In founding the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote "[My purpose is] to establish beginnings . . . to be developed by time as those who come after us shall find expedient. They will be more advanced than we are in science and in useful arts, and will know best what will suit the circumstances of their day."

The record shows that the engineering school has never hesitated to take up this charge. As the twenty-first century nears, the economic and technical challenges we face, both as an institution and as a nation, are increasingly complex and global in nature. As a result, SEAS itself must become an institution of international scope that provides citizens with the knowledge and skills they will need to become leaders in technology and society.

The Mission of the School of Engineering and Applied Science

To achieve international prominence as a student-focused school of engineering and applied science that educates men and women to be leaders in technology and society and that contributes to the wellbeing of our citizens through the creation and transfer of knowledge.

The task we face, therefore, is straightforward: to bring a small public school of engineering and applied science to a recognized position of excellence in teaching and research.

Carrying out this mission will require the innovative thinking, hard work, and generosity of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of the school. Together, we will move forward on a number of fronts.

In formulating a strategic plan that embodies these principles, we have built on the University's unique heritage. Jefferson created the academical village to promote close interaction between students and faculty. In his view, the exchange of ideas among individuals is the most effective way to foster leadership, personal responsibility and a lifelong commitment to learning. We will recreate Jefferson's "academical village" at SEAS.

Another defining feature of this plan is our view of education as an enterprise encompassing teaching, research, and public service. These are all ways in which we discover and disseminate knowledge for the benefit of society.

Accordingly, we have divided our plan into four strategic initiatives. The first focuses on realizing a diverse community of students, faculty and staff, joined together in the pursuit of knowledge and dedicated to the ideal of education. Each of the next three focuses on an aspect of our educational mission--teaching, research, and public service--while strengthening the synergies among them.

Although our goal is ambitious, we have already begun to make progress. We have reorganized the administration of the school to bring greater attention to bear on the vitality of our research programs and to contain costs. We have increased our outreach to industry and the corporate world. And with the recognition that we can no longer count on a growth in public funding to sustain us in future years, we have embarked on a five-year capital campaign, with specific goals for faculty and student support, academic support and curriculum development, and capital projects and facility enhancement.

Nonetheless, many challenges have yet to be addressed and much hard work remains to be done. Implementing the plan will, no doubt, lead to spirited debates, and this is as it should be. The SEAS Strategic Plan was conceived as a living document that can be animated only through the participation of our faculty and staff. We believe that the actions we take in carrying out this plan not only will elevate the standing and reputation of the school, but also will provide tangible benefits for our students and faculty for years to come.

Thomas Jefferson understood that education in its most rigorous form--the type of education designed to foster leadership, independent judgment, and practical knowledge--is an activity best accomplished within a community of learners.

In an institution like SEAS, it is the students, faculty, and staff even more than the libraries, laboratories, and classrooms that define our community's quality and character. Accordingly, the key element in our plan is attracting the most outstanding individuals regardless of origin to our academical village.

GOAL 1: Attract a diverse student body of exceptional promise and nurture them so that they can attain their full potential.

Strategy 1.1: Actively recruit the most exceptional undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds.

To attain our goal of recruiting a diverse entering class with combined renormed SAT scores of at least 1400, we will actively recruit National Merit Scholars and fund 10 new, merit-based tuition scholarships a year for the next five years. In doing so, we will establish national leadership in the representation of women and minority students so that our nation will truly benefit in the coming century from the talents and skills of all our citizens. We will also transform the Rodman Program into a true four-year honors program.

Strategy 1.2: Attract the very highest quality graduate students from diverse backgrounds to work with our faculty as partners in the research enterprise.

Although the caliber of our graduate students is high, we will increase our standards by recruiting students with GREs greater than 1400 and superior GPAs with excellent recommendations from the nation's top engineering schools. We will establish a fund in the Dean's office to bring exceptional graduate students to Grounds and will work with industry to secure sponsorships for fifty new graduate fellowships.

Once they have joined us, we will afford our most exceptional Ph.D. graduate students the opportunity to participate in classroom teaching and give preference in awarding fellowships and teaching assistantships to domestic students with the highest GPA/GREs.

