Mission
The mission of the Water and Environmental Engineering master program is to prepare qualified experts for leadership roles in water and environmental engineering disciplines. The study program concentrates on surface and subsurface hydrology, engineering probability and statistics, aquatic chemistry, water and wastewater treatment, sanitation and public health, water quality lab, advanced hydraulic engineering, hydraulic structures design, sediment transport, water resources management, irrigation and drainage systems, solid waste management, water quality modeling, and environment impact assessment. Students will be taught to address problems based on solid technical foundations while taking advantage of advanced technologies. Our graduates will adhere to high technical and ethical standards in service to the public. Graduates will be prepared for the pursuit of advanced learning in water and environmental engineering and related fields, as well as for the practice of water and environmental engineering case studies at the highest professional levels.
Vision
The Water and Environmental Engineering master program offered at WESI at ANU is designed to generate qualified engineers with a solid theoretical and applied tools, skills, and understanding of water and environmental engineering to serve the Palestinian community's needs in terms of studying, monitoring, describing, modeling, controlling, and following up all issues and aspects related to the present and future state of water and environment engineering related problems with special emphasis on the Palestinian projects.
Industry
The master program in water and environmental engineering and sciences promotes learning technical and technological skills and social development and economic tools and works with individuals and groups from and in the Palestinian communities using a range of formal and informal methods with will lead to better relations and engagement between people, industry, and government in relation to issues of social and economic development as well as the environment.
By improving graduate's knowledge, skills and confidence, tools, organizational ability and various computational and modeling resources, graduates from the programs would help industry solving their problems and cope with and develop with time. These skills, abilities, and tools would help solving the various problems of local industries as well as constituting the basis for innovative initiatives to develop the sector. This program would contribute to strengthening social capital by improving the knowledge, skills, tools, abilities, confidence, motivation, networks and resources that the individuals, groups and industries in a community or a country have.
Teaching and Learning
Teaching and learning methods adopted and used in water and environmental engineering and sciences include direct instructor lecturing through best available teaching techniques and practices and infrastructures (buildings, teaching assistances, and labs). These methods are aimed at knowledge building (new text books-up to date-used and presented to students in course works), comprehension (demonstrating understanding of terms and concepts of water and environmental engineering and sciences), application (solving problems by laboratory and field demonstration), analysis (breaking things down into their elements, formulating theoretical explanations or mathematical or logical models for observed phenomena of water and environmental engineering and sciences), synthesis (creating, design, and make-up problem solving techniques and mechanisms, and combining elements and processes in novel ways), evaluation (choosing, determining, and selecting from among alternatives).Active learning approach is practiced in this program resulting in and emphasizing recalling prior material, responding to questions, problem solving, explaining written material, analytical, critical, and creative thinking, , and generating questions and summarizing . In addition, cooperative learning is employed in this program by involving students to work in teams to accomplish an assigned task and produce a final product. This cooperative learning includes the following elements: positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, appropriate use of teamwork skills, and regular self-assessment of team functioning.
Coursework and Assessment
The program is totaled at 36 credit hours: 30 credits of coursework and 6 in thesis-research work. Continuous student opinions and feedbacks are essential for checking program learning outcomes. Also, these feedbacks are important and included/considered in program and teaching meaningful evaluation and program assessment plan. Written exams are used in all courses (first, second, and final exam) are used to evaluate and grade students in this program. An-Najah national university uses end-of-course web-based student surveys to evaluate teaching quality. While students’ opinions are important and should be including in any assessment plan, meaningful evaluation of teaching must rely primarily on assessment of learning outcomes. In addition to exams, projects and lab reports are used as measures to obtain an accurate picture of students’ content knowledge and skills.