The Faculty Engineering introduces a new name for the Department of Management Science and Engineering after five-plus decades
Expanding upon its long legacy of excellence, the Department of Management Sciences at Waterloo Engineering has undergone an official name change to better encapsulate the unit’s distinctive, interdisciplinary approach to education within the engineering field.
The introduction of the department’s new name – Management Science and Engineering (MSE) – follows more than a year of discussions, meetings and town halls with students, faculty, staff, alumni and senior engineering faculty leadership.
According to Dr. Mary Wells, dean of engineering, the department’s new title not only better highlights the distinctive training engineering students receive, and the expertise of the department’s faculty members, but also better caters to the broader engineering community’s need for professionals with interdisciplinary skills.
“There is a growing demand for technically proficient engineers who can approach organizational problems with an interdisciplinary mindset, a human-centred perspective and a strong grasp of business principles,” says Wells.
“Renaming our MSE department provides greater clarity about the importance of the management science discipline within the greater context of our profession – and what our grads can do to better engineering teams worldwide.”
Interim department chair Dr. Mark Hancock is confident that the new department name will resonate with past, present and future students on the potential the department’s programs offer graduates and their employers.
“We’re confident it’s the right time to make this change, thanks to the invaluable feedback and enthusiastic endorsement of our MSE community,” says Hancock. “I really can’t thank the representative committee enough for doing the background work involved to ensure our numerous stakeholders were engaged in every discussion throughout the process.”
Building on its fifty-four-year legacy, the Department of Management Science and Engineering will continue to offer the same quality programs – including the management engineering undergraduate program, option in management science, master’s program in management science, and research-based MASc and PhD programs – that combine the use of analytical models, data science and behavioural sciences to address complex problems across the engineering profession.
