The University’s department of industrial engineering and the department of general engineering will combine into one department following a unanimous vote in the Urbana-Champaign Senate today. The merger will enable the new department of industrial and enterprise systems engineering to compete more effectively against top-ranked industrial engineering programs nationwide.

The University’s college of Engineering is one of the nation’s elite engineering schools, currently ranked fourth among 300 engineering programs nationwide, according to U.S. News and World Report.

The industrial engineering program has always been relatively small and has had less success in rankings, according to a proposal sponsored by former Engineering Dean David Daniel and given to the Urbana-Champaign Senate Committee on Educational Policy. The department has eight faculty members whereas number one-ranked Georgia Tech’s industrial engineering department has 61 faculty members. Most of the top 10 universities in industrial engineering have more than 20 faculty members on their staffs.

The reorganization immediately will create an industrial and enterprise systems engineering department with about 24 faculty members, according to the proposal.

Current Engineering students will experience no disruption in course work as there will be no immediate change in degree programs.

Jeff Ball, junior in Engineering, said there are already many industrial engineering students enrolled in his classes.

“There must be a lot of crossover anyway,” Ball said.

He said general engineering is misunderstood.

“It provides broad coverage of important aspects of engineering that helps in consulting work,” Ball said.

Most universities don’t offer the same course work under the name of general engineering, he said.

“We do stuff (in general engineering) that other disciplines don’t do,” Ball said. “And we do a secondary field of study that’s like a minor.”

A new program, bachelor of science in industrial and enterprise systems engineering, will combine qualities of two current degrees in separate tracks.

“I think it makes more sense because many of the (industrial engineering) and (general engineering) classes are the same anyway,” said Jason Fitterer, a junior in Engineering.

All faculty members from both the general engineering department and the industrial engineering department are being invited to join the new department. No faculty member will lose his or her position as a result of the reorganization.

In 2003, the dean of Engineering formed the General Engineering-Industrial Engineering Reorganization Committee to research several options and determine if reorganization should be recommended. A faculty meeting provided input to the Urbana-Champaign Senate Executive Committee, which voted 12-1 in favor of reorganization during an April meeting.

Abbas Aminmansour, chair of the Senate Committee on Educational Policy, said the public hearing had good turnout and discussion, and the proposal was passed unanimously. The dean has the authority to seek reorganization, Aminmansour said.

Faculty from the departments of industrial engineering and of general engineering disagreed about the specifics of reorganization. University associate professor emeritus H. George Friedman said he favored a vote of the entire Engineering faculty instead of a decision from the dean, although he agreed with the outcome.

“It’s been on hold for over three years,” Aminmansour said. “It’s time to bring this to a head and vote. … Now’s not the time to get hung up with procedures.”

He also said the hiring of new faculty members has been delayed as well as the search for a new department head.