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Sure, times are hard. Wallets might be thinner than this time last year. But the college’s Global Education Initiatives are continuing to create affordable opportunities for students to connect with the emerging global community. And our students are ready for the adventure.

Welcome Home For four weeks this summer, 20 Auburn engineers participated in a course called Engineering, Technology and Society, taught by professional Spanish engineers – in English – at Pamplona Learning Spanish Institute (PLSI) in Pamplona, Spain. From June 1-27, they worked on engineering projects related to their particular interest and studied basic Spanish language, engineering terms and culture. Four days a week they attended classroom sessions, spending a fifth day on-site in a lab setting related to their project topic.

Earlier this spring, students in Auburn’s Business- Engineering-Technology (B-E-T) class traveled to India and the UK to work on projects with students from local universities. B-E-T students Anthony Caltabiano and Katie Captain visited the Indian Institute of Technology- Delhi (IITD) with mechanical engineering faculty member Pradeep Lall to develop a low-cost GPS navigation system with elements of global positioning and inertial navigation. B-E-T students Pat Awbrey, Alison Barksdale, Mike Marsocci, Caitlyn Rummer and Blake Wager went to the University of Plymouth, UK, with Charlotte Sutton, a professor of management in the College of Business, to create a continuous tire pressure adjustment system for passenger vehicles, which maintains the manufacturerspecified pressure by using a pressurizing system incorporated in the wheel spokes.

Reaching across borders More than 1.4 billion people live below the poverty line in the developing world and many lack adequate housing, transportation, clean water and sanitation. Auburn Engineering students are addressing these needs with the formation of an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapter, which partners with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through education and implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while promoting new dimensions of experience for engineers, engineering students and similarly motivated non-engineers.

Every EWB program begins with a trip to the proposed location to perform a community needs assessment and identify priorities. During the following years, the chapter returns to implement the project, train the local community and develop the financial structure to ensure the project can be properly maintained and operated, working with communities for a minimum of five years. Auburn’s group is now meeting regularly and working with the national organization to identify its first project.

“EWB-USA’s unique grassroots approach requires that all program proposals come directly from the community in need,” says Steve Duke, chemical engineering faculty member and faculty adviser to the group. “This increases the likelihood of success by ensuring that the needs addressed by our chapters are being identified and driven by the community.”

In 2009 Auburn EWB will begin work on projects with local programs such as the Boys and Girls Club and Reading is Fundamental. In 2010, the group hopes to kick off its first spring break project in the Gulf Coast region and begin international work, most likely in Bolivia.