Engineering New Frontiers Summer Camp - the School of ...

Recent Grad Earns Top Gun Award
When Patrick Kennedy graduated in 2006 with a
bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, he
had cars on his mind. Now all he can think about
are planes.
In August, Kennedy was designated a United
States naval aviator. He completed advanced jet
flight training with Training Squadron Nine at the
Naval Air Station (NAS) in Meridian, Miss. His training
included flying the T-45C Goshawk through
several stages of flight, including instruments, and
two- and four-plane formations, weapons, lowlevel
navigation, and air combat maneuvering.
Kennedy earned the “Top Gun” award for
attaining the highest air combat maneuvering
grades in his graduating class.
Although he wanted to work in the car industry,
his timing couldn’t have been worse. “Just as I
was graduating, the American car industry was
The School of Engineering was proud to have Associate Professor of
Mechanical Engineering J. Steven Brown, Ph.D., invited to speak at a faculty
roundtable titled “What Faith Has to Do with Intellectual Life.”
Held on Jan. 18, 2011, at the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center, the
roundtable was the first of a series of inaugural year activities initiated by
CUA’s new President John Garvey. An audience of nearly 250 faculty, staff,
and students attended the discussion by six distinguished CUA faculty members,
one each from six of the university’s 12 schools. Each faculty member
spoke for approximately 10 minutes about what faith means for them as
teachers, researchers, and scholars, and how they are able to bring it to bear
in the environment of a Catholic university.
The discussion began with a question posed by Monsignor Robert S.
Sokolowski, Elizabeth Breckenridge Caldwell Professor of Philosophy,
“What does faith have to do with intellect?” Brown cited the centrality of
the incarnation of Christ in every aspect of life as changing life “from within.
Thus, ‘work’ is no longer simply ‘work’ . . . students are no longer simply
students, who perhaps sometimes annoy me or can even please me if they
are engaged with the class. Work, students, and other relationships become
concrete circumstances for dialogue with Christ. And why is this so?
Because Christ reveals himself as the meaning of what I have in front of
me. That is whatever I have in front of me is pure gift, not mine to control,
but rather it is for me to enter in relationship with and thus to discover its
destiny and its truth . . .”
Brown then tied the connection between faith and intellect specifically to
what he does at Catholic University every day. “In engineering you are ‘nobody’
without empirical data or . . . theoretical constructs based on empirical
evidence. But my question is: is this all there is to engineering? . . . I would
argue no. Because can I not design machines and computer to ‘process’
data, methodologies, facts, and mathematical manipulations? So what is the
difference? It is that engineering is always a human endeavor, and to say
going under. So I took a job in D.C. just to have a
job. I quickly realized I didn’t like sitting at a desk.
I wanted to be outside, moving.”
Then he attended an air show, and saw the
Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s Flight Demonstration
Squadron. Soon after, he called a recruiter, and,
with guidance from his brother, a Navy lieutenant,
by 2008 he was enrolled in Officers’ Candidate
School in Newport, R.I.
His engineering background gave him a leg up
on his training. “I understood the aerodynamics
of a plane. I definitely started my training with an
advantage.”
Kennedy became “carrier qualified” aboard
the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower last July. On May
28, he married his college sweetheart, Meghan
(McMahon), who graduated from CUA in 2006
with a nursing degree. He says that the only
Engineering’s J. Steven Brown Speaks at Faculty Roundtable
cuaengineer
moment that might top his first carrier landing
is “seeing Meg for the first time in her wedding
dress at the back of the church.”
Lt. j.g. Patrick Kennedy, B.M.E. 2006, at Cecil Field in
Jacksonville, Fla.
Steven Brown, Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical engineering
this implies that it is tied to God, because without God, without Christ, I
simply do not know who I am and, in fact, will be ‘less’ of a person and
thus ‘less’ of an engineer.”
In helping his students understand that faith and reason are not “enemies,”
Brown says he challenges them to “simply observe how they go about living
their daily lives. In doing so, I am convinced they will discover that, in fact,
we use the method of faith all the time.”
Brown concluded with a quote from Benedict XVI’s April 2008 address at
CUA, regarding the role and responsibility of a Catholic university. “[Catholic
identity] demands that . . . . each and every aspect of your learning communities
reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith. Only in faith can truth
become incarnate and reason truly human, capable of directing the will
along the path of freedom.”
The discussion was followed by a lively 30-minute question-and-answer
session.
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