The Ohio State Lima Engineering Education and Manufacturing Center (EEMC) at Ford Lima Engine Plant Training Center will revitalize an existing center originally built in 1994 to address local training needs.

“This partnership will prepare students to immediately contribute to the 21st century manufacturing engineering jobs in our region upon graduation,” said Tim Rehner, dean and director at Ohio State Lima. “The EEMC will integrate academia and industry by bringing both systems together in one space. Students will benefit from having easy access to a resource-rich space that is informed by the best from manufacturing systems and academic discoveries.”

The 40,000-square-foot EEMC will house courses beginning in autumn 2021, furnishing critical space for an in-demand program. The renovated facility will provide students with state-of-the-art hands-on experiences involving metrology, materials, machining, assembly, robotics, industrial controls and CAD/CAM.

“We’re eager to transform this space and ultimately the advanced manufacturing landscape in this region,” said Shawn Stewart, plant manager at the Ford Lima Engine Plant. “The EEMC will establish west central and northwest Ohio as the hub for manufacturing engineers in the region and the model for manufacturing engineering education.”

Ohio State launched the BSET in 2020 on three of Ohio State’s regional campuses, including Ohio State Lima. The degree was developed to address the gap between education and industry and focuses on industrial manufacturing leadership development. The program integrates teaching and learning with industry examples, laboratory equipment and manufacturing experts as faculty and mentors.

“Having young, educated and talented engineers who design and operate our region’s world-class manufacturing plants is essential to long-term competitiveness and economic development,” said David Berger, mayor of the City of Lima and chair of the Lima Auto Task Force. “I applaud the collaboration between the Lima Ford Engine Plant and The Ohio State University at Lima, which is creating the opportunity for showcasing a unique four-year engineering program to fill critical human resource needs for our local industries.”

For more information about the BSET program, admissions process and available scholarships, visit go.osu.edu/bsetlima. Orientation begins in June and scholarships are still available for autumn 2021.

According to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, showers and thunderstorms will increase in coverage across the region today. A tornado watch is in effect for parts of central Ohio including Columbus, Marion and Newark until 9 tonight. A flash flood watch for portions of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky is now in effect through Tuesday evening.

Heavy rainfall is likely. In addition, a strong or severe storm will be possible this afternoon into this evening.

Wind gusts exceeding 35 miles per hour are possible. Expected rainfall totals for the Columbus and regional campuses over the next 48 hours are as follows:

• Columbus/Newark: 2.5 inches
• Marion/Lima: 2 inches
• Mansfield: 1.5 inches
• Wooster: 1 inch

Emergency Management will continue to monitor the Olentangy River throughout this weather event. Low-lying areas on the Columbus campus that are susceptible to flooding may experience temporary flash flooding over the next 36 hours.

Follow @OSU_EMFP on Twitter or check emergency.osu.edu for any updates.

Students, faculty and staff can monitor the current campus conditions online. The website includes a live weather camera, updated weather conditions and current forecasts.

Ohio State is a Storm Ready University: https://www.weather.gov/StormReady

In three studies, researchers found that feelings of preparedness in one area made people more confident in their beliefs about something completely different – whether those thoughts were positive or negative.

The findings suggest that people may sometimes feel confident about a belief or decision for totally unrelated reasons, said Patrick Carroll, lead author of the study and associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University at Lima.

For example, you may have been leaning slightly toward support of one candidate in a local election when you started preparing for a job interview. Once you’re prepared for the interview and are feeling confident, you may find that you’re suddenly sure about your support for that candidate.

“You’re going to feel a general sense of confidence as a result of being prepared for the job interview,” Carroll said.

“And when you think about which candidate to support, you may start to feel confidence in your thoughts about that issue – not realizing that the confidence is actually coming from your preparations for the job interview.”

The research was published online recently in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

One of the studies involved 80 college students who were told they were going to be participating in two separate experiments.

First, participants learned about what they were told was a new proposal at their university for funding research on genetically modified foods. (There was actually no such proposal.) The proposal listed major benefits of genetically modified foods, including environmental protection and crop growth.

Half of the participants were told to list three positive thoughts about increasing funding for this research, while the other half listed three negative thoughts.

All the participants were told they would then be taking part in a second study on the role of self-presentation in interpersonal attraction. As part of this, they used a computer to write down what they thought were their greatest strength, greatest weakness and most important life goal.

