In the past two years, Virginia Tech's College of Engineering has greatly improved its instructional facilities, renovating laboratory space, updating equipment used for teaching, and redesigning space to better meet students' needs.

In some cases, teaching equipment was more than 80 years old, such as the wind tunnel used by the aerospace and ocean engineering department. In other cases, we considered environmental problems, such as an outdated system that needed proper venting to maintain good air quality in a windowless room, as well as a floor that was built over old creosoted wood joists. We also found that maintaining computer labs for computer science students when they carried around their own laptops did not make sense. It would be better to provide them with access to specialized machines.

The articles on the following pages will provide more elaborate, concrete examples of how we have improved our undergraduate education in the past two years. Due to space constraints, we are not able to feature all of the improvements made by our 13 departments. However, we want you, the reader, to understand that all students in our undergraduate curricula are benefiting from the engineering fee.

We were able to improve our already highly ranked undergraduate program — 14th in the country according to the U.S. News & World Report survey — because of the engineering fees approved by the university's board of visitors in 2007. Prior to this enactment, Virginia Tech had not differentiated in its cost of undergraduate instruction. However, the university had computed that undergraduate engineering costs $117 more per credit hour than the overall university average, making it the most expensive undergraduate program at Virginia Tech. This cost is driven largely by the essential role of laboratory and design work in our curricula.

Our engineering fee ensures the continued availability of the necessary resources to support our excellent engineering program. As dean, I have instructed  that the revenue from the fees can be spent only on instructional labs. Thus, all students who enroll in engineering courses benefit. To ensure that costs are equally distributed to students taking engineering courses and students in joint-degree programs, the fee is applied in relationship to the actual courses taken. Off-campus students and online students participate equally.

The $30 per-credit-hour charge has the potential to generate more than $3 million per year when fully implemented in 2010-11. Obviously, the freshman pays less as he or she is taking fewer engineering courses. Upperclass and graduate engineering students incur greater charges.

The College of Engineering is extremely excited about the changes occurring in its various departments through the use of the engineering fees. They allow us to maintain and enhance the quality of our “Hands On/Minds On” philosophy of education. In the past, the rapid growth of technology made it difficult for an institution of higher education to provide state-of-the-art classroom environments. As a state school, we were not able to rely on any steady stream of funding for instructional labs. The engineering fee has addressed this problem, and we hope you will enjoy the following pages that provide concrete examples of our improved educational system.

     Sincerely,

 

     Richard C. Benson

     Dean

     Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Chair of Engineering

Virginia Tech, College of Engineering Dean's Office, 3046 Torgersen (0217), Blacksburg, VA 24061 

Phone:  540/231-6641    Fax:  540/231-3031    www.eng.vt.edu