Strategy 1.3: Create a supportive and challenging environment which fosters lifelong enthusiasm for scientific inquiry and technological creativity.

One of the principal ways our faculty foster enthusiasm for inquiry and creativity is through the sensitivity and wisdom they demonstrate as mentors and advisors. We will, therefore, restructure the advising process to increase the faculty's ability to provide meaningful career guidance to our students and include the quality and effectiveness of faculty advising as part of the annual review process for merit pay and promotion.

As an institution, we have as a model Jefferson's academical village, yet the SEAS community lacks a focal point like the Rotunda. We will erect an engineering school academic center incorporating the most advanced information age technology that will house student organizations, multimedia classrooms, and multidisciplinary laboratories for capstone design courses, senior theses, and student projects. It would also contain common areas for students, faculty, and staff.

Strategy 2.1: Attract a diverse group of educators of established excellence and demonstrated promise to join our faculty.

We will continue to focus on filling new faculty positions with scholars who clearly demonstrate the ability to become recognized leaders as both teachers and researchers. We will place priority on recruiting faculty who can collaborate on school-wide and University-wide research, as well as on raising the percentage of female and minority faculty to 20 percent by 2001.

Because we wish to nurture promising young faculty, we will earmark facilities and resources to help junior faculty build a firm foundation for their careers and encourage scholars of international stature to serve as visiting faculty members and to act as role models and mentors.

Strategy 2.2: Sustain and support faculty members in their drive to achieve educational excellence.

As an institution, it is our responsibility to support faculty members at all stages in their careers to achieve educational excellence, to encourage their creativity and initiative, and to involve them in decisions that will affect their future.

We will review and revise the promotion, tenure, and merit pay policy to include recognition for collaborative efforts in teaching and research, and we will nominate deserving faculty for national awards and provide appropriate publicity to those who are honored.

We will, furthermore, encourage senior faculty to guide junior faculty, develop a tutorial program on research grantsmanship for new faculty, and make every effort to ensure that all faculty--including junior faculty--are given the opportunity to participate in the decision making processes of the school. In these ways, we hope to foster a school-wide spirit of cooperation, collegiality, and trust.

Strategy 2.3: Reward faculty for achieving excellence as educators.

We intend to raise faculty salaries at least to the sixtieth percentile of our peer engineering institutions and ensure that annual salary increases are based on merit. We will also secure additional endowed chairs for preeminent educators, increase the discretionary allowance of existing chairs where possible, and create an endowment to fund faculty fellowships for outstanding associate professors.

Competitive compensation, however, is not the sole form of recognition available. We will strive to achieve full state funding of faculty FTE lines so that release time can be more properly devoted to fostering innovative research and scholarship, while reserving endowment for supplementing salaries. In addition, we will establish a school-wide policy for research overhead return to faculty and research release time, and we will explore the adoption of a salary bonus policy.

Excellence in Teaching

Almost every challenge we face as a nation and as a leader in the community of nations is steeped in technological content, from economic competitiveness to the education of our children and from health care to environmental clean-up. Leaders who understand the technological basis of the critical issues we face and who appreciate their ethical, philosophical, and historical context are essential to our future. The nation's continued well-being requires engineers who can communicate clearly and forcefully and who are willing to make their voices heard in our public forums.

SEAS will equip men and women to meet these challenges by cultivating superb teachers and by creating an educational environment that reinforces their efforts.

GOAL 3: Prepare a diverse student body for responsible citizenship in a technological society and for productive careers in engineering and other technology-related professions.

Strategy 3.1: Enable all faculty to achieve the highest standards of teaching.

We will make excellence in teaching a key factor in promotion, tenure, and merit pay decisions. As part of this process, we will require peer review of teaching on a regular basis for all faculty. To encourage faculty to pursue instructional innovations, we will establish a teaching enhancement fund and require all new faculty to participate in Teaching Resource Center seminars. We will also establish the Lucien Carr III Professorship as the premier annual award for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

Strategy 3.2: Develop an undergraduate curriculum that will prepare students for more varied career paths.

If we are to accept the challenge of leadership in engineering education, we must adjust our undergraduate curriculum to meet the social and economic requirements of the new century. We must prepare our students for a variety of career paths in a highly competitive global environment and anticipate professional practice through hands-on learning and problem solving.

