Engineered for Impact

BY DEAN KENNETH R. LUTCHEN

example can be found in this issue’s cover story.

Almost immediately, we found that our culture—summed up in the phrase Great Minds Do Not Think Alike—became a magnet for attracting students and faculty from all backgrounds who want to work on societal challenges with colleagues from all disciplines and personal backgrounds. This required fundamental changes in the way we recruit many of our faculty and students, distinct from the ways of other engineering schools.

Last year, we recruited five junior faculty via a convergent search. Search committees were composed of faculty from all departments, as well as other schools at BU. The searches attracted extraordinary applicants who were explicitly looking for a place that embraced collaboration. Moreover, we found the top candidates were intellectually fearless, willing to take on the top challenges in our convergent research themes. You will meet the first five of these faculty in this issue.

The last issue of this magazine, in which we rolled out our groundbreaking strategic plan for the next 10 years, was the most well received of any issue in my 15 years as dean. Centered on the power of convergence—where people from multiple disciplines work as a team to innovate in research and education—the plan represents a breakthrough in how an engineering school operates. It is driven by an appreciation that society’s grand challenges cannot be solved by minds, however brilliant, all trained in a single discipline.

The most impactful solutions can be achieved only by embracing the power of synthesizing across disciplines—by convergence. To that end, we committed to creating a new kind of engineer and identified six research themes where we already had strength and where researchers from multiple fields were well positioned to make breakthroughs. One

We stood up a similar approach in recruiting doctoral students. Among those who applied to our traditional departments and degree programs, we identified a select few who expressed research interests along the lines of our convergent research themes. They, too, were intellectually fearless and we offered them new, highly prestigious, named convergent-themed fellowships. The first five arrived last fall and are highlighted in this issue.

Our strategic plan is not limited to research. We have also changed our undergraduate curriculum to embrace the concept of data science and hands-on design throughout the curriculum of all students. As PRISM, the magazine of the American Society for Engineering Education, noted in its summer 2022 issue, “Few programs have retooled their undergraduate curricula for the digital economy as dramatically as Boston University’s College of Engineering. . . . BU’s big-data shift builds on a decade of curricular trans- formation, such as infusing makerspace and design experiences throughout the undergraduate engineering program.”

Connected to that is our strong and growing partnerships with industry. Companies are helping us identify the competencies they need for today and tomorrow, which is guiding our efforts to innovate our new data science and hands-on experiences in our curricula and makerspaces.

Of course, there is more to do. We will expand faculty recruitment to include convergent faculty at the senior level. And, central to our guiding principle are diversity and building a community inclusive of people from all backgrounds. We stay true to our mantra that Great Minds Do Not Think Alike, and we commit to creating solutions that benefit all of society, not just certain segments.

As we implement our strategic plan, we are reinventing engineering education, research, and partnership to society and building a college that is Engineered for Impact.