Echoes

President Hulberts remarks delivered
during convocation celebrating
Rose-Hulman's 125th anniversary

   Rose-Hulman’s goal is to provide students with the world’s best undergraduate engineering, science and mathematics education in an environment of individual attention and concern.
Today we begin the ascent to the summit of excellence in education.
   We are very fortunate to be starting from a very high base camp. Our school has a wonderful heritage. In the 1890s, it was the birthplace of Chemical Engineering. In the early 1900s it played a role in the evolution of electrical and mechanical engineering. In the 1950s it played an important role in helping to establish the discipline of bioengineering. During the 1980s and 1990s our school became the leader in the use of technology as a vehicle for enhancing teaching and learning. We were the first college or university to use computer workstations and computer algebra platforms as an aid to teaching mathematics. We were also the first to require all students to have laptop computers.
   In preparing for the journey to the summit, the most important need is the right human resources. We have assembled an outstanding faculty, staff, student body, Board of Trustees and a number of advisory teams. The credentials of our faculty and staff have never been better. We have one of the most talented and dedicated student bodies in the world. Even more important, they are exceptionally good citizens and the future leaders of our world. Our Board of Trustees, advisory groups and alumni serve as an outstanding vehicle of communication between the campus community and the outside world. Our alumni accomplishments have played a major role in increasing the national and international visibility of our school.  We have the team to take us to the summit.
   The second most important ingredient in success is having a plan. Few colleges or universities have done more planning than Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. A very active planning process played a key role in getting us to the level of excellence we enjoy today. In preparation for the ascent to the summit, we have developed a strategic academic plan, a campus-wide assessment plan and a development plan.

   A third critical ingredient is having the right tools and equipment. Each academic department has developed a curriculum which will help ensure our graduates will play a key role in the continued development of civilization. Our curricula have become models for engineering education around the world. Our classrooms and laboratories are among the best in the world. Our physical facilities are becoming comparable to the quality of our human resources.   In addition to human resources, a plan, the tools and the equipment, the final ingredient to ensuring a successful ascent is having the financial resources to support the journey.
   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Vision to be the Best development campaign has been an enormous success. The original goal was $100 million over ten years. At the end of five years we have received cash and commitments totaling $116,000,000.
   What in addition do we need to ensure a successful journey to the summit? Even though we have assembled an outstanding team, greater gender and racial diversity would improve the quality of our team. With regard to the tools, we are missing an important component. No educational institution can become the world’s best at undergraduate engineering, mathematics and science education without an outstanding life sciences component. We must acquire a life sciences component of comparable quality to our engineering, mathematics and physical science component.
   The biochemist, biophysicist, biomedical engineer, genetic engineer, and tissue engineer are all going to play increasingly important roles in our world.
   The practice of engineering is going through a revolution. When the practice of a profession undergoes a systemic change it is encumbered upon the educational system that underpins the profession to also change.
   Most engineers today are involved in working on systems problems.

   Older engineering curricular structures and their expected outcomes were well served by the traditional lecture, laboratory, and recitation formats, and these formats still have a significant place in modern technological education. However, many of the new desired curricular outcomes are best achieved by different methods. Team project work with an external client is one of the very best ways to teach and learn many of these concepts.
   They are also an effective way to achieve the enhanced curricular outcomes we desire and are required to demonstrate.
   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is in the process of establishing a Center for an Innovation Economy. Opportunities like those afforded by the Rose-Hulman Center for an Innovation Economy will provide the best learning environment for our students because they provide the most realistic parallels between the technological learning environment and the modern technological workplace.
   The Rose-Hulman Center for an Innovation Economy will enhance the opportunities for Rose-Hulman students to gain professional practice experience by enabling them to be involved in real, industry-based project work while they are students. The new Center will educate and train systems engineers for the 21st century.
   The Center will also provide opportunities for interested Institute faculty members to develop and maintain their competence to teach engineering, mathematics and science by gaining firsthand experience in the commercial practice of those professions. It is critical that today's engineering, mathematics and science education professors practice their profession outside the classroom.
There are a few additional pieces of equipment that are needed: life science laboratories, more space for our information sciences curriculum and an auditorium comparable to the quality of our Sports and Recreation Center and Student Union.
   Finally, we need additional financial resources to support the journey. The first phase of our Vision to be the Best has primarily resulted in resources for ‘brick and mortar’. We will continue to need funds for laboratory and computer equipment, but most importantly, we need financial resources to support our most important ingredient, our people. We need financial aid to make it possible for the most talented young people in the world to attend our school. We need to adequately compensate our faculty and staff and we need the resources for their continued professional development.
   Every component of the Institute has been involved in planning for the journey to the summit. There is a consensus that to adequately support the journey we need to increase the goal of the Vision to be the Best campaign from $100 million to $200 million.
   Today we are publicly announcing that the new goal for the Vision to be the Best is $200 million by June 30, 2004.
   I personally have enjoyed working with all components of our community in preparing for the ascent to the summit and I am looking forward to our journey together.