Engineering
has new newsletter
Benchmarks launch
(June 22, 2000, Gazette)
Acting
Dean Mahmoud Haddara at the launch of the engineering faculty's
new newsletter, Benchmarks.
By Susen Johnson
The Faculty of Engineering
and Applied Science took another important step in its effort
to increase industrial and community outreach by launching the
first issue of its first newsletter on June 6.
Benchmarks came out at what was billed as a Special Coffee
Break in the fourth floor lounge of the Engineering Building
amid an enthusiastic crowd of faculty, staff and industrial stakeholders.
Acting Dean Mahmoud Haddara
cut a cake and unveiled the cover of the new publication while
describing it as "an important tool that will help us to
communicate better with one another – as alumni, professors,
researchers, engineers working in the community, and others who
perhaps just want to know what's happening in their backyard."
A project begun by Dean R. (Sesh) Seshadri, who is currently
on administrative leave, Benchmarks is an outreach tool designed
to promote discussion and generate interest about the people
and research taking place within the faculty's walls – factors
which Dr. Seshadri said are key in making Memorial's Engineering
program so successful.
"We have a lot of incredible
things happening here, but they're not always easy to describe
in 10 words or less, they're not always high-profile, so we need
to tell people about them," he said. "A lot of it is
pride, but some of it is soundboarding, too.
"We invite guest columnists from within the faculty and
the greater engineering community to write about topics of their
own interest because we want people to give us feedback, and
to initiate that conversation someone has to talk first. Benchmarks
can be seen in this way."
With just 2,000 hard-copy issues printed, the faculty is distributing the newsletter primarily through a downloadable (Adobe Acrobat) format to industrial and community stakeholders, co-op employers, government representatives, alumni, and faculty and staff. The first issue is available at the faculty's homepage: www.engr.mun.ca.