Charge for SEAS Strategic Planning


Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS) embodies the ideal of a strong school of engineering within a liberal arts culture. It has had an eminent history, granting the first engineering PhD in the United States, to Josiah Willard Gibbs in 1863. Today, it should attract Yale’s most creative students and scholars, its most undaunted innovators, and its most acute problem-solvers. The recent introduction of Computer Science and Applied Physics into the School, the founding and development of Yale’s Innovation Corridor, and the recent vision for new institutes at Yale in neuroscience, data science, and quantum science have positioned SEAS to play a critical role in furthering Yale’s strategic vision. All these developments and more have brought to the fore the need to define and articulate a bold new strategy for the School. 

Indeed, the USSC Report recognized “the need for Yale to have strength and intellectual coverage in areas of engineering and applied science” and emphasized “that engineering and applied science will play a vital role in implementing an overall strategy for advancing STEM across Yale.” The USSC Report explicitly  invites SEAS to develop a strategic plan to further integrate engineering into the fabric of the university.

I ask you, now, to take up this invitation. With Dean Brock’s appointment in 2019 and the recent arrival of Applied Physics into your school, the timing is right for you to embark upon an inclusive process to chart the bright future of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Please consider a ten-year timeframe and examine the following questions: 

A. How can the unique configuration of expertise in SEAS support excellence across Yale?

B. How can SEAS engage with and lift Yale’s strategic priorities?

C. How is SEAS positioned to address the global societal challenges of 2020 and beyond?

D. How will SEAS enhance the diversity and excellence of our campus?

E. How can SEAS be a portal for Yale to industry, entrepreneurship, and innovation?

F. Is SEAS internally structured to maximize its impact, excellence, and support of Yale?

G. What space uses and adjacencies will maximize opportunities for collaboration and synergy?

H. What curricular opportunities and innovation should SEAS pursue?

I. How can SEAS contribute to the strength of Yale College?

As you embark on this process, you should envisage ambitious aspirations. However, these ambitions should present a range of scenarios that allow for advancement under a resource constrained environment. Please produce a framing so that future decisions can be made with your current guidance.

I ask that the committee:

  1. Establish three to five visionary goals for SEAS to realize over the next five to ten years.
  2. Develop tactics to support each of these goals. Include ideas that could be incorporated at current resource levels as well as those that would be feasible with additional resources.
  3. Make suggestions about organizational structures and behaviors that could support excellence in engineering and applied science at Yale.

I expect diverse disciplinary expertise on this committee, and I hope that, collectively, you will all prize the interests of SEAS in the long-term. Thank you, in advance, for the ingenuity, commitment, and collaboration that this will necessitate.

Scott Strobel
Provost

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:

  • Jeffrey Brock – Chair
    Dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science; FAS Dean of Science; Zhao and Ji Professor of Mathematics
  • Menachem Elimelech
    Roberto C. Goizueta Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering and the Environment
  • Anna Gilbert, outside member
    John C. Malone Professor of Mathematics and Statistics & Data Science
  • Anjelica Gonzalez, ex officio
    Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Tsai CITY Faculty Director
  • Sohrab Ismail-Beigi
    Professor of Applied Physics, Physics, & Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
  • Rajit Manohar
    John C. Malone Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
  • Sarah Miller, Staff
    Assistant Dean for Science and Engineering
  • Laura Niklason
    Professor of Anesthesiology & Biomedical Engineering
  • Corey O’Hern
    Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Physics, Applied Physics & Graduate Program in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics
  • Vladimir Rokhlin
    Arthur K. Watson Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Mathematics
  • Nisheeth Vishnoi
    Professor of Computer Science
  • Vincent Wilczynski, Staff
    Deputy Dean, SEAS and James S. Tyler Director of the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design

 

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