CALIFORNIA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY
Dr. Jong-Wha Bai, assistant professor of civil engineering, demonstrates a shaking table test for students that shows the seismic vulnerability of buildings.
Dr. Anthony Donaldson, dean of CBU’s College of Engineering, believes teaching is a high calling. “Time spent in developing curriculum is time spent helping people achieve their calling,” he said. “Having a Christian engineering program is not just having Christians on faculty, though that is an essential first piece.” As founding dean, Donaldson knows first hand that it takes a unique combination of perspectives to be effective in teaching. “It’s not only what you teach,” he said,” but also how you teach and who 1 0 I 11
you get involved as partners in the process.” Donaldson arrived in 2006 as founding dean of what was then the School of Engineering. The program has grown from 53 students and one faculty member in the fall of 2007 to more than 370 students and 22 full-time faculty and staff in the fall of 2012. Degrees are offered in civil engineering, construction management, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and engineering (with concentrations in bioengineering, business, global applications, pre-law and pre-med). Degree programs in bioengineering,
chemical engineering and software engineering are planned to begin in the fall of 2013, and graduate programs in software and civil engineering are in the planning stages. One of the College’s distinctives is that both “excellent” and “average” students have opportunities for growth. “Though we have our share, the true test of an excellent program is not how many A+ students are sent on to top graduate schools,” Donaldson said. “Rather, can a program take an a C to B average student and produce a very good engineer? Students can achieve amazing things when their strengths