The Center for Computational Science and Engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy

There is a strong and increasing desire for more multidisciplinary activities within mathematical, scientific and engineering education. This has found particularly strong voice in the rise of graduate programs in Computational Science and Engineering. The growth of such programs and centers is only just beginning to take root in the undergraduate curriculum. In this paper, the authors describe the proposal, founding and development of a Center for CSE at an undergraduate school. The center grew from an initial proposal to planning and running its first multidisciplinary course in one year. In the paper, they describe the chronology of this process as well as giving some pointers on how to go about creating the right environment for such a development in undergraduate colleges. The development of a special team-taught multidisciplinary course is also described