Message from Dean Leo E. Hanifin

The Impact, Fall 2003

Leo E. Hanifin, M.E., D.E. has focused his teaching and research in the area of manufacturing efficiencies, processes and modeling. Hanifin has also held engineering and management positions in the automotive, aerospace, and computer industries. He has received the LEAD and Outstanding Young Engineer awards from SME, and the Outstanding Engineering Alumnus of the Year award from UDM. He holds B.M.E., M.E., and D.E. degrees from the University of Detroit. He joined the UDM College of Engineering & Science as dean in 1991.

We start another academic year with lots of great news and renewed enthusiasm for the future of our College. First, the quality and quantity of new students have both increased. The average test scores for incoming students have increased, and we enrolled seven freshmen who were valedictorians at their high schools. Overall, the full-time freshman enrollments in engineering and science increased 33 percent this year. The number of new graduate students increased 87 percent. We attribute these increases to the high ranking of UDM by U.S. News and World Report, our strong pre-college programs, the strength of our programs and dramatic improvements in our facilities, equipment and computing resources in the College.

Second, we continue to create unique learning environments for engineering and science. The Ford Center for Computing (labs for networking and distributed/parallel computing) was dedicated last spring. This fall we will open the Denso Team Design Center. Next spring we will complete the Visteon Prototype Center and two new manufacturing labs where students can fabricate what they have designed. In science, we have improved the Organic Chemistry Lab, are installing environmental chambers in Life Science and will finish a great chemistry seminar room by next spring. These laboratories, plus previous renovations, provide an extraordinary learning environment for our students.

Finally, the quality of our faculty has recently been extended and recognized. Five new faculty members joined the College this fall. All are scholars in their fields and all indicated that they wanted to join UDM because our mission and their values were closely aligned. Our continuing faculty have garnered many awards, including two top ones: Mark Benvenuto (Chemistry) was name the top college science teacher in Michigan and Shuvra Das (Mechanical Engineering) was named the top engineering teacher in the North Central Region of the nation.

As an alumnus of this College, these great students, faculty and resources make me very proud. I hope that you share that pride and “spread the word” about the college to your colleagues, family and neighbors . . . and stop by to see the great improvements to our College.

Leo E. Hanifin ’69, ’72, ’75
Dean: College of Engineering and Science