Building on History

Lawrence Technological University campus in Southfield, Michigan.

Lawrence Technological University is educating for the future

By Sarah Kittle

Ancient cultures of the Middle East are well known for their architectural marvels. The Great Pyramids at Giza, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are three of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The first permanent structures in Mesopotamia go back as far as the 10th Millennium BC, and although they had no profession of architecture, studies based on available architectural, artistic, and written evidence shows they developed the concept of urban planning. Sumerians recorded real estate transactions and invented the courtyard.

It’s no wonder that the Middle East is often called the cradle of civilization; however, it is and has always been a place of innovative modern construction and thinking as well. Which is why Lawrence Technological University (LTU) has a partner school there.

Dr. Tarek Sobh

University of the future
Established in 1932 by Russell and George Lawrence, Michigan’s LTU was originally called Lawrence Technological Institute and enrollment was based on qualifications, with no restrictions on race, sex, or creed. The founding brothers were forward-thinkers who prioritized preparing students for leadership in the technological era, offering both day and evening classes so that working students could expand their knowledge and skills.

Offering only engineering degrees to start, programs in business and IT, architecture and design, and arts and science were added over the years. LTU was Michigan’s first completely wireless campus and is one of the few universities in the country, private or public, that focuses on STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) across multiple disciplines. That’s what drew Dr. Tarek Sobh, who was looking for a leadership position in exactly that kind of program and took over as president in January of 2022.

The CN recently had an opportunity to sit down with him and discuss the future.

Leadership material
Armed with an undergraduate degree in engineering from Alexandria University in Sobh’s homeland of Egypt, and a Masters and PhD in Computers and Information Services from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Sobh is extremely educated. You realize this within seconds of speaking with him. A roboticist by training, Sobh’s blend of education and experience make him uniquely equipped to lead a cutting-edge technological university in southeast Michigan.

“Theory and practice.” That’s the way instructors teach at LTU. Keeping in mind that everybody learns differently, hands-on opportunities such as co-ops and internships allow students to work closely with industry experts and finely hone their skills, even at the freshman level. The hire rate for LTU graduates is at the very top, with offers coming in at the underclassmen level. “I don’t worry about finding jobs for my graduating students,” says Sobh. “I worry about keeping them until they graduate!”

Sobh says the opportunities at LTU make the private tuition much more competitive; the work resources and scholarships offered are a value proposition, and students may pay most of their tuition from their own efforts. That’s the reason he is looking to recruit more Middle Eastern, including Chaldean, students. An immigrant himself, he knows the emphasis that immigrant parents place on education.

A new way to learn
The ‘interdisciplinary’ part of LTU’s description is important. When Dr. Sobh was looking to relocate and was scouting possible schools, he was “stunned” to discover that of the almost 6,000 universities and colleges across the country, less than one percent were focused on technology. Less than half of those remaining, less than half a percent, were comprehensive, meaning offering degrees in all majors. LTU, having both requirements, is on a short list that includes MIT and CalTech.

In the 21st century, the classic higher education path is no longer sustainable. College graduates are obtaining their degrees and still living in their parents’ basements. According to Dr. Sobh, the future is to graduate professionals with technological skills that apply across disciplines. “It’s not really about degrees anymore; it’s about the skills acquired during your educational journey,” he states. “We are preparing students for job titles that don’t even exist.”

The LTU president also wants his graduates to earn a living wage right away. The current job shortage, he asserts, is not from lack of workers but from lack of skills. “Applicants are not qualified for the jobs we need,” says Sobh. “We have a STEM professional shortage.”

Lawrence Tech is poised to meet that need. With tech-savvy courses that span disciplines, LTU focuses on individual and hybrid learning. An interdisciplinary STEM education is essential to tomorrow’s workforce. “If you’re not technology-trained, you’re lost,” opines Sobh.

Say ‘goodbye’ to manual labor
Dr. Sobh is eager to face the future, and some of his predictions have us excited to see what comes next. Physically strenuous jobs will go away, he says, replaced by robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). He adds that this won’t put people out of work but will instead create more jobs, and more positions to program the computers and develop new applications.

All of the technology we are currently developing is designed to improve the human condition. As far as vehicles, Sobh predicts that soon everything will become autonomous. Maybe not in our lifetime, but certainly in our children’s and their children’s lifetimes. We may not be jetting around Jetsons-style, but a little help with parallel parking will be nice.

All fields of study will be affected by technology, but maybe none more so than the discipline of medicine. It is truly a transformative field. With the current work on coding the genome, personalized medicine is part of our future. “The advances just within the health sciences field, clinically and from the point of view of understanding the human body and the brain, we’re doing it right now,” says Sobh.

Robotic surgery and 3D design may sound futuristic, but as Sobh states, we are already there.

The Middle Eastern edge
Many great architectural and engineering heights were reached throughout history by those living in the Middle East. Some of the most modern and high-tech buildings in the world today may be seen in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. One might say engineering is in the blood.

LTU has some notable alumni that come from the Chaldean community, including Jamal Kalabat, who owns Kalabat Engineering (among other engineering and design companies), and Victor Saroki of Saroki Architecture. Saroki is an LTU trustee and led the committee to find a new president. He was instrumental in recruiting Dr. Tarek Sobh, and in fact, Sobh says, “If anything goes wrong, it’s Victor’s fault.”

In all seriousness, Sobh is honored to be serving in this position and in this region and hopes to see an increase in the number of students who are descendants of Iraqi immigrants. Those of us who live in southeastern Michigan are fortunate to have such an elite school right in our own backyard.