Dean's Message

Our goal at the Engineering School is captured in our slogan, Developing Leaders of Innovation. As we interpret it, innovation means more than just having a flash of inspiration or making a discovery. It means translating ideas and discoveries into products and services that benefit society. We’ve witnessed a growth of interest in that process over the last few years, and we’re now looking at ways to strengthen our knowledge-transfer offerings.

The Engineering Business Minor, established with funds from an alumni donor and offered in partnership with the McIntire School of Commerce, is one way we have tapped the resources of the University to offer our students a distinctive educational experience. We hope to expand our partnership with the McIntire School and to forge new partnerships with others in the University to develop and offer innovative programs to our students. This type of curriculum will help them whether they intend to start their own enterprise or effect change as so-called “intrapreneurs” within an established organization.

We are encouraged by interest in entrepreneurship in the Office of the Vice President for Research, which, under the leadership of Tom Skalak, has shown a strong commitment to fueling a knowledge-transfer movement at the University. That office includes a highly productive Patent Foundation, which has set up a satellite office in Thornton Hall, as well as the visionary leadership of W. Mark Crowell, who was hired this past spring as the University’s first executive director and associate vice president for innovation partnerships and commercialization.

From visionaries in the wireless health field, to social entrepreneurs bringing clean water to Africa, to developers of innovative medical devices and creators of high profile websites, our faculty, students and graduates are making their mark in the business world and beyond. And our students are clamoring for more classes and programs that can help them follow a similar path. Our ability to develop new programs in this area and to foster the spirit of innovation among our students, however, depends on your investment of support. In effect, we too need venture capital.

Jeff Sands, our new associate dean for development and vice president of the Engineering Foundation, is prepared to make the case for investing in our School. U.Va. engineers are not like other engineers, precisely because they learn here that engineering — a field we all cherish — is not an end in itself, but a tool they can use to serve society. Any investment that broadens their educational experience produces tremendous dividends for us all.

Thank you for your continued interest in and support of the U.Va. Engineering School. Keep in touch with me. Your thoughts and comments on the future of our School are always welcome.

James H. Aylor
Louis T. Rader Professor of Electrical Engineering
Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science