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering. He received his master's in mechanical engineering from New York University and his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1975.
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Creators of Tufts Gordon Institute Win $500,000 Prize from National Academy of Engineering
 The National Academy of Engineering awarded its annual Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education to three pioneers who created the Tufts Gordon Institute (TGI).
TGI Director Arthur W. Winston, former colleagues and industry leaders Harold S. Goldberg and Jerome E. Levy, and the institute itself shared the $500,000 prize in recognition of their efforts in developing the institute's "multi-disciplinary graduate program for engineering professionals who have the potential and the desire to be engineering leaders." This ground-breaking program fills the void in the educational options available to engineering professionals who want to assume leadership roles.
The prize was presented at a dinner in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20.
Inaugurated in 2001 by the National Academy of Engineering, the Gordon
Prize was created to "recognize new modalities and experiments in education
that develop effective engineering leaders. The focus is on innovations such
as curricular design, teaching methods, and technology-enabled learning that
strengthen students' capabilities and desire to grow into leadership roles."
The National Academy of Engineering is an independent, nonprofit institution. Its members consist of the nation's premier engineers, who are elected by their peers for seminal contributions to engineering. The academy provides leadership and guidance to government on the application of engineering resources to social, economic, and security problems. Established in 1964, the academy operates under the congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.
Taking The Lead
[Below is an article that appeared in Tufts E-News, February 23, 2007]
Since its inception nearly two decades ago, Tufts' innovative and award-winning Master of Science in Engineering Management program at The Gordon Institute has produced engineering and technical leaders.
Mike Lee remembers one of his first assignments in the two-year Master of Science in Engineering Management (MSEM) program at The Gordon Institute at Tufts School of Engineering. He and his teammates were charged with inventing a new product and taking all of the necessary steps to bring it to the market. Lee had barely had time to open his books, let alone study them. It seemed a daunting task.
But the team—composed of technical professionals from a variety of fields—relied mainly on their collective practical experience and forged ahead. It was a trial-by-fire experience that Lee said set the tone for his next two years at Tufts and paid major dividends in the end.
"It forced you to work as a team to try to understand concepts that you may not have been ready for,"
Lee said, noting that teamwork and self-motivation kept the project afloat.
"You got a basic idea of what the whole program was going to be about."
According to Lee, a technical manager/systems engineer at General Dynamics in Mass., his classroom education soon focused on the concepts his team had explored during the project. But that early taste of teamwork and hands-on experience gave him a good sense of the way The Gordon Institute carries out its mission—to develop engineering and technical leaders. Founded by Tufts Trustee and pioneering inventor Bernard Gordon more than two decades ago, the Institute has stayed true to that goal since it opened its doors.
"Our mission statement is very clear and has always been consistent," said Gordon Institute Director Arthur Winston, who oversees the MSEM
program. "Our whole essence is really to create leaders. If we didn't do
that, we really wouldn't have a purpose."
MSEM's innovative approach to engineering and technology education recently earned its creators the prestigious Bernard M. Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Winston, who helped define The Gordon Institute's mission, policies and curriculum, received the award along with Harold Goldberg and Jerome Levy, who were also instrumental in its establishment.
"It gives you a good feeling that what you believed in and what you once helped create has been recognized by other people in the field," said Winston, a research professor of electrical engineering at Tufts and former president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
The MSEM program, which covers a range of topics—including product development, business management, communications, project management and decision-making—is geared specifically toward working engineering and technical professionals who want to take the next step in their careers. Classes are held mainly on weekends to accommodate students' hectic schedules. Graduates of the program, like Lee, who earned his degree in 2006, agree that the Institute gave them the skill set they needed to transition into leadership roles.
"It's designed to produce technical managers or people who are more capable to lead in the technical management chain,"
said Lee, who was promoted to a management position at General Dynamics when
he completed the MSEM program. "You need more than just an understanding of
how a business runs in this environment. You have to have a technical
background coupled with the management and business sense of how to execute
programs."
It's that mix of skills that Jenn Greene, who earned her bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Tufts in 2001, sought when she enrolled in the MSEM program in 2004. During her time at The Gordon Institute, Greene was promoted to a project manager at Shawmut Design and Construction. She said the problem-solving experience she gained in graduate school prepared her to take on a more advanced role at the Boston-based company.
