Richard C. Benson Dean of the College of Engineering Torgersen Chair

Virginia Tech's College of Engineering is comprehensive. We are the home to a dozen departments with some 300 faculty, 5,500 undergraduate majors, and almost 2,000 graduate students.
We have a strong reputation among our peers, and one reason is our innovative leadership in engineering education.

In 1984 we became the first public institution to require our entering engineering students to have desktop computers. Three years ago we changed our computer requirement from desktop to laptop, leading to many innovations in classroom instruction and team projects. The College of Engineering's freshman class of 2006 will be required to have Tablet PCs. Our students and faculty will be able to take advantage of the Tablet PC's many advanced teaching features such as the ability to receive a copy of the instructor's notes, including in-class electronic ink annotations.

Having a laptop provides our students with continual access to notes, data, applications software and other information in class, group meetings, and in study sessions. Network plug-ins and wireless network access are currently available in many classrooms and study areas.

Our Engineering Education research program was featured along with Purdue's in the ASEE Prism Summer 2006 edition.

We are constantly exploring the frontiers of computer technology in education. You may have heard of Virginia Tech's Math Emporium or System X, one of the top 15 fastest supercomputers in the world, and the first such computer to run at speeds faster than 10 teraflops.

Integrating concepts of green engineering into our curriculum started more than a dozen years ago when only a handful of engineering colleges in the country (public or private) included aspects of sustainable engineering in coursework.

Virginia Tech student teams participate in many exciting design competitions - and we tend to do extremely well. For example, the Virginia Tech aerospace and ocean engineering students have won more aircraft, spacecraft and ship design awards than any other students in the country at the international group design competitions sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, major aerospace industries, and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.

For the third year in a row, a team of Virginia Tech engineering students has won first place in the national Material Handling Student Design Competition for their design of an industrial facility. Sponsored by the College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education and Modern Materials Handling magazine, the competition challenges students to solve a case-study facility design problem in only five weeks.

One secret to these successes is a unique facility that our design teams work in is known as the Ware Lab. We invite you to visit the Ware Lab to learn more about ongoing student design projects and our exciting approach to hands-on engineering.

Instead of starting a bioengineering department, we've hit on a very powerful and innovative way to engage in the fields of bioengineering and biotechnology. Two years ago, we established a joint School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences with Wake Forest University, which has a premier medical facility. The school offers MS and Ph.D degrees.

Virginia Tech is part of a consortium of schools creating the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), a major research and education collaboration supported by NASA through the Langley Research Center in Hampton. Other members of the consortium are University of Virginia, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and University of Maryland-College Park. Enrolled students may take classes from any of the participating universities.

Here on campus we're building the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) targeted to become a major, nationally prominent "home" for high-end, interdisciplinary research in the physical and engineering sciences. The first ICTAS building will open in 2007. Academic programs and research focus areas are being assembled in temporary space in the interim.

U.S. News & World Report typically ranks our undergraduate programs between 5th and 15th among all accredited engineering schools, and in the Top 10 among those at public universities.

Among the great polytechnics of the US, an impressive list with schools such as MIT, Caltech, Georgia Tech, and RPI, known for their depth and breadth of technical education, Virginia Tech ranks in the top five.

I have highlighted just a few of the many exciting things going on in our College and on our campus. We hope you will read more about our College and departments on the web-and visit us in person to take a tour of our facilities and programs.

For additional information on undergraduate programs and how to apply to the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, visit the Academic Affairs section of our website or e-mail:engrhelp@vt.edu.

For additional information on engineering graduate programs and admission, go to research and graduate studies and individual departmental websites or email: bcrawfrd@vt.edu.

For general information about the College, send email.

I invite you to to read the current issue of my e- newsletter to find out about recent news in the College of Engineering.

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