W. Kent Fuchs, engineering dean

New dean of engineering: 'We're here to make a difference'

Early in July, W. Kent Fuchs arrived on campus from Purdue University to take over as the new dean of Cornell's College of Engineering. At Purdue he had headed the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and was the Michael J. and Catherine R. Birck Distinguished Professor.

The engineering college had been headed by interim dean Harold Craighead, the Charles W. Lake Jr. Professor of Engineering and professor of applied and engineering physics, who had assumed the post after John Hopcroft stepped down in July 2001.

Last week Fuchs (pronounced fox) sat down for an interview with Cornell News Service Senior Science Editor David Brand:

What have you been doing in the two months since you arrived at Cornell?

The first task I assigned myself was to go out into each of the 10 departments and schools in the college and meet the chairs and directors in their home territory, to get a tour of facilities, meet some of the faculty and get an understanding of the problems and challenges they are facing. The second task I assigned myself was to begin to understand the Cornell heritage, to meet a few of our alumni who have gone on to be very successful and to get to know leaders of some of the student groups here this summer.

W. Kent Fuchs, the Joseph Silbert Dean of the College of Engineering, talks about the college in his Carpenter Hall office this past week. Charles Harrington/University Photography

What are some of your initial impressions of the engineering college and of the Cornell campus generally?

My first two months have confirmed that this truly is one of the premier colleges of engineering in the country and that the faculty here are world-class researchers, the students are brilliant and eager to learn and the staff is exceptionally strong, with dedication and enthusiasm for their jobs. The programs, both in areas of learning and research, are among the strongest worldwide. There have been no negative surprises. The only surprises have been discoveries I make each day about new pockets of strength across the college.

Talk about the specific strengths and weaknesses that you see in the college.

The strengths are in the areas of people and programs. The weakness would have to be the infrastructure in which we work and learn. Primarily I am talking about facilities, but also areas such as equipment and information technology infrastructure that we use in our labs. Many of the buildings on the engineering quad were built in the 1950s and are in great need of renovation, and some are in need of replacement. A number of departments and schools need a significant increase in space, so new facilities are needed to enhance many of the ongoing programs. So there will be a big challenge in progressing beyond the completion of Duffield Hall and looking at the entire engineering quad and implementing plans for revitalizing all of the buildings around the quad. That would be our greatest weakness, if I compare us to other great engineering colleges. Our infrastructure and our facilities and equipment are not equal to the people occupying them.

So how do you plan to begin to make needed changes across the college?

The first thing we are doing is implementing a planning process to assess our strengths and weaknesses, including those in the area of facilities, but also involving faculty size and new programs we want to initiate. This is a planning process that will be going on through the year in each of the departments and schools, as well as the entire college. We will involve alumni, the external advisory council [the Engineering College Council], faculty, staff and students. Our objective by the end of the spring semester is to have a clearly articulated plan that will enable us to really capture the position as the premier college of engineering in the nation. We expect the plan will include objectives we want to attain and also resources that are needed. One of our objectives for the year is to communicate consistently and clearly with our students, with our staff and with the faculty in defining our objectives and what it will take to attain them.

Are there any near-term "fixes" that can be made?

There is a significant need for improving wireless and broad-band connectivity to rooms, offices and labs across the college. We also need to improve the computational access for students, faculty and staff. I think that within 12 months we can have a significant impact on the information technology capabilities across each of the departments.

As a student of divinity as well as electrical engineering, what do you believe young engineers should be taught about their roles in the world?

Fundamentally, engineering is about discovering knowledge and, secondly, applying that knowledge to improving people's lives. Technology, and specifically engineering, has the potential of really improving the way we live, work and play. That is a message that I believe is important to communicate to high school and elementary school students: that we're here to make a difference and to improve the quality of people's lives.

How can Cornell attract more underrepresented minorities to the engineering college?

First, this is truly a mission that our entire nation needs to adopt and focus on. As the dean of engineering I will make it clear that this is a problem that we at Cornell will address and also a problem that I will encourage our state and country to work on. It used to be that we understood we had a moral obligation to attract more underrepresented minorities into engineering. But it has gone beyond that now and has become an economic necessity. We do not graduate enough engineering students to meet the job market, even with the economic downturn of the last two years. It is an absolute necessity for our economy and our nation that we have a growing number of engineering graduates, and the only way to do that is to bring in underrepresented portions of our population, which would include Hispanics and other students of color. I also encourage our students to attain graduate degrees so they can become part of faculties at leading universities. Nationally we cannot describe this as a solved problem until the faculty and students in engineering colleges and science departments reflect the population. We also need to influence high schools because many students are opting out of a full four years of math and science. Nationally, and specifically at Cornell as a leading engineering college, we need to make it clear that high school students should ideally be required, but at least strongly encouraged, to take a full four years of math and science -- and to understand that this can lead to new options >in careers. We should focus on recruiting those students.