"Basically, what I do every day is a lot of multidisciplinary problem-solving,"
she said. "[My education] really fed into what I do at work."
Greene found the program's practicum component to be invaluable training, as well. During the summer between her first and second year in the MSEM program, she and a group of her classmates worked as consultants to a local medical device manufacturing company. Their objective was to help the organization improve its manufacturing process.
"They really respected our opinions and listened to what we had to say," Greene said, crediting her classmates with bringing a wealth of knowledge to the team. Throughout her time at The Gordon Institute, Greene said, she learned from her peers, as well as her professors.
"Everyone approached problems differently," she said about her classmates,
who hailed from a variety of different technical professions. "Everyone
brought knowledge to the table."
Current MSEM student Tatiana Slingeland agrees that being able to collaborate with students from different professional backgrounds has been a valuable feature of the program. But she said the opportunity to work closely with technological professionals from around the world has been equally beneficial.
"The cultural diversity has given a depth to many of our class discussions that would otherwise not be possible," said Slingeland, who is slated to earn her MSEM in 2008.
Beyond what's she picking up from her classmates, Slingeland said the program has also taught her about team dynamics, time-management, and prioritizing and delegating tasks. Her classmate Gabe Wegel, who will also earn his MESM degree in 2008, said it's those skills that he is hoping to fine tune.
"I thought this degree would be a good fit for someone like myself who wants to stay technically minded, but wants to play a more managerial role in a project,"
said Webel, who works as a mechanical engineer at Draper Laboratory in
Cambridge, Mass. "I'd like to move up."
Based on The Gordon Institute's mission—which, as Winston pointed out, is the root of its success—Wegel came to the right place.
"It's a technical world and you need people that have a good understanding of technology,"
Winston said. "But more than that you really need people who are going to
take the reigns and be leaders."
Written by Meghan Mandeville, Tufts Web Communications
Introducing TGI's New Students
 The Gordon Institute's new cohort of students represents a diverse group with
an impressive array of educational and professional experiences. The 40 incoming
students, the second largest in the Institute's history, also includes a record
number of women. The fourteen women students, or 34% of the class, represent a
20% increase over the 14% female student population that the Institute had
averaged over the previous 5 years.
With an age range spanning 24 years (youngest is 22 years, oldest is 46 years),
the incoming class has quite a diverse set of educational backgrounds as
illustrated below:
Mechanical Engineering = 27%
Computer Science/Engineering = 24%
Electrical Engineering = 12%
Chemical Biological Engineering = 10%
Other Engineering = 10%
Science (math, chemistry, biology, physics) = 10%
Industrial Eng./Eng. Mgmt = 2%
Civil/Environmental = 2%
Other (non-science/engineering) = 2%
The number of computer scientists/engineers is the highest in the Institute's
history, and represents an 11% increase of the previous 5-year average. Five
international students one each from China, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, India and
Taiwan add to the group's diversity. About one-third of the incoming class has
some management-level experience prior to entering the program.
 The 40 incoming students join the 31 students who are returning for their 2nd
year of TGI's 2-year program - bringing the Institute's total enrollment to 71
students. As a group, these 71 students have an average of 7 years of professional
work experience in a wide range of industry sectors. The largest group (23
students) is employed by defense or government contractors such as Raytheon, BAE
Systems, the MITRE Corp., and Draper Laboratory. The second largest group (13
students), work for computer hardware and software related companies ranging in
size from Fortune 500's like IBM to smaller companies or start-ups like Brainshark
and Plateau Systems. Other industries represented include biotech and healthcare;
process control and automation; telecommunications; chemical and plastics; and
construction, consulting, civil and environmental and energy.
Most students cite the curriculum and its fit with their career goals as the
main reason for enrolling at TGI. "TGI specifically takes engineers like me and
helps us to become technical leaders", wrote one incoming student. However,
students also place significant value on the benefits of being a member of the TGI's
diverse community. As another incoming student so aptly stated, "In addition to
cultivating my leadership capabilities, my objectives in attending the MSEM program
involve the benefits of working within the program's intimate community. I expect
to learn through the experiences and wisdom of my professional peers, learning about
topics and strategies not captured within a course curriculum."
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