The Department of Mechanical Engineering, established in 1885, has 26 full-time faculty with an enrollment of 500 undergraduates and 120 graduate students. Externally funded research projects have annually averaged in excess of 2 million dollars over the past five years, with support from DOD, DOE, NSF, NASA, and a variety of industrial partners. Faculty and students are also involved with on campus centers, including the Space Power Institute, the Alabama Microelectronics Technology Center, and the Pulp and Paper Reasearch and Education Center. The curriculum stresses the fundamentals of engineering science and analysis, and the development of creative thinking in the application of the principles of engineering design. Laboratory work is concerned with experimental procedures in the field of thermo-dynamics, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer.
Emphasis is given to technical reports and to their content, form, and presentation.
Elective courses are offered to permit specialization in certain areas. Increasing emphasis is placed on computer application at all levels. The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering offers graduate students opportunities for advanced work in fluid and solid mechanics, heat transfer, aerodynamics, thermodynamics, transport phenomena, propulsion, combustion, computational mechanics, experimental mechancis, environmental engineering and systems. All of this in Oxford, MS, which is consistently, listed by USA Today as one of the top college towns in the US . The master's degree program requires a minimum of 30 credit hours, including a maximum of 9 or 6 hours of thesis or project work.