They were told this profile would be evaluated by an opposite-sex student in the next room who would provide feedback and indicate how much they would like to meet them in person later. (There was actually no such person.)

After participants sent their presentation, they all received a message on their screen very quickly saying that their partner had already made their evaluation.

Half were told on the screen that the early return didn’t mean anything as far as their evaluation. But the other half were told that an early return indicated a worse evaluation.

“This warning of a likely negative evaluation allowed participants some time to prepare for it,” Carroll said. “The other participants had no reason to prepare.”

Afterward, all participants were asked to reflect on their thoughts on the proposal to fund research on genetically modified foods and answered several questions.

Results showed that the students who had to prepare themselves for the bad news in the second experiment reacted differently to their thoughts on the unrelated research funding than those who didn’t have to prepare.

If they generated positive thoughts earlier, those who prepared had a more positive attitude toward the research funding than those who didn’t prepare. And if they generated negative thoughts, those who prepared had more negative attitudes than those who didn’t prepare.

“Preparedness didn’t change people’s opinions about the research funding. But it did validate the thoughts they already had, whether those thoughts were positive or negative,” Carroll said.

“And of course, their feelings of preparedness had nothing to do with the issue of research funding for genetically modified foods.”

Participants who had prepared for the bad news also indicated they had more confidence in their thoughts about the research funding proposal, compared to those who didn’t prepare.

“Being prepared in one area gave people more confidence in their thoughts in a completely different area, and this helped strengthen their attitudes,” he said.

Two other studies confirmed these findings, using different designs and subject matters. While in the study discussed above participants prepared themselves mentally for bad news, in another study, the researchers had participants write down strategies on how to handle different situations posed in the experiment.

“In different studies, we looked at different ways of being prepared,” he said. “Ultimately, preparedness is about knowing how to respond to future outcomes.”

The findings suggest people should think more closely about how they arrive at important decisions in their lives, Carroll said.

“We sometimes feel like we’re leaning in one direction on a decision and then something changes and we feel more convinced about the choice,” he said.

“It is worth considering what caused that shift. Your newfound confidence may be coming from somewhere you aren’t aware of.”

Co-authors on the study were Richard Petty, professor of psychology at Ohio State; Jed Ketcham, a former Ohio State student; and Pablo Briñol, professor of psychology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain.

The university’s Board of Trustees voted in May to approve the bachelor of science in engineering technology with a concentration in manufacturing. In partnership with the College of Engineering, the degree will be offered beginning in autumn 2020 on the Lima, Mansfield and Marion campuses, and tentatively is set to begin on the Newark campus in autumn 2023.

The degree program is designed to produce highly skilled college graduates with broad training in manufacturing engineering technology who are prepared for plant management roles. A resurgence of manufacturing, Ohio’s largest economic sector, has increased demand for college graduates with this combination of skills. Additional concentrations within the major may be added later.

“The collaborative effort to build this program is a perfect example of living one aspect of our land-grant mission, to fuel Ohio’s leading industries like manufacturing with skilled, career-ready talent,” said College of Engineering Dean David Williams.

Engineering faculty conducted extensive research of the Ohio manufacturing industry, visiting plants and seeking engineers’ input as they designed project-based coursework emphasizing hands-on skills and technological know-how in mechanical and electrical processes, industrial robotics, and project and change management.

The Ohio Manufacturing Institute (OMI) at Ohio State also engaged industry focus groups across the state and analyzed federal data to determine the characteristics needed to become an engineering technologist in today’s manufacturing environment, said OMI Executive Director Kathryn Kelley.

“Our conversations with manufacturers and the Ohio Manufacturers Association gravitated to a consensus,” she said. “They want and need these graduates.”

The degree program will expose students to a variety of engineering technology fields and provide training in systems-based thinking and problem solving, proficiency in professional communication and business terminology, and continuous improvement.

This addition to the regional campus curriculum reflects Ohio State’s commitment to educate Ohio citizens and support community needs, said W. Randy Smith, vice provost for academic programs.

“The faculty and academic leaders who developed the plan for this new undergraduate major did a great job of addressing the needs of our students and Ohio’s workforce,” Smith said. “This innovative educational opportunity will prepare students to be leaders of industry and provide businesses with the talent they need to thrive. This program shows how Ohio State is continually focused on serving students and the state economy.”