Excellence. Impact. Innovation:
Advancing a Legacy of Learning and Leadership

Gregory N. Washington
Interim Dean, College of Engineering

Every journey begins with a good roadmap, and at the College of Engineering that roadmap is our performance plan: “Excellence. Impact. Innovation: Advancing a Legacy of Learning and Leadership.”

Last year, we embarked on an extensive planning process, which involved well over 100 people, including working groups of faculty and staff, to assess, strategize and develop innovative action plans. The result of this effort is a two-fold vision that is both impressive and ambitious:

• We will achieve world-class stature as a college of engineering through our excellence and impact in engineering education, research and service.
• We will be nationally recognized as the pre-eminent college of engineering in achieving our land grant mission — ensuring Ohio’s global competitiveness and future prosperity.

“Excellence. Impact. Innovation” responds to today’s changing global environment. It helps us tap into our best minds and innovative ideas to maintain U.S. technical superiority at a time when investment by other countries in math and sciences is exploding. It also helps us improve our state’s economy by strengthening partnerships with Ohio businesses and by focusing our research investments to advance the state’s growth and vitality.

“Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” a national report on scientific competitiveness, documents a disturbing mosaic of eroding national strength in science and technology. The report points to technology outsourcing as a now accepted business strategy to “gain hiring flexibility and cut employment costs.” It documents the emerging strength of China, noting that during 2004, China overtook the United States to become the leading exporter of information technology products.

These findings are playing out in Ohio, a state with a strong heritage in manufacturing and technology. All this reinforces the need for the College of Engineering to intensify its efforts to educate engineers with the necessary global skills to develop breakthrough technologies, discoveries and thinking, and to collaborate with business and government to forge new products — even industries — like sustainable, alternative energy, where we already have a foothold.

Our performance plan is critical to both our state and national future. It focuses on six key areas of change that when implemented will push us to new heights. These are:

• Deliver an outstanding undergraduate education
• Enrich and advance the graduate experience
• Grow research by focusing on key areas
• Improve the diversity of faculty, students and staff
• Strengthen stakeholder relationships
• Optimize college operations/administration

Allow me to highlight three key initiatives that are already under way.

In January, we will be ready to launch the Engineering Education Innovation Center, which will provide academic, personal and professional enrichment opportunities for our undergraduates. The center will oversee multidisciplinary engineering programs and offer a new line of classes, such as one on entrepreneurship and innovation.

On the research front, we are focusing on eight areas where we have proven strengths: advanced materials; bioengineering; computation and information; design; energy, environment and sustainability; manufacturing; mobility and transportation; and propulsion and power. Our decision to dedicate efforts to increase faculty and financial resources in these areas has already paid off with two new Targeted Investment in Excellence program awards: the Advanced Materials Initiative and the Clean and Sustainable Energy Initiative.

We’ll continue to update you on the plan with our Metrics Scorecard Report that charts our progress. I welcome your input for our efforts. Feel free to contact me by e-mail at washington.88 [@osu.edu].