SCRANTON, Pa. — The first floor inside Hyland Hall at the University of Scranton used to be the IT department, but now that renovations are more than halfway complete, the University gave Newswatch 16 a tour of what will soon be learning and lab space for the school's new Mechanical Engineering program.
"All of the accoutrements and instruments here are going to be new, and the labs are going to be relevant to mechanical engineering. They will be seeing several experiments relevant to fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, mechanics of material, workshops, machine shops that are all devoted to mechanical engineering," said Assistant Professor Amir Zamanian, Ph.D.
The newly renovated space will have a lounge area, faculty offices, four labs, and a machine shop. Students will be able to work on improving the design of things such as cars.
"They will actually design their projects upstairs using computer-aided drafting technology and take their plans and go downstairs in the machine shop and actually create them," said Associate Vice President of Facilities Management, James Caffrey.
Electrical engineering has been a major at the University of Scranton for years, but after two years of the mechanical engineering program, it has grown so much, it needed its own space.
"We sat down with the faculty members and with the design team and made sure they had all of the elements that they were going to need for the program," Caffrey explained.
Assistant Professor Zamanian says the space and state-of-the-art equipment inside will fully prepare students to enter to the field after graduation.
"They are excited to see the new space here that is specifically devoted for them. We have kind of separate buildings," he said.
The renovated space is expected to be complete by July and ready for students this fall.