Dear Computing Alumni and Friends,
This has been a tumultuous time for our society and for the Michigan Tech family. As the implications of COVID have unfolded, our College of Computing teams have strategized and adapted to do things differently/better with fewer resources. As our country has grappled with racism, we have leveraged this to educate ourselves on systemic racism within the academy and what we can do to improve our classrooms and community here at Michigan Tech.
Read the May 2020 College of Computing Newsletter here.
In the last CC newsletter, I mentioned how proud I was of our students. I’d like to shift the spotlight to talk about how proud I am of our faculty. With the rapid shift to remote instruction in the spring semester, we recognized we needed to learn skills to maintain and even enhance the learning experience for our students.
By the end of the summer, nearly all of our faculty will have gone the extra mile by completing a 3-credit course on online instruction. Our team members did this because they believe strongly in protecting the quality of our Michigan Tech computing degrees as well as the importance of enabling accessibility of the learning resources for all students having a myriad of resources/infrastructure for their learning in these unprecedented times.
The following outstanding accolade demonstrates just how far our faculty went for our students (and how it will be even better in the fall): At the end of the spring semester, a survey was conducted by the Provost’s office in which one-third of MTU students participated. Nearly 90% of our CC faculty were rated “excellent” by students for their on-line teaching efforts. We are planning for face to face and remote classes in the fall, and our exceptional faculty will be at the forefront of innovation and quality in the MTU Flex framework.
On July 1, the College of Computing turned 1 year old! Our team has participated in numerous discussions, negotiations, and changes over the last year to stand up a fully functional new college with student enrollment growth and expansion of degree programs.
We launched two new degrees (BS Cybersecurity, MS Mechatronics), had a third one approved (BS Mechatronics starts Fall 2020), formed the new Department of Applied Computing, selected key individuals to help lead each department (Dr. Linda Ott and Dr. Dan Fuhrmann), to strategically lead research (Dr. Tim Havens), as well as curriculum enhancements and innovations (Dr. Chuck Wallace).
We have organized a well-functioning staff team with superb advisors providing meaningful support to students. We continue to advance quickly with six new faculty starting in Fall 2020 and the search for the new Dean actively moving forward.
The College of Computing and our students, faculty, and staff are doing phenomenal things to prevail in these challenging times.
Best regards,
Adrienne Minerick, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Computing
President-Elect, American Society for Engineering Education (www.ASEE.org)