Engineering Education “Today in History” Blog: Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial
by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (862) · October 31st, 2009 · Add a Comment
Today in History – October 31, 1941 – Mount Rushmore was completed. The Mount Rushmore project was an incredible feat of engineering and an integration of art and technology. It is the largest work of art on earth with a face that is 60 feet high. Although the workers regularly used dynamite and heavy equipment, it was constructed with no deaths and very few injuries. See the Engineering Pathway’s related resources in art and technology.
The original visionaries of Mount Rushmore had hoped to carve out local heros and were considering General George Armstrong Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody. The local Lakota Indians protested, as did the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, a student of French artist Auguste Rodin. The four presidential figures that make up Mount Rushmore were selected to “create an eternal reminder of the birth, growth, preservation and development of a nation dedicated to democracy and the pursuit of individual liberty.”
Meanwhile Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear worked with sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (below right) to produce an even larger sculpture honoring the legendary Lakota leader Crazy Horse and his culture. Construction is ongoing at the Crazy Horse Memorial and Museum. See the Engineering Pathway’s related resources for Native American Engineers and Scientists.
Tags: General Engineering, Engineering Science
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