Melsa Leads Engineering

Like most college students, engineers-to-be traditionally 
have learned their lessons against the backdrop of 
competition for grades. The problem with this approach, says 
James Melsa, Iowa State's next engineering dean, is that 
engineering gets done by teams -- not competitors.

Students who have been discouraged in the classroom from 
sharing info or helping each other are at a disadvantage when 
they enter the increasingly team-oriented workplace.

Melsa believes future engineers ought to learn in teams. They 
ought to spend a lot of time learn-ing by doing -- in labs 
and industry internships. And they ought to come away from 
college with a lifelong appetite for learning -- an essential 
in the "know-ledge society" of the 21st century. Melsa will 
bring that philosophy to Iowa State's class-rooms when he 
returns to Iowa State as dean in July.

He was on campus the first time around as an undergraduate 
student. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from 
Iowa State in 1960. Melsa has been with Tellabs, a suburban 
Chicago telecommunications equipment manufacturer, for the 
past 10 years. Before that, he had 25 years of experience in 
the academic world.

Melsa succeeds David Kao, who resigned as dean last year and 
currently holds the Glenn Murphy professorship in civil and 
construction engineering at Iowa State.

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contact:  Internal Communications, (515) 294-3129
updated:  5-25-95