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Dear Colleague:
You will find below John Birge’s announcement of his
decision to step down as dean of the McCormick School of Engineering
and Applied Science in August, 2004, at the end of his fifth
year in that position. This message has been sent this morning
to faculty, staff, and students in McCormick.
John’s message describes well many of the achievements
he has already made in his three-plus years as dean of McCormick.
President Bienen and I are very grateful for the energy and
imagination which John has brought to the leadership of McCormick.
We are confident that John will be unflagging in his efforts
and that we will see further progress in the School during
the balance of his deanship.
We are also pleased to look forward to John’s contributions
as a teacher and researcher once he leaves the deanship. In
particular, we look forward to working with him and other
members of the University community in developing further
the important financial engineering initiatives he has pioneered
at Northwestern.
John has been a widely respected and greatly valued colleague.
While serving as a forceful spokesperson for McCormick’s
ambitions and needs, he has worked constructively and generously
with other deans on a variety of initiatives beneficial to
his School and the University at large. Similarly, Henry and
I have valued his thoughtful contributions to administrative
discussions in the Council of Deans and other venues.
By notifying us now of his intentions, John permits us to
conduct a thorough search for a worthy successor. Henry and
I will be moving ahead to appoint a search committee. Meanwhile,
we look forward to working with John during the coming months
in our shared effort to build further the strength of the
School and its programs.
Sincerely,
Lawrence B. Dumas
Provost
Dear Colleague:
I am writing to inform you about my plans and the future
direction of the McCormick School. As I have told the president
and provost, I have decided to complete a five-year term as
dean ending in August 2004, but not to continue in the deanship
beyond that date. The provost will shortly appoint a committee
to begin a search for a successor. I am looking forward to
returning full-time to my faculty position in September 2004
and to leading further efforts to develop McCormick’s
financial engineering program.
Though much remains to be done and I look forward to working
with you to accomplish that agenda in the next year and a
half, I want to take this interim opportunity to thank you
for your central role in the many achievements that we have
made as a McCormick team over the past three and a half years
of my tenure as dean.. With the leadership of very capable
department chairs and the support of a strong administrative
group, we will continue to build our leadership in engineering
design education under IDEA, to add to our three-fold yield
increase for top graduate student applicants, and to boost
our undergraduate yield against our top 10 competitors by
even more than the one-third increase we have already achieved.
With your assistance, we will continue to pursue energetically
the recruitment of outstanding new faculty colleagues, building
on the hiring of the 30 highly qualified faculty members in
the past three years who have strengthened our McCormick team
and have already produced 10 NSF CAREER awards. We will further
enhance our inter-disciplinary mission, as we have already
done with the establishment of new research centers, multi-investigator
team projects, and joint faculty hires who bridge departments
within McCormick and across schools at Northwestern. We will
build on our new activities, including DevLab and our two
new graduate programs that have contributed to the strength
of the school. We will further strengthen our research enterprise,
where, in the past year alone, we have increased awards by
17% and expenditures by an impressive 26%. Following the results
of our past efforts that improved by a collective four places
our departmental national rankings and that improved our ranking
by recruiters by eight places, we will seek even greater external
recognition of the impressive strength of McCormick.
We will build on successful fund raising efforts, such as
the $10 million gift for the Ford Motor Company Engineering
Design Center (FMCEDC) and the multi-million dollar PACE gift
that set Northwestern records. Outreach efforts to alumni,
corporations, and venture capitalists will continue to increase
awareness of McCormick's many strengths. Staff and administration
will work together further to improve communication throughout
the McCormick community.
At the same time, over the next year and a half, we must
work together to consolidate our work thus far in reaching
long-term goals of the School: to create an integrated design
curriculum that crosses all years and disciplines; to bring
the FMCEDC to fruition; to attract the highest quality faculty
who will link across departments and build our core technology
areas; and to become the first choice of students, faculty,
and staff.
Thank you for your many contributions to McCormick. I look
forward to working with you as we continue our journey.
Best regards,
John
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