Summer 2005
Stepping Back and Moving Forward
It’s
healthy for any enterprise, and especially for educational organizations,
to periodically step back from the day-to-day activities to observe ongoing
trends and developments. For our College, we need to look at the knowledge
areas we serve (engineering and science), trends and emerging developments
in our country and in the organizations that hire our graduates, as well as
global developments in all of these areas. After 13 years as dean, I have
decided that I should take a deep dive into those waters for the full Summer.
. . and the Administration has agreed by providing me with a three-month sabbatical
from my administrative duties in the College.
This is truly exciting for me. This time will allow me to focus fully on activities to define potential new directions and opportunities for the College’s faculty, students and partners by . . .
- studying – there are a number of recent studies related to such issues as emerging technologies, American innovation, globalization and new educational models.
- “futuring” – discussions with leaders at companies like Ford, Toyota and IBM
- visting benchmark teaching universities such as Rose-Hulman and Lehigh.
- meeting with top leaders of the National Science Foundation
- attending major conferences on globalization and engineering education.
- conducting “retreats” with large and small groups of faculty to explore new concepts for what we should teach, how we should teach, where we should focus our research and how we might collaborate with new and old partners.
In today’s rapidly changing world, it is always necessary to continually improve and respond to those changes . . . and even anticipate and create change. After this review, we will be ready to do just that. I am pleased to report that our University is poised for such change and our Administration invites and embraces innovative new ideas.
If you would like to personally discuss your ideas regarding current trends, needed changes and new opportunities for our College of Engineering & Science, please call 313-993-1216 or e-mail me at hanifinl@udmercy.edu.
Sincerely,
Dr. Leo E. Hanifin, Dean
UDM Mission Statement
webmaster@udmercy.edu