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Executive Summary

The stated mission of Oregon State University is: “To best serve the people of Oregon, Oregon State University will be among the Top 10 land grant institutions in America.”

The OSU College of Engineering supports this vision through its quest to grow prosperity through innovation by delivering the impact of the nation’s top-25 engineering programs. Measured by the composite of degrees and research expenditures, OSU Engineering now ranks 43rd and is on par with UC Irvine and Auburn University, with plans to grow to 15th, or the equivalent of Ohio State and Virginia Tech.

This focus on impact will lead to a top-25 reputation ranking and elevate OSU Engineering from its current 28th position among land grant engineering programs to join the group of eight other land grant engineering programs that are among the nation’s top 25.

A top-25 engineering college located in Oregon will help the state, the Pacific Northwest, and the nation remain globally competitive by delivering the world’s best engineering talent and breakthrough ideas. This talent and these ideas will help grow prosperity through innovation.

Our top-25 journey is built upon our century-long legacy as an excellent engineering institution. In the past, and today, this excellence stems from our diverse faculty and staff, specifically: 1) their passion to create opportunity for both our students and the broader community, 2) their drive to develop the best work-ready engineering talent, and 3) the power of their extraordinary collaboration in research and teaching. These three attributes have been, and will continue to be, the guideposts of our journey.

Already, the excitement and synergy of the Top-25 Drive is producing key results:

  • the new 153,000-sq.-ft. Kelley Engineering Center opened in 2005
  • new professors from top-tier programs are coming to OSU
  • our collaborative Research Clusters are producing groundbreaking results, including more than 10 recent spin-out ideas
  • nearly all of Oregon’s best engineering students are at OSU (including 13 out of the 14 AeA Scholarship winners of 2006)
  • PhD enrollment is up 57% over 1999 levels
  • our 2006 Mini Baja car won the world championship, and our student design teams consistently place well in national competitions
  • OSU Engineering is now 19th in the nation in composite degree and research output per faculty. 

These results, and more, are fueling the momentum and paving our ascent to top-25.

Our focus on excellence is increasing our capacity to deliver top talent at all levels. By Fiscal Year 2007, the College will be a top-30 producer of BS-degreed engineers (545 degrees/year) and a national leader in two critically needed areas: graduate education (226 degrees/year) and research (more than $27M/year).

Before graduating, this new talent will have experienced our unique hands-on Platforms for Learning™, and/or an industry-sponsored internship, and/or coursework leading to a business savvy Entrepreneurship Minor. In addition, our graduates will have worked within one of our eight collaborative Research Clusters helping innovate breakthroughs that improve life. Many of these breakthroughs will have direct business impact through new company spinouts and license agreements.

From our nationally ranked Research Clusters (some ranked in the top 5) to our nationally leading learning innovations, collaboration is a critical success factor—collaboration that spans not only engineering disciplines, but also other OSU units:

  • the OSU College of Business and OSU’s University Housing & Dining Services in entrepreneurship
  • the OSU School of Education in learning innovations
  • and with almost all other OSU colleges in research

And this collaboration goes beyond OSU to include relationships with other universities, national labs, and our industry partners like the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI).

OSU Engineering’s track record for delivering high-impact results coupled with Oregon’s need for a prosperous future recently prompted the Engineering and Technology Industry Council (ETIC) and the State Board of Higher Education to endorse doubling the number of engineering faculty at OSU over the next five years. This is precisely what is needed to grow OSU Engineering to the critical mass that will deliver the impact of a top-25 engineering program.

For 2007-2009, ETIC is requesting from the legislature a new investment in OSU Engineering of $39M in public funds that will be matched dollar-for-dollar by private gifts. If the ETIC request is successful, this will enable the College to add 50 new professors, or nearly half of the 114 additional professors needed to reach the average faculty size of top-25 programs.

OSU Engineering’s “Prosperity Through Innovation” initiative, with its goal of achieving the impact of the nation’s top-25 engineering programs, has attracted substantial private investment: a total of $85M in private gifts since its launch in 2000. And OSU Engineering’s share of the University’s new capital campaign launched in 2005 reached $61M this year, or 48% of the $128M campaign goal set for 2012.

The people of the OSU College of Engineering have extraordinary focus on creating opportunity, developing work-ready talent, and collaborating—all to help grow prosperity through innovation and to drive momentum toward the goal of reaching the top-25.