Conference Welcome.....

ASEE SE President – Cecelia M. Wigal

Welcome to the 2008 ASEE Southeastern Section (SE) Annual Conference. This year's focus on “ Building Bridges: Making the Connections that Facilitate Engineering Education ” emphasizes ASEE's and the SE section's awareness of how engineering education can benefit from connecting with the environment around us. The Keynote address by Mr. Jim Phillips, Managing Director, Pinnacle Investments , will jump start our conference and the discussion of these connections. Dr. Sarah A Rajala, our Awards Banquet speaker and ASEE President-Elect will give fuel to our thinking more about these connections. The workshop on Sunday on GIS in engineering education addresses another connection that may interest many of you.

I want to express my sincere thanks to the Site Committee at the University of Memphis for hosting this conference. I understand what it takes to pull an event such as this together and I greatly appreciate the time and effort they have dedicated to making it a success. I also want to thank all of the officers and members of the Section who have worked on the conference technical program. The conference could not be a success without those of you who planned the design of the technical program, participated in the peer-review of the manuscripts, coordinated the workshop, organized the student poster session, prepared the conference Book of Abstracts and CD-ROM, reviewed award nominations, and volunteered to moderate technical sessions. You played a major role in providing a conference that offers something useful for anyone interested in engineering education.

I also want to express a special welcome to the undergraduate and graduate students who are participating in the conference technical sessions and/or poster session. Thank you for your important contribution to the conference.

I look forward to this conference every year because I learn so much from you, my ASEE SE Section colleagues. The variety of ideas you bring to share at this conference help me to improve what I do in and out of the classroom. I hope you recognize, that as you share what you have researched, learned, and experienced, you are building bridges and making those connections that facilitate the education of our present and future students, ourselves, and those who follow us. This meeting would not be the same without your participation.

I hope you have a very enjoyable and meaningful time at the conference and in Memphis . I look forward to meeting you as we discuss building our bridges.

Cecelia M. Wigal, Ph.D., P.E.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
ASEE SE President

2008 ASEE SE Conference Site Welcome