Letter from the Dean
In addition to everything the pandemic has taught us about the value of family, friends, and health, we have learned an extraordinary amount in the last 14 months about the benefits of agility.
The College of Engineering has provided inspiring examples of our capacity to change at a moment’s notice. We adapted our Guaranteed Paid Internship Program to deliver the paid work experiences we had promised, serving 114 students in summer 2020 and 52 more in the fall and spring, many of them in a virtual work environment. (See our story about online internships.) Faculty brought courses to life in new ways, from holding live lectures in Blackboard to recording lab experiments as video theater. Administrators connected with students virtually to provide the best advising and support possible.
We were particularly concerned about how our first-year students would fare in this unusual pandemic year, and I am happy to report that 93.2 percent of fall 2020 freshmen re-enrolled for the spring. Retention among our Black freshmen was 100 percent. We are proud of this strong showing by our Class of 2024.
We anticipate a successful close of this academic year and send early congratulations to our May 2021 graduates. I have confidence that our newfound agility will make it easy to return to the routines we enjoyed in pre-pandemic life.