Mission Statement
The mission of the Electrical Engineering department is threefold:
To provide to our students an undergraduate education of the highest quality.
To educate graduate students in research, scholarship, and the intellectual life.
To contribute to the vitality of the Catholic intellectual community which constitutes the core of the University.
Electronic technologies have had a profound impact on our
society and culture. Electrical Engineering employs mathematics and the
physical sciences to advance these technologies. Its practitioners must
be accomplished in the relevant fields of pure science and mathematics.
Engineering is an application of human creativity to practical problems.
As such, while its standards and modes of inquiry are basically those
of the physical sciences, it is also linked to human affairs and the requirements
of practical wisdom.
The undergraduate program is marked by rigor and a breadth of preparation
sufficient to prepare a practicing engineer for a lifetime of creative
work and ongoing technical learning. Substantial time is devoted to acquiring
a basic knowledge of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The latter half
of the curriculum focuses on the fundamentals of electrical engineering,
the various subfields within electrical engineering, and the challenges
of engineering design. At every stage we seek to stress understanding
and insight over simple application of technique; we want to produce graduates
who are critical, original, and independent thinkers. Throughout, the
undergraduate experience is enriched in important ways by courses in the
humanities and social sciences. The liberal arts tradition at Notre Dame
plays an important role in the education of engineering students. Our
goal is to produce young men and women who are technically proficient,
articulate, reflective, and conversant with the fundamental questions
faced by humankind.
Graduate education in electrical engineering at Notre Dame is aimed at
producing researchers who can make original scholarly contributions to
our field. The graduate program emphasizes the doctoral degree. The doctorate
is a research degree for which the central educational experience is that
of collaborative research done with the thesis advisor. The relationship
of graduate student to advisor is an intense mentoring relationship, aimed
at forming a young scholar in the intellectual craft of original research.
While this process is focused primarily on the technical aspects of research,
the student is also invited into the broader intellectual life of the
University. Though all graduate students will presumably go on to research
positions, we hope that a significant number will be attracted to a life
of teaching and research in a university context.
Each faculty member contributes to the department as a teacher, researcher,
and colleague. As teachers, we are dedicated to providing a high-quality
educational experience for our undergraduate students, an experience which
challenges them intellectually and develops in them the habits of mind
necessary for a life of learning. Our teaching of graduate students involves
committing large amounts of time and energy to the one-on-one mentoring
of young researchers. We view the fact that their apprenticeship is carried
out in the environment of a vibrant Catholic intellectual community as
one of the distinct advantages which our department has to offer. We seek
to establish high standards for research and scholarship and believe that
the substance of our research makes a contribution to the advancement
of culture and the growth of human understanding. Furthermore, we do not
pursue our roles as teachers and researchers in isolation from the rest
of the University. We share with our colleagues in other departments the
desire to build a great Catholic university in which the life of the mind
and the life of faith can coexist and enrich each other.