But now the school is initiating major changes -- or at least, it is trying. Its president, Richard Koshalek, has pushed the influential institution to embrace a green-hued philosophy, rethinking its curriculum to reshape the future of transportation. The aim is to produce a new generation of graduates who will ensure that the fuel-cell future will bear little resemblance to the internal-combustion present.
...
The new head of the center's auto design department, Stewart Reed, plans to take students early next fall not to a gleaming showroom or professional design studio but to a scrap yard to observe what he calls the dark underbelly of the auto industry. The goal of the exercise, he said, is to encourage a forward-looking approach to manufacturing, recycling and design -- to scrap, in effect, the past of the auto business."
...
"They want us to think beyond the box here, and that's really good," Paz said. "But personally, I'm a little reluctant to get into that too much. I'm paying $12,000 a year, and it wasn't because of classes like that."

posted by Steve Portigal
permalink to this entry...