Expanding Our Footprint
Sina Y. Rabbany, PhD (Bioengineering)
Dean, Fred DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Science
Jean Nerken Distinguished Professor of Engineering
Sina.Y.Rabbany@hofstra.edu
A little more than two years since the first spadefuls of dirt were upended in a ceremonial start to realizing a long-planned addition to the DeMatteis footprint, the Science & Innovation Center (SIC) is now open for occupancy At the end of August, all our Computer Science faculty and about one-fourth of our engineering faculty moved out of the somewhat cramped environs of the Adams/Weed Hall complex to their new offices on the eastern side of the campus. For those of you who are alumni of the past decade or so, that means in the area already populated by C.V. Starr Hall and the attached Guthart Hall, home of the Zarb School of Business building, and a short walk to Berliner Hall (Chemistry and Physics), Gittleson Hall (Biology and Geology) and Monroe Lecture Hall A multitude of computer labs, a large suite of bioengineering labs, the first-year engineering lab and adjoining maker space, and our first dedicated industrial engineering lab augment the many classrooms, study spaces and of course faculty offices on the first two floors of the SIC.
Once again, we anticipate a record number of first-year students – in fact, upwards of 250 - who of course will be spending a lot of their time in the SIC Our continuing students in the civil, electrical and mechanical programs will still be mostly habituating Adams and Weed Hall, but will benefit from new laboratories that will be replacing the old computer labs in Adams. For example, there will now be a lab exclusively devoted to soil mechanics for the first time, and a lab devoted to emerging energy technologies.
Another indication of our growth is the imminent visit occurring this October when fully six of our programs (Bioengineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering) will be the focus of a team of evaluators from the Engineering Accreditation Committee of ABET, the agency that oversees the status of engineering and computer science degree programs across the country and in many countries around the world Many of our faculty were engaged in the preparatory reports and data gathering that precedes these visits that recur every six years.
The key stakeholder of all our educational programs is of course our students, and we continue to try to broaden the opportunities they can avail themselves of. This summer we joined a consortium of universities to work with Micron Technology in pursuit of advancing U.S. production for the semiconductor industry We also now partner with several universities in the Cornell Break Through Tech program providing AI training for women in STEM curricula Not to mention our own homegrown programs that I have highlighted in previous messages, such as our Co-op program, and our Hofstra in Silicon Valley, and our free winter enrichment courses.
As always, I look forward to hearing from alumni who receive this newsletter. Let us know what you have been doing in the years since you graduated. You too are key stakeholders of the DeMatteis School as you advance through your lives and careers I hope you continue to remember the years you spent in our school as both formative and informative.