Dean's Message: Celebrating Good News in the New Year

January 28, 2016

To the Faculty and Staff of the Jacobs School:

The New Year is off to a great start, and I am pleased to share with you good news about the vigorous strides that we are collectively achieving to make the Jacobs School of Engineering ever better.

We are all committed to the mantra: "student-centered, research-focused, service-oriented, public university." Read on to learn more good news from our combined efforts to make a difference in I) the faculty body II) the student experience, and III) school resources.

I) The Faculty Body

We are in the midst of a substantial faculty growth phase. In 2013-14, the Jacobs School was successful in recruiting faculty with 19 new hires. And in 2014-15, we were equally successful with 18 new faculty joining us. This cohort of 37 new hires will assist in improving the student-teacher ratio as well as sustaining our increased efforts in engineering research which will also expand opportunities for our graduate students.

Our total faculty is now 224. In 2016, we have 21 FTE slots, and given our multiple joint divisional recruitments, the Jacobs School has the potential for hiring up to 27 new faculty this year.

We are in the midst of a significant growth phase for the Jacobs School, and we are now working on faculty hiring plans for the next six years. Our aspirational goal is to achieve 260 LRF and 20 LSOEs for a total of 280 faculty, which will put us on a more even par with our peers amongst the top-ranked research engineering schools.

II) The Student Experience

i. Enrollment

All Jacobs School majors have capped status, and as a result, we have begun to decrease our undergraduate enrollments and improve our student-teacher ratio. This fall we welcomed 6,677 majors compared to last fall at 6,849, a 3% decrease.

The Master's student population has increased by 45%, from 809 to 1,177. This shift is in response to both industry demand for more graduate students as well as student demand for more education.

Our PhD population has remained relatively stable with a 1,067 majors this fall vs. 1,053 last fall, an increase of 1%. In future years, as our new, young faculty engage in more research, I expect these numbers will increase.

ii. Advising

Our School-wide Student Success Initiative is aimed at increasing retention and diversity in engineering through academic support, community building and leadership opportunities. The Student Success Initiative produced outstanding academic results in Fall Quarter 2016 with the pilot of the Learning Communities approach (facilitated study groups) for Math 20A. We have expanded in Winter 2016 to Math 20B. Development work has begun on an early warning advising system. We recently opened the IDEA Learning Center in the lower level of Jacobs Hall to be used for tutoring, study groups, and the learning communities (watch for the upcoming grand opening).

iii. New Curricula

2015 was an inaugural year for our Experience Engineering Initiative with the introduction of new Design-Maker Courses. Three experiential freshman courses were piloted in 2015 (BENG, CENG, CSE). We completed construction of the 3,130 SF Maker Space in the Structural and Materials Engineering building, which is a shared facility with Arts and Humanities.

The Maker Space opened at the start of the New Year and is already busy with four more experiential freshman courses (BENG, SE, NANO, ECE). Student reactions have been positive and have been featured in stories by the Jacobs School communications team.

Upcoming curricular initiatives include a planned undergraduate major and minor in Data Science offered jointly between CSE and Math. We are piloting a new graduate course sequence in Technology Management and Entrepreneurism with the Rady School of Management (Spring 2016). Several departments and faculty are expanding online offerings.

3) School Resources

i. Research Growth

Total research expenditures generated by engineering faculty increased to $162M in 2014-15, an $11M or 7% increase over 2013-14.

Big wins in 2015 include:
$20.2 million NIH grant to establish the 4D Nucleome Network Organizational Hub at UC San Diego; $5.2 million NSF grant to run the world’s largest outdoor shake table here at UC San Diego for the next five years; and $5.5 million NSF National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) grant develop transformative nanotechnologies.

Overall philanthropic support also increased last year, from $31M to $32M, and it is good to see that our benefactors appreciate the value of the Jacobs School.

The "Dean's Agile Research Centers" program, which enables faculty to set up research centers with minimal administrative burden, is flourishing. Our first two centers have begun to see tangible results. The Center for Wearable Sensors has commitments from six (6) companies with anticipated support of $290K. Faculty collaborating in the Center have achieved millions more in new federal funding. The Center for Visual Computing currently has eight (8) sponsors and $750K in private funding since starting the effort to launch the center.

Our new Institute for Contextual Robotics Systems opened in October 2015, with 42 participating faculty and a nearly $10M annual research budget. This Institute is a partnership between Engineering and Social Sciences. This new paradigm of engineering taking campus partners for large, new institutes seems to be very successful and I hope to announce the opening of another large, joint institute in 2016.

ii. Capital Infrastructure Expansion

To accommodate our growth while enabling large multi-disciplinary research centers, we are engaged in planning for a large engineering building on the P502 parking lot footprint across from Atkinson Hall. Our preliminary building study shows that this site will accommodate a 155,000 ASF building, including a 275-seat lecture hall. An open air parking structure at the base of the building would create 100 additional parking spaces, for a total more than 400 spaces. We are currently working with campus on a business model for the building. In the meantime, we continue to collaborate with the departments and campus to solve immediate space needs.

iii. New Campus Funding Models

In 2015-16, the campus began to roll out new funding models, starting with a distribution of Masters Growth funding to departments and divisions. A total of $6.8M is being distributed throughout the campus, of which $2.1M is base funding and $4.7M for incremental growth. The Jacobs School is receiving 86% of the base funding and 95% of growth dollars coming to the campus, and these resources are essential in keeping our growth rate intact.

We are also anticipating an increase in administrative operating dollars to flow to engineering departments this year. Coupled with Master's Growth funding, Jacobs School departments should be in a stronger financial position this year as well as in coming years.

iv. Administrative Best Practices Initiative

We introduced the Jacobs School Administrative Best Practices initiative to enable our staff across departments to brainstorm and identify optimal processes and tools that will maximize our resources, efficiency, and effectiveness. A first result of this effort is a strong improvement in AP file submission timeliness. Schoolwide, we improved from 35% on time filing in AY2013, to 88% on time filing in AY2015.

We officially launched the Best Practices Initiative in Fall 2015, and currently have six teams in place: Academic Personnel, Event Management, Facilities Management, Financial Management, Human Resources and Student Affairs.

These are just a few highlights of our tremendous successes in 2015 and plans for 2016. I hope you all agree that the past year has been a strong one for the Jacobs School. I thank you for all your effort, and celebrate in your achievements.

Best wishes for health, happiness and success in 2016.

Sincerely,

-Al

Albert P. Pisano
Dean, Jacobs School of Engineering
UC San Diego