In reflecting on the past year, I take great pride in the accomplishments of our students, faculty and staff. I admit to a certain bias in my remarks, but I believe that very few colleges in the country could come close to claiming the success we enjoyed during the past year.

A year ago I wrote in this column that the summit of educational excellence awaited Rose-Hulman. Your college stood ready to take its place as the best of the best among undergraduate engineering, science and mathematics colleges. We covered much ground up that mountain during the past academic year.

The year started with the announcement by U.S. News & World Report that Rose-Hulman offers the nation’s best engineering education among colleges whose highest degree offered in engineering is a bachelor’s or a master’s. This number-one ranking for Rose-Hulman was based on the result of a national survey of higher education officials.

During an ordinary year, the number-one ranking would have "made the year" at Rose-Hulman, but it was just the beginning of extraordinarily good times. Our students excelled on a variety of fronts:

Of course, our faculty continued to excel in the classroom, teaching some of the best and brightest students in the country. Five of our faculty have been named Fulbright Scholars during the past two years.

We also had reason to celebrate our best year in fund raising, with $48 million received during the academic year. The college ended Phase I of its $100 million Vision to be the Best campaign, and entered the $100 million Phase II. To date, the total campaign has reached $167 million. Rose-Hulman received its largest single gift from the Lilly Endowment to establish Rose-Hulman Ventures, a business incubator. We also received a $10 million gift for an auditorium/alumni center from alumnus Mike Hatfield.

In other "bricks and mortar" happenings, we dedicated the state-of-the-art Oakley Observatory, and we broke ground for White Chapel. The observatory was made possible through a gift from the Oakley Foundation, and the chapel through a gift from the family of alumnus John White. We also officially dedicated the John T. Myers Center for Technological Research with Industry, and we opened the new sophomore residence hall.

Faculty from colleges around the country had the opportunity to visit campus during the Best Assessment Processes in Engineering Education III conference. During the past three years, more than 1,000 faculty members from around the world have visited the campus.