Working in academia is a calling – a commitment to service that brings about transformative change in students’ lives. Our faculty and staff are regularly asked to do everything in their power to help students achieve the social and economic mobility that significantly impacts our society.
I had the opportunity to meet virtually with many students during the pandemic, offering a comfortable space where they could share their experiences and challenges, and what I discovered was that they were dealing with a lot. In situations like these, and always, it is our responsibility to try to understand what students are experiencing and have conversations with them that will help us better support their success.
Part of ensuring student success is having spaces that promote equitable access to a quality education that prepare our students for technical fields. Our two main buildings – one built in the ’70s and the other in the ’90s – predate the mainstream use of autonomous systems and navigation, artificial intelligence, smart homes, cybersecurity, and other technological innovations. The proposed College of Engineering & Computer Science Innovation Hub will foster interactive learning and research in these areas, interdisciplinary collaborations, and partnerships with K-12 and community colleges so we can build a stronger ECS pipeline. With the exciting announcement of a $67.5 million investment from the state, we now know our Innovation Hub is going to be a reality, and we are pursuing additional fundraising as we move from concept to groundbreaking.
While we know that the mechanical systems, apps, and structures we design all help other humans, we are launching new efforts to inspire our students to translate their learning to solutions that reduce societal inequities. Whether addressing water crises like what happened in Flint, Michigan, to engineering solutions that will help prevent a building collapse like the one that occurred in Surfside, Florida, we have an obligation to explore how we can make a difference and find the power to actualize that.
The College of Engineering & Computer Science has secured seed funding to explore the influence engineers and computer scientists have in this social justice space. From our technical point of view, we need to understand and pay attention to how we make design solutions so that we don’t disenfranchise people. In this issue, you will read about our Social Justice Design Challenge, a student-focused call to tackle social inequities from the engineering and computer science perspective.
In all that we do here at the college, I am so lucky to be working every day with fantastic students, faculty, staff, industry partners, and donors fully committed to doing everything possible to support one another and achieve great things for our college and community.
Susan Barua
Dean, College of Engineering & Computer Science