Dear Colleagues,
Student success is a major point of pride here at Voiland College. We are all working hard to ensure that every student that enters our classrooms can achieve their utmost through our excellent instruction, guidance, and academic programming.
Each of us has a right to be proud of the many, many things our students have achieved. Year after year, the demand for our programs becomes greater, with more students enrolled and more degrees bestowed by our college than ever before being just a couple of testaments of the progression of our success.
There is, however, need for further improvement. Of all the freshmen that come to Washington State University intending to graduate with a degree from our college, less than half still pursue that dream two years later. Retaining students, especially women and students of color, is a challenge at many universities nationwide. Voiland College, however, performs below average compared to our peer institutions in this regard.
We can do better.
With that spirit, Voiland College will soon restructure its administration to better support our students’ success. The current full-time Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs positions will be replaced with two part-time positions that will allow us to implement focused strategies that better serve the changing needs of our growing, diverse student body. They include:
Associate Dean of Academic Affairs: This part-time position will raise our student’s excellence by guiding Voiland College’s student curriculum and ensuring that our many degree programs meet or surpass the standards set by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
Associate Dean of Student Retention: This part-time position will administer Voiland College’s student programs to foster greater academic success and retention through improved, multidisciplinary coordination that creates a sense of community for the students we serve.
In the future, as revenue allows, we will add an Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion and an Assistant Dean for Recruitment.
I encourage each of you to share these opportunities as they become available with anyone who has an interest in supporting student excellence at Voiland College.
It is my goal that these strategic administrative changes will generate effective programming that improves the retention and academic performance of our students. More of our students will graduate, more will graduate on time, and more employers will want to hire our highly-skilled graduates. This, in turn, will improve many of our Drive to 25 performance metrics, thus enhancing our reputation with our academic peers and the industries and communities that we support.
Many of these changes came from feedback from our staff and faculty. Thank you!
As always, I welcome your thoughts and ideas in how we can further support the motto of our college: “Collaboration. Innovation. Transformation.”
Go Cougs!
Mary Rezac, Dean
Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
Voiland.dean@wsu.edu