Message from the Dean

It is with pleasure that I have this opportunity to acquaint you with some of the recent activities within the College of Engineering, and to discuss some of our future plans. The faculty has been very industrious this past year, and their successes are evident in the attitudes, enthusiasm, and achievements of the students.

New programs are underway, and we are striving to create a first-class freshman engineering experience that will rival similar programs in the top universities. Two of our faculty members teach introductory engineering courses for junior and senior high school students, and this past summer we conducted a 5-week summer experience for potential engineering students from Rancho High School. We added a new Advisement Center to the college that is staffed by full time professionals, along with a writing center to help students improve their writing skills. Our enrollment reached over 1900 students last year, and we have increased over 9% this year.

For those of you unfamiliar with the College of Engineering let me begin by first describing who we are and what we do. The Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering consists of approximately 60 faculty, with over 1,200 undergraduate students and 200 graduate students. There are four departments within the college: Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Many of the faculty come from top tier engineering schools, and expose our students to the latest techniques and state-of-the-art methods used in engineering education and technology. The faculty is developing innovations that are creating a very imaginative and student-centered educational environment. 

Students are involved in much of the new and ongoing research being conducted by the faculty. Some of our research areas include transmutation of radioactive waste, air and water quality, data mining, materials research for the DOE stockpile stewardship program, vehicle and mass transit transportation, renewable energy (wind and solar), threat and terrorist defense, and parallel processing and computer code development, to name only a few. We now have a team of five robots that play soccer and communicate with one another – next year the international soccer robot competition will be held at UNLV with over 120 countries participating in the event.

Programs for an MS in Aerospace Engineering and an MS in Bioengineering were recently submitted to the administration. Future plans include an MS in materials engineering, and enhancing a program currently underway with the College of Fine Arts in Entertainment Engineering and Technology. Research expenditures this past year totaled over $6.5 M, and we are looking at possibly $10 M next year. Our goal is to achieve an equivalent of $250K per faculty member in the college, which is comparable to the very best engineering colleges.

Acquiring knowledge involves learning not only from the past but also learning by doing. This principle has resulted in a very active internship program on campus, enabling engineering and computer science students to secure part-time jobs while studying for their degrees. This opportunity allows students to implement ideas and concepts just learned in the classroom along with providing employers exposure to potential candidates for employment. 

Calculus, chemistry, and physics serve as the backbone for those entering the world of engineering and computer science. Science and math serve as the fundamental building blocks for students interested in understanding and building models used in dynamics, circuits, computer chip design, materials, machine design, water resources and the environment, structures and buildings, biomedical studies, and algorithms. This is why we have such a close relationship with the College of Science. However, engineers must also be able to write lucidly, communicate and make presentations, develop and balance budgets, and supervise projects and people. Hence, engineers must learn from many of the courses taught in our sister colleges. Engineers must not only be trained in their specialty areas, but also well educated overall. 

Design and development are essentially what distinguishes engineering from science (which principally deals with understanding and discovering the laws of nature). Early Egyptian, Greek, and Roman “engineers” were frequently called upon to erect great monuments, build defenses against enemies, and design roads and vehicles to transport both people and their possessions over great distances. By the time of the Renaissance, engineers were creating a multitude of new inventions and ideas, in conjunction with scientists and mathematicians who developed many of the foundations of analytical tools engineering students learn in school today. Today, a project such as the new Science and Engineering Building planned for 2006 at UNLV involves not only civil engineering but also electrical, environmental, and mechanical engineering, as well as economics and artistic appeal. These types of interactions that cross (and overlap) traditional engineering boundaries are increasing and will become mandatory for engineers in the twenty-first-century.

Technology is not a complete fix to the problems we face in society today. Engineering is the application of science to solve real-world problems. While we can design and create all sorts of devices and structures, it is another to be able to afford them. Advances in technology today are reshaping our lives through such means as information technology, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. There is now research underway in various laboratories on the feasibility of quantum level computers – to overcome the ensuing physical limits of current computer technology. While such ideas and concepts can be achieved in the laboratory, it is a different matter when one must bring the idea to fruition and acceptance in the real world.