New Faculty Orientation Week - College of Engineering - Purdue University

New Faculty Orientation Week

Monday, August 10

Welcome

• Good morning, everyone! It is a real pleasure to welcome our new faculty, and we're also excited to have those that joined us during the last year with us for this three-day orientation.
• We’re honored that you chose Purdue. It was a good decision!  I say that as someone who came here 49 years ago as a PhD student – with no intention of staying very long. It has been a great place for me to build a career advancing the frontiers of knowledge, but the best part has been the opportunity to prepare generations of students and watch them go out and do amazing things as Purdue Engineers.
• Over my time here, Purdue Engineering has gotten better and better (larger and larger, too). And that’s because talented people like you join us and thrive, lead, and help shape the future of our college.
• Today and over the next two days, you will hear about resources that can help you succeed and you’ll meet colleagues who may become collaborators, mentors and friends.

About Purdue Engineering

Since I stepped back in as dean on June 1, I’ve been getting calibrated on where the college stands. Let me share a few Purdue Engineering facts that you may or may not know:

• For 14 years, Purdue’s base tuition has been frozen.
• Over the past 15 years, enrollment has grown 95%. (BTW, 75% of our undergrads are out-of-state students.)
• Purdue now graduates more BS, MS and PhD engineers annually than any other university in the country.
• The average time to graduate with a BS in engineering is now less than 4 years.
• 70% of Purdue undergraduates complete their degrees with no debt (the national average is less than 50%).
• Purdue Engineering ranks No. 1 in market demand – no other college receives more applications for a BS in engineering than Purdue. Applications to Purdue continue to grow.

All this has been accomplished while increasing our level of excellence:

• Purdue’s U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) graduate (research) rankings are now No. 4 (tied with Georgia Tech) and just behind MIT, Stanford and Berkeley – while graduating more students that than MIT, Stanford and Berkeley combined.
• USNWR ranks Purdue online MS programs No. 1 in all 5 ranked engineering specialties (EE, ME, IE, CE, and Eng. Management).
• Purdue Engineering research is leading the way in addressing the nation’s critical technology challenges in areas such as: 1) semiconductors; 2) energy; 3) defense and security; 4) One Health – a unified approach to animal, plant, human and environmental health; and, of course for Purdue – 5) space.
• This research takes place in some of the nation’s finest academic research facilities: Zucrow Labs (1948); Herrick Labs (1958); Bowen Lab for Large Scale Civil Engineering Research (2004); Birck Nanotechnology Center (2005); and most recently, the Manufacturing and Materials Research Lab (MMRL), which is just a couple of years old.
• And we have exceptional faculty and alumni – more than 70 of whom are currently members of the National Academy of Engineering.
• Purdue Engineering’s visibility is high on the national landscape. Our rising stature is reflected in the fact that our leaders are increasingly being called to Washington to serve in prominent roles in science and technology. These leaders include: our former dean, Arvind Raman, now serving as undersecretary of commerce and director of NIST; Joe Jewel, an AAE professor, serving as assistant secretary of war for science and technology; and Carol Handwerker, an MSE professor, who is currently head of technology strategy in the CHIPS Program Office at the Department of Commerce.

Purdue Engineering: Who are we?

When I think of Purdue, I think of three words: Affordable excellence at scale.

We’re serious about affordability, we’re serious about scale, and we’re serious about excellence.

Purdue is a large land-grant, research university. I’m a great believer in the value of a land-grant university education – I’ve seen what it could do for a kid like me who grew up in a small town in rural Minnesota. My three degrees from land- grant universities changed my life in ways that I never could have imagined. And now, in more than 45 years as a professor at Purdue, I’ve seen the impact it has had on generations of Purdue students. What a privilege it is for us to be doing this kind of work. What we do is not really a “job” – it’s a calling.

The mission of a land-grant university is discovery, learning and engagement.

Some faculty think that teaching steals time from research, but teaching, research and engagement are not three different jobs. They are three parts of something larger – the mission of a land-grant university.

In my case:

• Teaching sharpened my thinking.
• Writing a textbook made me a better researcher.
• Research made me a better teacher.
• Students in class generated new ideas for research.