What actions need to be taken to increase the percentage of women students in the engineering college?

First, as the new dean, I should acknowledge what I consider to be the excellent success the college has had in increasing the number of women undergraduates. Five years ago the entering freshman class was 19 percent women. This week that number has risen to 28 percent. However, that number should be doubled. The objective is to continue the positive trend so that we have a greater percentage of women as well as students of color. The most important component in attracting and retaining these students is to have a faculty that represents them. So we are working aggressively, and will continue to do so, on recruiting junior as well as senior female faculty and faculty of color. We believe that this is the most fundamental thing we can do

How can more high school women be persuaded to seek careers in engineering?

Cornell has had a number of nationally innovative programs, such as the Curie program [the Curie Academy for Girls summer program] led by faculty and staff to introduce female high school students to engineering. We will continue to enhance existing programs and be a national leader in innovation in this area. Also, to enable students that are admitted to Cornell to be successful, we will strongly support our women and minorities in engineering programs, and we will encourage faculty to be involved. We already have a large number of faculty who feel passionately about increasing the diversity of our student population and faculty, and they are committed to giving their time to recruiting and then helping students be successful.

The engineering college is committed to the integration of the life sciences into engineering education, and recently a new biomedical engineering program was announced. Where do you see this melding of biology with engineering and physics leading?

This is the new exciting frontier for engineering. As I mentioned earlier, engineering is fundamentally discovering concepts and knowledge that result in products that improve our lives. Now we are moving on to improving life itself. Our vision of the future is that engineers will drive the process of invention that will actually improve the quality of life itself, not just activities we participate in through work and play. My expectation is that all of our engineering departments will have some component that is fundamentally biologically oriented. We will also have programs that will focus specifically on this interface of biology with engineering -- an example is biomedical engineering -- which we believe will not only enable us to enhance research in this area but also attract new students, and especially women and underrepresented minorities. Another example is bioengineering, which is broader and includes areas that Cornell leads in nationally, which are advanced materials, nanotechnology, information technology and information science and the environment.

Do you see a day when all Cornell engineering undergraduates will be required to be proficient in biology?

I am convinced that all engineering students, and most likely all Cornell undergraduates, will have to have a fundamental understanding of biology. Likely one or two courses will not give them proficiency, but certainly all students, and particularly those in engineering, will have to have sufficient background to understand terminology and apply it to their specific discipline.

Do you believe the teaching of ethics should play an increasing role in engineering education?

It does and it will grow in importance. Our students will be in leadership positions, faced with the difficult decisions that the use of technology poses in many areas. They need a strong background in ethics to inform their professional behavior and decisions. We are required from an accreditation perspective to include components of ethics in courses we teach. Many design-focused courses and team-oriented labs contain components of learning that include ethical engineering and ethical behavior. We have strong alumni support for sustaining instruction in this area, including funding to recruit a chaired professor in ethics. The challenge is influencing the behavior of students after they leave the university.

Years in the future when you step down as dean, what would you wish to be remembered for?

I want to be broadly remembered as someone who has made a permanent difference in the College of Engineering. I believe the primary way to do that is by focusing on hiring faculty who will make discoveries that will make a difference in the world, who will be outstanding teachers and thereby also recruit and attract superb students. I want to make a difference in the lives of our faculty, who will then make a difference in lives of students. Also, I would like to make a difference in our ability to enable these faculty to be successful by providing them with the resources they need and improving the environment in which they work. If our faculty are successful, then our students and staff will also be successful and I will have made a lasting difference in the college and at Cornell.

Profile of a dean

Name: W. Kent Fuchs
Title: Joseph Silbert Dean of the College of Engineering
Previous positions: Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Michael J. and Catherine R. Birck Distinguished Professor at Purdue University, 1996-2002; professor at the University of Illinois in the Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1985-1996.
Academic focus: Current research interests include dependable computing, testing and failure diagnosis. He led two research groups at Purdue: computer-aided design tools for testing and failure analysis in integrated circuits; and dependable mobile computing, active networks and high-performance computing.
Academic background: B.S., engineering, Duke University, 1977; M.S., University of Illinois, 1982; master of divinity, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1984; Ph.D., electrical engineering, University of Illinois,1985.

August 29, 2002