A Colorful Collaboration

The pavilion stands on a patch of grass on Hofstra’s North Campus – a dazzling, 24-foot-wide kaleidoscope of acrylic, stone, and plywood. It was designed and built by local high schoolers, Hofstra engineering students, and young professionals as part of a hands-on program to train the next generation of engineers and architects.

Known as Building the Next Engineers, the program was organized by the Fred DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Science and Scale Rule, an international collaboration that promotes diversity, design, and engineering through experiential learning and community engagement in projects.

The Hofstra project brought together high school students from Long Island and Queens, undergraduate engineering students from the DeMatteis School, and volunteers from the New York City offices of global architecture firm Grimshaw and engineering/ design firm schlaich bergermann partner.

It was coordinated by Dr. Edward Segal, associate professor of civil engineering at the DeMatteis School and Dan Bergsagel, director of Scale Rule and a structural engineer at schlaich bergermann partner. It was made possible by the SEI Futures Fund in collaboration with the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Foundation.

“The point is to expose students through hands-on projects in architecture and engineering while they are still in high school,” Dr. Segal said. “And it gives our Hofstra engineering students an opportunity to put what they are learning into practice, and to be mentors to younger students, even as they are being mentored themselves.”

About 30 high school and Hofstra students participated in the spring concept and design workshops. During the spring workshops, the high school students worked under the supervision of young engineering and architecture professionals and Hofstra students to come up with a design for a pavilion to be constructed on campus, based on a specific set of guidelines.

2016

2018

Began Industry Speaker Series

U.S. News and World Report – ranked 47th among best undergraduate engineering programs among non-PhD granting schools

School of Engineering named for visionary builder Fred DeMatteis

Cybersecurity Competition started

ASPIRE program begins

2014 2017

Began $12M facilities renovation School of Engineering was formed (300 students)

2015

Co-op program begins Inauguration of the Center for Innovation

Started offering Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering programs

Initiative with FIRST Robotics

$1.6M National Science Foundation (NSF) grant –STEM+C (interdisciplinary program to introduce hands-on coding and computer modeling to economically and ethnically diverse group of early high school students)

Started offering Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering