Fresno Pacific University is launching high-tech education in a new and exciting direction.
Beginning in August 2016-17, FPU will offer a major in software engineering. Fresno Pacific will be the first institution of higher learning in California’s San Joaquin Valley to educate students about how computers work and how work can use computers.
FPU’s software engineering graduates will possess not only technical knowledge. They also will know how to talk to the people on the factory floor or in the corporate office, identify their computing needs and make computers obey.
Software engineering classes will take place in a downtown Fresno building that is home to both established and developing tech-sector businesses. Bitwise Industries South Stadium also provides space for training programs.
Karen Cianci, Ph.D., dean of FPU’s School of Natural Sciences, is excited about students learning in the Bitwise environment. “Hopefully, it knocks down the division between the ivory tower and the work world,” she says.
“I tell students there are two things you need—knowledge in your major and a professional network,” Cianci adds. “You need to meet people already working in your field. If your goal is to be a computer entrepreneur, you’re going to meet those people in our program at Bitwise. How beautiful is that?”
Simon Sultana is the FPU faculty member developing the software engineering program. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and two master’s degrees from Wayne State University in Detroit—one in electrical engineering, the other in business administration. Sultana is now a doctoral candidate at Old Dominion University in Virginia.
“As undergraduate engineering students, we studied theory, theory, theory,” Sultana says. “You knew the theory behind electricity and physics, but you didn’t know how to go out and conceive a solution to address a human need and then develop that product, design it, implement it and operate it.”
Sultana saw the disconnect during the nearly 10 years he worked as an engineer at Chrysler in Michigan. On the vehicle assembly floor, an engineer steeped in theory would try to partner with an assembly supervisor confronted with the practical demands of building vehicles.
“The engineer would try to explain something, and it would sound like gibberish to the person on the other end,” he says. Sultana had an easier time. “I was gifted, by God I guess, with the ability to talk to people and get to the bottom of solutions and be an intermediary.”
That will be the goal for FPU’s software engineering graduates as they learn to balance communication with theory and application. “I talked to local industry leaders,” Sultana says, “and one thing that kept coming up was the need for employees who understand how to develop software and know how to work with other people, how to communicate their ideas and how to communicate with a customer.”
Launching the software engineering program satisfies Cianci’s goal to revive a computer-oriented major at FPU. After she met Sultana and learned of his credentials and background, Cianci said it was if “God dropped Simon out of the sky.”
In December 2015, FPU faculty and administrators approved the software engineering program, which will offer both a bachelor of arts and bachelor of science. The latter will have a heavier mathematics component.
Students in the new program will get experience meeting customers’ needs in their classes. The curriculum will include two semesters of projects—students will volunteer one semester for a nonprofit organization, such as a church or school, and one semester for a business to develop a needed software product.
The projects might include designing a website to gather data, collecting feedback from customers or connecting online customer orders with inventory and then process payments. “We don’t want to have classes where we’re talking about something as an abstract concept only and never do anything with it,” Sultana says. “We are going to push learning by doing.”
Fresno Pacific’s already solid reputation will be enhanced by the software engineering program. “When we think of FPU grads, we traditionally think of great teachers and excellent business people,” says Bethany E. Mily, executive director of Geekwise Academy, the technology and training division of Bitwise Industries. “With technology being the fastest-growing industry on the planet, I think we’ll soon be looking to FPU for innovators and mentors in technology.”