Quality and Community

Quality and Community

The Story of Minnesota's Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

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    Paperback
    ISBN 9781954780286
    196 pages
    6 x 9 inches
    Publisher: University of Minnesota
    Published: 09/06/2022



Quality and Community traces the 100 year history of a department that has played a major role in the evolution of chemical engineering from an applied field defined and structured primarily by its services to the chemical and petroleum industries to an engineering science whose analytical framework allows it to contribute to a broad range of investigations in medicine, molecular biology, materials science, data science and the environment. The book is structured around history and anecdote, personalities and organization, affect as well as effect. Woven into the story are a number of themes: The obligations and opportunities of a department that is part of a public, land grant, research university; building an effective and flexible multidisciplinary unit; integrating teaching and research; creating and sustaining a vibrant academic community.

About the Author

Ken Keller came to Minnesota CEMS in the fall of 1964 during the last phase of the Amundson hiring spree. He has maintained a connection to the Department in one way or another since then, and has always considered it his academic home although he has also held a variety of other positions, both within the University and in other institutions. In addition to being Department Head for two years, he served as Associate Dean and Acting Dean of the Graduate School, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the 12th President of the University. For a decade he also held an appointment as the Charles M. Denny Chair in the University's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Following his presidency, he served as Senior Fellow and Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and, subsequently, was Director of the European campus of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy.


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