Welcome, Presidential Search, and 5% Budget Reallocation

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are having a productive fall semester and enjoying the beautiful October weather! In the past few weeks, we broke ground on a new building at WSU North Puget Sound at Everett, which will house our existing mechanical and electrical engineering programs as well as our new software engineering program. On the Pullman campus, we’re excited for the upcoming move into the new PACCAR Environmental Technology Building next month and a grand opening celebration in the spring. Already this month, our career fair brought together many companies and student job seekers, and the college also held its fall Executive Leadership Board meeting.

As you know, we have seen tremendous growth and change in the past several years. In 2015, we granted 635 undergraduate degrees, 104 master’s degrees, and 50 PhDs, and we are within a dozen degrees of our goal that was established as a deliverable for the expansion funds we received. To accommodate this growth, we are welcoming many new faculty members to the college. If you see a new faculty member in the hallways, please take a few minutes to welcome him or her, find out about their work, and think about how to include them in future collaborations. If you are a new faculty member, feel free to ask us questions or tell us your new ideas. We are happy with the new excitement, productivity and impact that you all are bringing to campus, and we are so glad to welcome you to the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture.

On the presidential search – Jenny Adam from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is representing the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture (VCEA) on the search committee. She wants to encourage VCEA faculty and staff to submit comments to ensure representation of our needs and interests.

We also want to make sure that VCEA individuals are aware of the listening sessions that will occur Oct 19-22 in different locations (there will be more in different locations at later dates). Finally, if there are specific candidates that VCEA folks would like for the committee to recruit or if there are individuals who might act as sources for identifying candidates for recruitment, you can convey that information directly to Jenny or through the website. Her email address is jcadam@wsu.edu.

You are likely aware of the 5% budget reallocation that the university is undertaking. This is partly to cover the salary increases that were implemented in January of this year but not funded by the state until July 1, as well as to provide funds to advance the university’s strategic priorities in student success and research grand challenges. As a result of this 5% pullback, we are deferring a number of our previously planned faculty and staff searches and will look forward to competing in the spring for the funding to advance our college in research, as well as graduate and undergraduate student success.

As always, thank you all for your hard work and contributions to the success of the Voiland College.

Sincerely,

Dean Candis' signature

Candis Claiborn
Dean, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture