On Friday, October 13, Reunion & Homecoming weekend, alumni and visitors will gain unique access to students and faculty researchers through the “Passport to the New Polytechnic.” Attendees will learn firsthand about Rensselaer’s innovative pedagogy, and how our interdisciplinary education is helping to solve the global challenges.
The Passport to Rensselaer will guide attendees through an immersive experience that will demonstrate the exciting paradigm of The New Polytechnic—seminars, tours, research presentations, and more, showcasing how students and faculty collaborate across disciplines, across sectors, and across global regions to harness the power of advanced tools and technologies to address the complex global challenges and opportunities of today.
The Passport events will be held in each of Rensselaer’s five schools in various classrooms or labs throughout the afternoon (1-5 p.m.).
School of Architecture
Architecture is situated at a unique moment in history where a convergence of global interests demand critical and innovative responses. Faced with an ever-increasing focus on creating new forms of renewable energy, smart grids and coastal city solutions, computational engines, immersive environments, and ecologically sound building components for the 21st century, the profession has inherited a wealth of transdisciplinary priorities that call out for a new era of creative inquiry and engagement. In response to a transdisciplinary approach to education, the School of Architecture is uniquely structured as a constellation of pre-eminent research areas with the capacity to realign in favor of a variety of potential collaborative arrangements. The student of architecture resides within a dynamic and inspired interdisciplinary environment prepared to take on the many exciting challenges facing our profession today.
School of Engineering
Guided by Amos Eaton’s vision of “applying science to the common purposes of life,” and embodying the essence of The New Polytechnic, the School of Engineering is at the forefront of cutting-edge research and modern technological education. It is a place where faculty and students from multiple disciplines collaborate, discover, and innovate with the goal of solving the grand challenges facing humanity, from human health and mitigation of diseases, and energy and the environment, to infrastructure resilience, stewardship, and sustainability. Faculty are energized by their role in educating the leaders of tomorrow, with a student body that represents gender, race, geographical, socioeconomic, and intellectual diversity. Classes and labs enrich the rigorous training in engineering and sciences by immersion in humanities, arts, and social sciences, and complement the hands-on learning in laboratories and maker-thinker spaces with real-world skills of leadership, teamwork, communication, and engagement with local, national, and global communities. Indeed, through pedagogical innovations focused on experiential learning, bringing cutting-edge research and technology into classrooms, and entrepreneurship, we are defining and leading the 21st-century technological education.
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) cultivates the essential characteristics of The New Polytechnic by preparing students for the lifelong pursuit of excellence. Pedagogical innovation motivates knowledge across disciplines, inspires leadership, and instills multicultural awareness. Rooted in the centrality of the humanities, arts, and social sciences in an increasingly complex world, HASS research has global impact through rigorous multifaceted inquiry. Combining teaching and research, the Corridor of Creativity—a suite of contiguous fabrication facilities, research spaces, classroom spaces, independent student project work spaces, computing facilities, and staff offices—demonstrates how the school is an integral partner in realizing the vision of The New Polytechnic. These facilities support research and educational programs and student-led entrepreneurial endeavors, especially for creative, interdisciplinary, and innovation-centered project work.
Lally School of Management
The Lally School of Management exemplifies the qualities of The New Polytechnic by engaging in education and research to address global challenges that complement the advances taking place at Rensselaer. The school moves beyond the boundaries of traditional business education by emphasizing the centrality of technology to the future of business and educating students in the intellectual agility, multicultural sophistication, and global view needed to inspire and manage it. Lally engenders in its students a level of familiarity with the scientific and information systems principles and practices that now pervade technology-based organizations. Faculty celebrate the increasing importance of data management and analysis in business life by preparing students through rigorous education in quantitative analysis. Inherently interdisciplinary linkages across business disciplines and connecting business to engineering, scientific, architectural, and humanities-inspired sources of knowledge generation demonstrate the value of The New Polytechnic in action.
School of Science
The School of Science discovers answers to humanity’s most compelling questions, defines new fields of study, and invents solutions to global challenges. Moving seamlessly across disciplinary boundaries, the school brings together the best of all fields in order to advance the cause of science. Discovery and application of new scientific concepts and technologies are the core goals for the School of Science. Strengths in data analytics, materials at the nanoscale, Internet of Things, renewable energy, and data-driven environmental science are core enabling technologies underpinning the global challenged-linked research thrusts that drive The Rensselaer Plan 2024 and play an integral role in the vision of The New Polytechnic.
To view the full weekend schedule, go to http://alumni.rpi.edu/s/1225/RH/index-4col.aspx?sid=1225&gid=1&pgid=4255. For questions, contact the Office of Alumni Relations.