AME faculty Li Song and Takumi Hawa recently joined a group of faculty from engineering schools throughout the Big 12 at the San Diego Naval Base in San Diego, to discuss the Big 12 Engineering Consortium while embarked on an eight-hour excursion in a nuclear-powered submarine.

The Big 12 Engineering Consortium is a course-sharing program created in 2007 that provides increased access for engineering students throughout the Big 12 to high-demand engineering fields by combining the strengths of Big 12 engineering programs.

The Consortium’s new Nuclear Engineering Program addresses the need for engineering graduates who have an understanding of nuclear engineering. The program allows undergraduate engineering majors from Big 12 universities to study nuclear engineering through fully online courses from the universities within the conference offering nuclear engineering degrees – Iowa State University, Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, University of Kansas, University of Missouri-Columbia, and the University of Texas at Austin. The program will give students access to the most knowledgeable faculty on nuclear engineering in the Big 12, and is part of the sharing-to-gain philosophy becoming increasingly prevalent within institutions of higher learning.

While aboard the submarine, the group of faculty ventured 20 miles out to sea, reaching a depth of 600 feet at a steep 25-degree descent. As part of the submarine crew, Song, Hawa and the other faculty members completed fire training, where they learned how to be a part of the sub’s firefighting crew – no one is exempt from this important job, not even professors. They also endured a pipe burst simulation, learning how to fix busted pipes in the frigid deep-sea water.

To learn more about the Big 12 Engineering Consortium, visit www.big12engg.org.