Our vision is to be the college of engineering which provides the best learning experience, most productive learning community, and most creative learning environment in higher education. Diversity of our student body, faculty and staff is an important goal throughout our strategic plan. Reaching out to young people continues to be a priority for ensuring a talented and diverse student body. Representatives from our Center for Plasma-Aided Manufacturing and Society of Women Engineers student chapter also make regular visits to classrooms around the state to talk about engineering and our college. Here in our classrooms, we are seeing tremendous interest by our faculty in improving teaching and learning for our students.
Early indications show significant improvement in student performance.
We also have a group of faculty working on teaching and curriculum improvement funded by an IBM Quality Grant, and an ad hoc committee on curriculum reform which is currently investigating the outcomes an effective curriculum should achieve. Our students continue to be in demand by industry and government in the U.S. and around the world. In 1996, we saw a 23-percent increase in the number of employers interviewing our students on campus, with a grand total of nearly 10,000 interviews for graduating students. These numbers give testimony to the quality of both our students and our undergraduate program. Our overall undergraduate program is highly ranked nationally.