Dear Colleagues,
Welcome back! It’s nice to see renewed fall activity and our many enthusiastic new and returning students, faculty, and staff. I am looking forward to sharing an exciting year with you as we move forward with dramatic growth in our programs. In this letter, I want to update you on the following developments for which much activity occurred over the summer:
- Engineering Expansion Initiative
- New Engineering Building – Clean Technology Laboratory Building
- School of Design and Construction
- Travel and Purchasing Center
Engineering Expansion Initiative
As you may know, through the Engineering Expansion Initiative (EEI), the state legislature has allocated $3.8 million each to both Washington State University and to University of Washington to increase the number of engineering and computer science students and graduates. A workforce that is educated in high-demand technology fields is more important than ever for the success of the Washington state economy. Our state leaders have recognized the need for more home-grown engineers and computer scientists, so this initiative aims to address that shortage.
The initiative will allow the college to enroll a total of 425 new students, of which about two-thirds will be undergraduates, and one-third graduate students. To do this, we will hire approximately 20 new faculty members as well as additional teaching assistants and staff. In addition expansion on the Pullman campus, the WSU engineering programs in Bremerton, Everett, and Vancouver will expand access to an engineering degree program to place-bound students.
Approximately 25 mechanical engineering students, in fact, have just started their Washington State University studies for the first time at the University Center located on the Everett Community College campus. The new Everett program is modeled after Bremerton program, which graduated its first cohort of BSME students this last spring. Students in the Everett program will take courses taught by faculty from Everett and Pullman, with many of their courses broadcast by distance delivery methods. The students will come to Pullman for some summer offerings of laboratory classes, and when they graduate, they will receive a WSU BSME degree.
We are proud of these new programs and proud of the faculty and leadership of MME for providing a creative solution to two major concerns for Washington State – providing more affordable and accessible higher education and increasing the number of engineering graduates for the industries that drive our economy. We look forward to educating and graduating more students to join the workforce and to drive innovation in Washington State.
Many units have already hired additional instructors to accommodate our growing enrollments. We’ve also distributed additional teaching assistant positions to departments. We will be adding new staff positions (some are already filled). And we will be initiating several faculty searches within a couple of weeks to fill tenure-track positions funded from the EEI. These positions will be filled strategically, emphasizing some of those signature research themes I talked about at our all-college faculty meeting in the spring of 2012. As a reminder, those signature research themes are:
- Advanced Materials
- Electric Power Grid
- Air and Water Resources
- Chemical Catalysis
- Sustainable Design and Infrastructure
- Smart Environments
If you did not see your area of research, please keep in mind that we will leave open the opportunity for faculty to make the case for other emerging areas as well.
New Engineering Building – the Clean Tech Laboratory Building
As our research activity and reputation continue to grow, I am also pleased to let you know that we are in the final stages of selecting a design-build firm for construction of our newest building, the Clean Technology Laboratory Building (CTLB). We hope the funding for the building will be provided in the 2013-15 biennial budget, the request for which will be submitted by September 10. The CTLB project is the university’s top priority for construction funds. The facility, intended to support interdisciplinary research in air and water quality, advanced building materials, and sustainable infrastructure, is sorely needed to provide state-of-the-art research space for our growing numbers of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate researchers.
The CTLB building, which will be located on Grimes Way, represents the first of the CEA buildings to be constructed at this location. Eventually, all of our college will migrate to Grimes Way, which represents the future area of growth for research-intensive activities on the Pullman campus. Recognizing that our college is very active in both research and undergraduate education, the CEA complex will be located in the “transition zone” between the undergraduate education center of the campus and the graduate and research regions developing along Grimes Way, as envisioned in the WSU Master Plan for the Pullman campus.
School of Design and Construction
In another significant change for the college, our new School of Design and Construction has successfully launched, with approximately 700 students enrolled. This program brings together architecture, construction management, interior design, and landscape architecture into one program that is truly unique in the country. It will provide a great opportunity for our students from different disciplines from both CEA as well as CAHNRS to work collaboratively right from the beginning of their studies and will prepare them well for their future design careers. Over the summer, the work location for faculty and staff formerly associated with the Interdisciplinary Design Institute in Spokane was relocated to Pullman, and Pullman-based faculty from Landscape Architecture and Interior Design were re-located to offices in either Carpenter Hall or Daggy Hall. Additional studios were added, some space for which was made available by moving the architecture library to the second floor of Owen Science Library.
I congratulate the faculty, staff, and school leadership, and I look forward to watching the success of this newest school in our College. A celebration of the new school is set for September 20 and 21, which will include lectures and an open house.
On September 21, you are also invited to join alumni and friends as we celebrate the College of Engineering and Architecture’s 150th anniversary celebration of the Morrill Act. As you know, the Morrill Act established land-grant institutions through the United States, to provide access to the states’ residents to education and training in agriculture and the “mechanics arts”. You are invited to an open house on September 21 in ETRL, and if you or your students would like to present a poster at that time, please communicate with Robin Bielenberg @ robinb@wsu.edu.
Travel and Purchasing Center
Over the summer, we established the new Travel and Purchasing Support Center, a shared resource that is located in Dana 150. Many of the forms that you need for your travel requests, travel expense reports, and purchasing needs are now located online on the VCEA website. By consolidating these activities and standardizing procedures, we will be able to provide back-up support during times of heavy use, as well as during times when staff members need to be away from the office. The center has been in operation for less than a month, and we are taking questions and suggestions for improving our travel and purchasing procedures, as well as any other additional ideas to streamline administrative processes. Please help us make this support center as efficient as possible by providing us with constructive feedback. Your patience as we fully develop this support center will be greatly appreciated!
In closing, I would just remind you that our college is a major research engine at WSU, and we play an important role in building the prosperity and economic vitality of our state and region, both in preparing the future high tech and construction industry workforces, and in developing the future leaders and entrepreneurs that will create the next generation of great jobs. Thank you for your continued hard work and support that contributes directly to our successes.
Sincerely,
Candis Claiborn, Professor and Dean