When you can put it all together, it’s very powerful. Some of our very best researchers are also some of our very best undergraduate teachers.

Here at Purdue, we give an award to faculty who excel in all three parts of our land-grant mission. It’s called the Morrill Award. You can find the list of recipients on the provost’s web page. I encourage you to talk with a few of those faculty about how “putting it all together” helped them succeed.

Things are going well, but we cannot be complacent. Higher education is facing a set of challenges coming from several different directions:

• The business model is under pressure.
• Families are asking hard questions about affordability — and about the value of a college degree.
• Because of demographics, fewer students are graduating from high school, and that will continue for decades.
• Artificial intelligence is changing the practice of engineering – and changing how we teach and how students learn.
• The architecture of the federal research system that has fueled American innovation for 80 years is changing in very significant ways.
• New policies for the student visas that our international students rely on were very recently announced.

But our country is competing globally in technologies that will shape our economy, our security, and our future – and has never needed its research universities more.

I believe that this is the most significant time in my almost 50 years at Purdue. I believe that Purdue Engineering is better positioned that most of our peers to address these challenges. And challenges create opportunities. You’re joining us at a really exciting time – an important time.

3 Priorities for the Coming Year

• Institutions that stay true to their mission while adapting thoughtfully to this challenging landscape will emerge stronger, and Purdue is well positioned to do so.
• Dealing with these challenges and seizing the opportunities they create will keep us busy, but
• Three priorities will shape much of our work in the coming year: Indianapolis, AI literacy, and excellence.

The first is Purdue University in Indianapolis. 

• Significant because it supports our mission.
• Significant because it gives us a more urban presence.
• Significant because it allows us to rethink undergraduate education.
• Important to note that it is NOT a regional campus. Not a smaller version of Purdue West Lafayette.
• Faculty can lead this work by building partnerships that connect research and education to the opportunities at the Indianapolis location – and by creating distinctive learning experiences. 

The second priority is artificial intelligence.

• Charged by the trustees to ensure “AI working competency.”
• But AI will not only change the practice of engineering; it will also affect the way students learn.
• We’ll need to help our students learn how to use these new tools to deepen their understanding of engineering fundamentals.
• We’ll need to learn how to assess what our students can do without AI and with AI.
• We don’t know where this is going – no one does – but Purdue Engineering must be a leader in the AI transformation of engineering practice and engineering education.
• As new faculty, you can shape engineering education in the age of AI by redesigning learning and assessment thoughtfully, modeling responsible use, and helping students develop the judgment that no tool can replace.

The third priority is excellence.

• Second-to-none excellence is our goal. Being very good is not good enough.
• Great students seek great faculty; outstanding faculty seek outstanding colleagues; and industry seeks partners known for innovation and impact.
• With great students, great faculty, and strong industry partners, we can do great things.
• Each of us needs to aim to be the very best at what we do.

We are very good. If we think of the Mount Everest of academic excellence, we are very high up – at base camp. But we have company…. Georgia Tech, UIUC, Michigan, Carnegie Melon, UT Austin, etc. The next challenge, the next level of excellence, is to reach the summit.

With affordable excellence at scale, we will be the nation’s most consequential college of engineering.

Your Role – and How We Will Help You Succeed

• You were selected for your talents and track records of success, for your different perspectives, and for the expertise that you bring.
• Our research changes the world; our teaching changes lives. At Purdue Engineering, we have the privilege – and responsibility – to do both. I hope that you all will embrace our land-grant mission.
• Success does not mean doing everything at once or doing it alone. Seek mentors, build relationships across departments, use the resources available to you, ask for help early, and be deliberate about where you invest your time and energy.

Closing

• We will ask a great deal of you, but we are committed to helping you succeed. When you succeed, Purdue succeeds.
• I am happy to take your questions; afterwards, I will turn the program over to Beth [McCuskey, vice provost for student life] for a presentation on Student Success Strategies.
• We’re very glad that you’re here, and we’re proud to take Purdue Engineering’s next giant leaps with you. Boiler Up!