To accomplish these ends, we will emphasize breadth in the undergraduate curriculum and encourage our students to achieve depth in a particular discipline at the master's level. Our undergraduate curriculum will integrate a common body of basic science and engineering knowledge horizontally across all degree programs and be vertically integrated by discipline over the four-year curriculum. It will be flexible enough to accommodate coop and internship preprofessional experiences and international semester abroad/exchange programs, while requiring no more than 128 hours of course work. We are determined that our students will routinely graduate in four years.

At all levels we will emphasize the costs and risks of engineering activities as well as their benefits. We will incorporate contemporary issues such as sustainability and the management of technology into the curriculum and establish an endowed professorship in engineering ethics.

We will also develop joint minors and certificate programs with such other schools as McIntire and Darden as well as with the School of Architecture.

Strategy 3.3: Evaluate the viability of all our programs in light of our resources and the evolution of technology.

We will establish a school-wide review process to determine the viability of existing and proposed undergraduate and graduate programs and to assess their impact on the overall educational program and resources of the school. As part of this process, we will promptly review the viability of the following existing programs-- Applied Mathematics, Nuclear Engineering, Applied Mechanics, Aerospace Engineering, and Engineering Science--and develop a limited number of undergraduate elective courses in materials science and biomedical engineering that any undergraduate student can elect to take as an option within their major. We will not consider any new undergraduate programs until this school-wide review is completed.

Strategy 4.1: Provide the modern facilities and necessary support services to enhance the faculty's ability to teach complex material with clarity and impact.

As part of our effort to adapt Jefferson's academical village to the challenges of the twenty-first century, we will create an undergraduate learning center focused on information technology that draws students together and that serves as the hub of our academical village (see also Strategy 1.3). In addition, we will develop and staff appropriate facilities for multidisciplinary, integrated capstone design and senior thesis projects.

To ensure the efficiency of our operations, we will empower and reward SEAS clerical and technical staff and review the allocation of staff and teaching assistants consistent with our goal of providing an educational program of the highest caliber.

Strategy 4.2: Use technology to enrich the educational experience both in and out of the classroom and laboratory.

We will approach this challenge from a number of perspectives. We will revamp, upgrade, and support the academic computer infrastructure within the engineering school and, in particular, will equip additional multimedia classrooms with a network connection and a power source at each desk. We will also establish school-wide standards for student computer hardware and software needs and require all students to have laptop computers.

We will also work with other branches of the University to foster the cost-efficient use of educational technology. We will encourage University libraries to act more aggressively to enhance their electronic content and search capabilities, will collaborate with ITC to create a differential fee structure for the use of advanced hardware and software, and develop electronic tutoring programs from dorms and classrooms.

Excellence in Research

During this century, an unprecedented coalition of government, industry, and university researchers has fueled an extraordinary era of technological progress. The faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science has long been a committed partner in this effort. In fields as diverse as vascular engineering, semiconductors, materials, and rotating machinery, our faculty have established an international reputation for the quality of their research. In recent years many of the assumptions governing this collaboration have been called into question, and the relationships among the participants have shifted. Federal funding for research and development has declined, and industry is cutting back on internal R&D and increasingly outsourcing research projects.

In rededicating ourselves to excellence in research and scholarship, SEAS must take the lead in assisting faculty to seek out emerging opportunities as these relationships evolve. We can compensate for the relatively small size of our program as compared to peer engineering schools by building on our school-wide strengths and collaborating across disciplines.

The first step in becoming a world-class research institution is adopting a more directed process of identifying our school-wide strengths and of capitalizing on these strengths. Our goal is to create a series of research programs, addressing specific issues of direct consequence to the well-being of society, that are widely acclaimed for their excellence. Several of these programs will attain top ten status by 2001.

The second step is to increase our annual per faculty research funding by 50 percent by 2001. We will make a concerted effort to secure additional funding from our current supporters. At the same time, we will explore innovative and collaborative approaches that will open doors to a wider range of funding sources.

Strategy 5.1: Create new opportunities for collaborative research of national significance by leveraging school-wide strengths.

