Growing up in a home where boys went to college but girls didn’t, Cheryl Wilhelmsen had an uphill climb. She proved that girls do go to college and do well at it. She has earned associates, bachelors, masters, education specialist and doctoral degrees. The fields (a.k.a. majors) for her degrees range from Interior Design/Architecture to Safety to Education. It is clear Wilhelmsen loves to learn. Currently, Wilhelmsen is Director of the Industrial Technology Degree Program at University of Idaho where she has taught for about 15 years.
“It’s never too late to earn a degree and learn new things,” says the mother of four grown children (and grandmother of 15).
Wilhelmsen is passionate about people getting advanced educations beyond high school.
“I am amazed at the opportunities an education offers. I think confidence in one’s self is one of the greatest achievements a degree offers,” she says. “Thinking back to my high school years, I really did not think I would ever attain any educational degree but now I can’t imagine my life without education. In my opinion, with technology and the Internet there is no excuse or barriers to education that a person cannot overcome.”
Wilhelmsen is proof that technology and the Internet are useful educational tools. In her role as a program director, she oversees the curriculum in the bachelor’s program as well as the development of the joint UI/EITC Manufacturing and Robotics Teaching Lab that opened in Spring 2014. In her role as teacher, she utilizes online learning software to teach all or part of many of her courses. She is part of the core faculty for the Technology Management masters program at UI.
Speaking of the new UI/EITC lab, Wilhelmsen believes this has been an excellent partnership, and great things will come from it. She says she’d like to see more of these types of agreements and partnerships efforts with other schools.
“We are a large state with a relatively small population and we have four large universities and many small colleges and technical schools,” she adds. “I feel in order to survive we all need to work together to help our state climb up from the bottom of the educational polls. We live in a beautiful state and many families want to stay and raise their children here. If we provide the educational opportunities to those students, then in turn the businesses’ will find the skilled workers they need right here in our state.”
Wilhelmsen keeps her technology knowledge current. She has conducted research with NASA-Ames for the last 15 years, and really enjoys the aviation research. She studies risk assessment and safety, and has co-authored a book entitled, “Risk Assessment – Tools, Techniques, and Their Applications,” published by John Wiley in 2012. She has consulted in the area of ergonomics and is currently co-authoring a book entitled, “Occupational Ergonomics: A Practical Approach,” to be published by John Wiley in summer 2015. A new research interest that holds great promise is in the area of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV’s), sometimes referred to as drones.
Her love of education has been extended through another generation. All of her four children have received, or are working on, college degrees from associates to medical degrees. Her grandchildren enjoy school and like to tell her about their teachers, stories which Grandma cherishes.
When asked about the future of technology and more specifically, Industrial Technology, Wilhelmsen responds emphatically: “Industrial Technology is so important in today’s world. We need to bring back the jobs from overseas and in order to do so; we need to educate our citizens. Industrial Technology not only provides the skills and education for particular fields; it provides the education for the project managers and CEOs of the companies. We provide leadership, teamwork and management skills needed to successfully