Jane Fraser, the department chair of engineering at Colorado State University-Pueblo, is part of a team going on a trip to Vietnam. Photo courtesy of http://ceeps.colostate-pueblo.edu/
Jane Fraser, the department chair of engineering at Colorado State University-Pueblo, is part of a team going on a trip to Vietnam.
Fraser has been hired by a consulting company called JBS/Aguirre, a company responsible for a mid-term evaluation of the Higher Engineering Education Alliance program, also known as HEEAP.
One main goal that the team has on their trip is to transform engineering education in Vietnam from a theory-based to a more active state project based model.
“I’m excited to go with the team, learn all that I am able to learn and help with while I’m in Vietnam,” Fraser said.
Fraser is the only professor from CSU-Pueblo that will be in attendance on the trip to Vietnam.
“I am on sabbatical which makes it a lot easier for me to accept this position,” Fraser said.
There will be two other people from the U.S. that will be joining Fraser in the journey to Vietnam. The other two are experts in techniques and not engineering. There will also be two from Vietnam that she will be joining when she gets there.
Fraser will be spending three weeks total in Vietnam with this position. To get ready for her trip, Fraiser will need to take up to four medical shots just to get prepared, since she will be visiting a different country.
While in Vietnam, she will be staying in the city Ho Chi Minh, a modern city.
Fraser said she is excited to try the traditions and activities that will be going on in Vietnam. She read that in Vietnam, the people are very warm and nice to many U.S. citizens.
While she is in Vietnam, the people of Vietnam will be celebrating “Reunification Day.” This is a public holiday celebrated in Vietnam, and is the day the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon on April 30, 1975.
“I’m excited to see what that is going to be like and what it has to offer while we are there,” Fraser said.
Fraser has been teaching for 30 years; she taught 19 years at Purdue and Ohio State and moved to Colorado in 1998, and began teaching in the state shortly after. She is a professor of engineering but her specialty is quality engineering.
“I just love my job and what I get out of it, it is just an awesome experience overall,” she said. “At a smaller university like CSU-Pueblo, us professors, we make a difference and that is some that I love the most about teaching.”
When Fraser isn’t at the university teaching, she lives up around Hatchet Ranch, in Pueblo, Colo., on 53 acres down a 10-mile dirt road, and is usually hiking.
“I go on about a hike two times a day if the weather is allowing that day. It is just gorgeous out there,” she stated.