The growing complexity of scientific and technological problems provides an ideal opportunity for collaboration, not merely within disciplines, but with increasing frequency across disciplines. Indeed, shifts in funding priorities, both on the federal and state level, now reflect the recognition that many of the exciting technological advances shaping the coming century will arise from the convergence of fields and that today's interdisciplinary areas will become tomorrow's disciplines.

Accordingly, we will revise promotion, tenure, and merit-based salary policies to recognize and reward cross-disciplinary work and collaboration. Furthermore, we will institute a biennial process to identify and support school-wide strengths as they emerge and hold an annual SEAS research retreat to promote cross-fertilization of ideas among faculty. We will also secure the resources needed to attain international stature in our school-wide strengths and, in particular, will obtain at least one major federal-, state-, or industry-sponsored research center in these areas.

Strategy 5.2: Develop and maintain a vibrant research enterprise that is attractive to funding agencies and industry sponsors.

Our ability to attract additional research funding paradoxically rests on our ability to maintain the integrity and continuity of our research enterprise independently of funding trends. By instituting mechanisms and policies that buffer SEAS research efforts from fluctuations in funding, we create the opportunity to demonstrate the potential value of our work, enhancing our ability both to secure outside funding and to capitalize on it when it arrives. We will pursue this objective on a number of fronts simultaneously. We will develop a school wide policy for establishing, funding, and operating viable and self-sustaining organized research units and centers that reduce the administrative and support service burdens on departments and provide a bridging support mechanism to assist organized research units maintain continuity. We will establish viable support mechanisms that will allow SEAS to maintain and upgrade research equipment. This will include exploring the innovative use of revolving accounts. Finally, we will consolidate specialized equipment and support services such as machine shops and computer support personnel in a single location, while maintaining staff specialists serving the individual departments.

Strategy 5.3: Construct New Research and Educational Facilities.

The accelerating pace of technological change demands that we create advanced facilities for faculty and students to work together. If we are to engage the talents of our faculty and students most fully, we must provide access to the opportunities that the latest technology provides.

As part of this effort, we will collaborate with the School of Medicine to construct a new, 20,000square-foot (net assignable) biomedical engineering facility. In conjunction with industry supporters, we will develop an academical center housing advanced research and multimedia laboratory facilities for the Computer Science Department as well as information age technology to support our educational programs. In addition, we are actively raising funds to expand the Materials Science and Engineering Building and to complete Phase II of the Chemical Engineering Building.

Strategy 5.4: Expand the scope of SEAS collaboration with industry.

A combination of factors makes this a propitious time to seek increased funding from industry. Private sector firms are cutting back on their own research establishments just at a time when they are readying themselves to invest unprecedented sums of money in new technology. They must look to outside sources for the expertise to sustain this investment and to develop the next generation of technology.

Accordingly, we will promote and expand SEAS/industry collaborations, including multiuniversity/industry consortia, with the goal of doubling the level of industry-funded research to at least $7 million per year by 2001. To facilitate this process, we will require each department to maintain an active advisory committee with industry representation, expand the use of industry affiliate programs to increase University/industry partnerships and research collaborations, and secure endowments to enable leading industry researchers to spend a term at SEAS as visiting faculty. To encourage our faculty to pursue alliances with industry, we will also make permanent the temporary University policy under which 5 percent of indirect costs on industry research contracts is returned directly to the principal investigator.

Excellence In Service To Society

If the last ten years are indicative, a fundamental characteristic of the new century will be rapid, pervasive technological change. The challenge facing people in every walk of life--in industry as well as government, on the factory floor as well as in the halls of Congress--will be to harness new technologies and manage them to sustain our standard of living and improve our quality of life.

Through the transfer of knowledge, the School of Engineering and Applied Science intends to play a leading role in furthering these efforts. The school will work with employers from government and industry to ensure our graduates as well as their employees have the skills and knowledge necessary to make productive contributions throughout their careers. In addition, we will encourage our faculty to practice their profession and to take an active role in the transfer of technology developed in our laboratories.

Our goal is to position ourselves as a resource that other organizations--a Fortune 500 company or a city council--can use to address the challenges of technical change.

