Engineering Participates in the New First Year Messina Program

Dr. Suzanne Keilson has teamed with Dr. Frederick Bauerschmidt, Theology, for a Messina course pairing of Engineering and Theology under the theme of “The Visionary”.

This program is exciting for both faculty and students and we are learning a lot as the program rolls out and ramps up.  You might not think that Engineering and Theology go together, but looking at the sacred spaces of cathedrals, ancient and modern, is a wonderful way to enter into questions of both engineering and theology and their overlap.  For example, the catenary arch, like the St. Louis Arch, is a beautiful minimal structure that serves symbolic purposes.  The medieval cathedral took advantage of the stone and technologies of the time to evolve from rounded arches to the more pointed Gothic ogive shape that gives the Gothic cathedral its characteristic ascent skyward.”