USI Rolling Out New Manufacturing Degrees

The board of trustees at the University of Southern Indiana has approved two new engineering degrees. The Bachelor of Science in Manufacturing Engineering, which the school says would be the first of its kind in the state, and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering still need approvals from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

The school says the programs will fall under the Pott College of Science, Engineering, and Education and be the first time its Engineering Department would have named degrees within the field. Dean Scott Gordon engineering demand continues to grow in southwest Indiana and "since we established an engineering degree in 2002, enrollment in the program has grown to more than 330, with hundreds of graduates now serving business and industry in our region."

USI says only around 20 programs like the manufacturing engineering degree exist in the U.S.

During a meeting Thursday in Evansville, trustees also approved housing and meal plan rates for the 2016-2017 academic year.

School officials have also cut the ribbon on the more than $17 million Performance Center. The new facility features close to 300 seats and features including light walls with thousands of full-spectrum, LED lights and a specially-designed Steinway concert grand piano. The same New York-based designer of the campus landmark "The Cone," Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture, designed the center.