Strategy 6.1: Capitalize on educational outreach and distance learning technologies to enhance opportunities for lifelong learners.

SEAS is committed to providing distance learning programs that are the equal of our on Grounds courses. Because the technology needed to deliver these programs is extremely costly, we will seek alliances with other divisions of the University and the state to develop the state-of the-art technology and infrastructure required for delivering innovative and effective distance learning programs.

As part of this effort, we will support the creation of a state-wide, high bandwidth Internet connectivity system to promote interaction between the school and industry, increase the school's own presence on the World Wide Web, and expand our collaboration with other engineering schools in the development and use of advanced courseware.

Strategy 6.2: Take a leadership role in carrying out the University's commitment to outreach education.

The University is currently reviewing the role and function of the Division of Continuing Education. SEAS has a vital interest in this process. We believe that the schools should assume a dominant role in developing and presenting off-Grounds degree programs, short courses and certificate programs for lifelong learners and that revenue generated by these programs be returned to the schools, their faculty, and their departments. DCE should act as a fee-for-service collaborator in the presentation of these programs.

We will develop a general off-Grounds master's of engineering program based on a small core of basic courses and a significant option block of electives, thus allowing SEAS to offer a variety of degree options with a minimum of course offerings. We will also create option blocks in systems engineering, telecommunications, and software engineering for presentation in Northern Virginia as the first initiative in this general master's of engineering program.

We will also place greater emphasis on the presentation of professional short courses and certificate programs, and formulate a policy governing the use and support of adjunct faculty to present off-Grounds courses.

Strategy 6.3: Restructure the incentives for faculty and departments to participate in outreach education.

To encourage active faculty and departmental participation in outreach education, we will include high-quality instruction in continuing education courses as a factor in the annual faculty review process and promotion, tenure, and merit pay decisions. We will also eliminate the cap on salaries for continuing education courses, short courses, and certificate programs and negotiate the return of a portion of televised course tuition to the school and participating departments so that we will have the resources needed to expand our TV course offerings. In addition, we will seek approval to charge market-level tuition for SEAS off-Grounds degree programs and negotiate a profit-sharing arrangement for them. In all instances, we will strive to structure outreach activities to enhance revenues available to the school, its faculty, and its departments.

GOAL 7: Expand opportunities for faculty and students to actively practice the profession of engineering.

Strategy 7.1: Introduce students to the practice of engineering through preprofessional work experiences.

We will establish a formal, self-sustaining coop and internship program that capitalizes on the unique strengths of the school and increase career services and outreach to industry and their recruiters for both undergraduate and graduate students. We will also create a formal international year abroad program that includes an international work experience.

Strategy 7.2: Encourage faculty to practice their profession in collaboration with colleagues from industry and government.

We will recruit scholars with professional experience to join our faculty and adjust promotion, tenure, and merit pay criteria accordingly. We will encourage SEAS faculty to spend Sesquicentennial leaves in industry research laboratories, while securing endowments to support visiting scholars and researchers from industry to join us at SEAS. We will also support the revision of University intellectual property rights policy to encourage entrepreneurship and patentable commercialization of faculty research.

Conclusion

Creating a diverse student-focused community dedicated to educational excellence will require difficult decisions and hard work. As we move forward to enact our strategic plan, the following principles will guide our progress:

There are four strategic initiatives, seven goals, twenty strategies, and eighty-nine action items contained in this Strategic Plan. Some action items cut across departments and programs, while others address concerns that fall within the purview of a specific department or office. We will carefully coordinate the plan's implementation to ensure that the aims of the plan are fully realized and to avoid duplication of effort.
Achieving many of the goals outlined in the Strategic Plan will require us to realign our rewards and incentives, especially those related to promotion and tenure. A key step in realizing our goals and in developing an academic community built on trust, therefore, is to review promotion and tenure policy systematically in light of the guidelines established here. A special ad hoc faculty committee will be appointed to undertake this task.

SEAS does not have the necessary resources to implement all elements of this plan at once. In developing an implementation strategy, the cost of acting on our priorities will be ascertained, and the dean make will set plans in place to secure the needed resources or to restructure the allocation of resources so that these priorities can be achieved.