This has been a year of tremendous success for the college by nearly every metric we track. We have achieved these accomplishments because of the great work of our faculty, staff, and students. We have had many challenges over the past year, but we have persevered and overcome many of them. The transformation of the college is picking up momentum as we better prepare graduates for their future, conduct cutting-edge research, and engage with industry and the State of Indiana.

During the first week of November, I had the pleasure of traveling to Colombia, South America, with, Robert Cox, our associate dean for globalization, and José Garcia, an assistant professor in our School of Engineering Technology. José was raised in Bogota, Colombia, and he completed his undergraduate work at the Universidad de Los Andes.

Welcome back for the 2015-2016 academic year! The busy and exciting academic year we completed in June has set up another year full of opportunities, decisions and announcements.

At Purdue University, academic programs are organized under 10 administrative units called “colleges” or “schools”, all led by academic deans. The academic programs where faculty and staff are organized to deliver degree programs, conduct research, and engage with the community and industry are called “departments” or “schools”.

I would like to share an update on three very important activities – one that takes place tomorrow (April 29), one that will be highly visible beginning Fall 2015, and one that may take place over the summer.

As you know we have been getting a great deal of support from Purdue President Mitch Daniels for our transformational efforts. Financially, the college has received support through an increase in recurring funding as well as the recent gift from Lilly Endowment Inc.

During the last several months you may have heard bits and pieces of information about some exciting plans and activities in our college. Much of the publicity has revolved around topics such as the transformation of the college, the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and a new competency-based degree being developed. I am sending you this email to answer some of the questions you may have and to highlight some great news we received earlier this week.

Faculty and staff development is an important part of the Polytechnic initiative. I would like to review a few important concepts related to faculty and staff development, a plan for which is currently being created and will be shared with everyone in the college in a few weeks.

By nearly every metric the College of Technology is doing very well. Undergraduate enrollment is up after nearly a decade of decline, the quality of our fall admits is the highest ever, research awards were the highest ever, cash donations to the college continue to grow, globalization efforts are at their highest level of activity ever, diversity of our faculty and students is increasing and professional graduate programs continue to grow at a rapid pace. The seeds of change we sowed over the last few years are slowly beginning to show great promise.