11/30/2009 10:00:00 PM
Column: ERAU is one of area's 'best-kept secrets'
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 | By Jerry Jackson
Courier columnist |
It's a treasure by any measure. That would be Prescott's Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The scope of the treasure is not generally known by many, though, so Ray Newton - who calls the university one of the area's "best-kept secrets" - helped to allay the lack of knowledge by arranging a tour of the campus and flight line on Nov. 21 for a church group.
And the outpouring of some 60 residents was treated to a wonderful eyeful and earful focusing on our own crown jewel of aviation enhancement.
After a hearty buffet-style breakfast in the university's dining hall, the group gravitated to its Haas Chapel, where Bill Thompson, director of alumni and external relations for the Arizona campus, provided an overview of the workings and mission of the school.
ERAU was founded a mere 22 years after the flight of the Wright Brothers by "a barnstormer and a businessman" who got together in 1926, Thompson noted, and gained university status in 1970, with its Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott sites representing its only residential campuses. Learning centers, however, are sprinkled worldwide. The Prescott campus came into being in 1978 on the Willow Creek Road site that was home to Prescott College when that institution was founded in the mid-'60s.
Thompson stressed that ERAU is "more than just a flight school," ranking at the top of the educational heap in aerospace science and engineering. The private co-ed institution has an enrollment of approximately 1,600 students, with the ratio being about 5-1 leaning to the male populace. The gals are gaining on the guys, though, as the ratio in the early '80s was 18-1.
Some 5 percent of the student population is international, Thompson pointed out, while emphasizing that no ERAU-trained pilot was involved with the 9-11 attacks in 2001. After the attacks, he said investigators thought that the school might have trained at least one of the hijackers. An investigation confirmed, however, that a former student shared the same name as one of the hijackers, but that person was still alive and had no connection to Al-Qaeda.
ERAU's top-caliber students "get their hands dirty - that's what they like to do" - Thompson noted, as they pursue their studies in mechanical and electrical engineering, computer sciences, aviation environmental science and various other fields. At roughly $40,000 per year, the education opportunity ranks "in the mid-range" for such studies. And there is "lots of money available" by various means, he said. Veterans, for example, can attend at no cost, with the VA and Embry-Riddle picking up the tab.
Student Stephen Rocha was my mini-group's guide to the flight line and flight simulator center at the Prescott airport, and he provided an interesting and informative overview of the operation there. The young man, who has some 160 flight hours under his belt, said ERAU's flight line has 27 planes, seven of which are multi-engine, and that the school employs some 60 flight instructors.
Meanwhile, campus visitors are welcome, Thompson stressed, and the dining hall is open to the public on a daily basis. The hours of service, menu selections and the like are itemized in a monthly "magazine of dining services" that is available at the dining hall. For information, call 777-3768.
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Posted: Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Article comment by:
No name provided
ERAU is overrated..overpriced..over publicized..over done university that's main business is tricking the vulnerable pilot "wannabe" into attending the university and paying 5 times more money then what is realistically needed to attain an education that will give a pilot a job that pays $15.00 an hour to payback hundreds of thousands of dollars in "unnecessary" student loans
Posted: Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Article comment by:
Unemployed
How about all the great employees ERAU just laid off after reporting only months ago to the courier that no employees would be let go? Yeah!!
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