Download the Strategic Plan

The College of Engineering’s strategic plan was first formulated in 2007 and has evolved continuously over the past four years. This document integrates our ongoing goals and metrics under the University’s focused themes of Learning, Discovery, and Engagement.

Our principal strategic Learning goal is to attract, retain and graduate the best students.
Experiential learning is our distinguishing trait, providing our students with team skills, beginning in the freshman year, that transcend the traditional lecture/lab approach and instill an early appreciation of the engineering profession. Such learning differentiates us from our peers and attracts an increasing number of high-quality students. We will build on this strength and establish a comprehensive range of interdisciplinary programs from new undergraduate minors to professional/graduate certificates and degrees.

Our primary strategic Discovery goals are to attract and retain the best scholarly faculty and significantly grow our research expenditures.
To achieve these goals, we will make selective investments in interdisciplinary research centers that open doors to non-traditional federal and state funding. Several of the college’s major institutes, centers and labs cover the Discovery themes of transportation, sustainability and energy. These strengths echo the State of Ohio’s leading industries: automobiles, aerospace and manufacturing. We are committed to growing research strengths that interweave engineering with OSU’s bio/medical and agricultural technologies, thus encompassing the other Discovery themes of health, wellness and food security. Bridging all these established and nascent themes is our longstanding commitment to pre-eminence in advanced materials, which has effectively leveraged the State’s Third Frontier program and our own Targeted Investments in Excellence.

Our strategic Engagement goals are to play an increasingly visible role in Ohio’s economic development, grow College resources for critical programs through a professional advancement team, and enhance commercialization of our intellectual property.
Experiential learning programs and economically driven discovery activities demand in-depth engagement with regional and national industry. We will encourage entrepreneurial students, staff and faculty to translate their ideas into commercial ventures, thus enhancing our role as an engine for economic development. We will expand our partnerships with industries, non-profit research labs and federal facilities. Engaging such organizations is the best way to increase the impact of our research and to raise external investments in our learning and discovery themes.

Cutting across our commitments to learning, discovery and engagement is recognition of the pressing need to enhance the role of women and under-represented minorities at all levels, from freshman students to senior faculty and staff. We must raise the bar in terms of attracting and retaining the highest quality faculty, and we need to communicate our academic achievements in a better way. Fulfilling both these needs will require significant cultural changes in our approach to recruiting faculty and students and in valuing and communicating our outstanding scholarly achievements. All these goals will be achieved because we are in a sound fiscal position and are thus able to make the necessary, selective investments.