• This year our faculty and staff have received the following awards: : Dr. Michael Johnson, Dwight Look College of Engineering William O. and Montine P. Head Fellow; Dr. Bimal Nepal, Dwight Look College of Engineering Herbert H. Richardson Fellow; Dr. Ana Goulart, Corrie & Jim Ferber ’64 Faculty Fellowship; Dr. Dan Jennings, AFS University-Level Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching; Dr. Michael Johnson, ETID Teaching Excellence Award; Dr. Joseph Morgan, AFS College- Level Teaching Award; Dr. Angie Hill Price, ETID Service Excellence Award; Dr. Nina Robson, Pathways to the Doctorate Fellowship Award; Dr. Jyhwen Wang, ETID Research Excellence Award; Dr. Behbood Zoghi, ETID Distinguished Achievement in Teaching, Research and Service Award.  In addition, two of our staff members were recognized at the College level with the COE Outstanding Support Staff Achievement Awards - Emma Carrigan and Linda Chandler; and three of our staff received the following internal awards:  ETID Distinguished Achievement Award, Bharani Nagarathnam; ETID Outstanding Support Staff Award, Evan Vestal; and ETID Staff Appreciation Award, Myra Kretzschmar. We want to congratulate these outstanding faculty and staff members for their accomplishments and I would also like to thank Ms. Kaye Matejka for the remarkable job she does putting together these award nominations to recognize and reward outstanding contributors to our department and the College.  Through their performance and Kaye’s efforts on their behalf, the department is widely recognized throughout the College and Texas A&M.

• Dr. Angie Hill Price was appointed associate department head for undergraduate studies and academic advising.  She is in the process of implementing new processes that will streamline and enhance our students’ advising experience.

• Faculty advancement in the department has been excellent this year with Dr. Jyhwen Wang (MMET) being promoted to full professor and Dr. Jorge Alvarado (MMET) achieving tenure and promotion to associate professor.  In addition, three faculty members submitted their packages for tenure and promotion to associate professor to be effective September 2012, which now only await Board of Regents approval.  They are:  Ana Goulart (EET), Chalam Narayanan (ID) and Wei Zhan (EET). 

• We have been very successful in student recruiting.  Enrollments are capped in Industrial Distribution and Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology with a significant increase in enrollments in Electronics Engineering Technology over the past three years.

• Income received this year as a result of the new differential tuition fees has made a significant impact by reducing class sizes, adding more sections to meet enrollment needs and improving the quality of teaching in laboratories formerly taught by teaching assistants.  Randy Tucker, Lecturer in MMET, and Dr. Paul Schreuders, Senior Lecturer in EDG were hired this year.  Major laboratory facility renovations are also underway in ID and EET as a result of this funding.

• As PAID's 17th Annual Career Fair began to wind down, the 2012-2013 recruiting season was gearing up. Even after PAID’s officers and team leaders had successfully executed a company attendance of 50-55 companies, their quest for next year's sponsors was already in action. Regardless of the pinch the economy has on many pockets, the Professional Association for Industrial Distribution (PAID) retains its aggressive stance and constant pursuit to "link students with industry."

• We participated for the fifth time in the national Rube Goldberg competition at Purdue. Andra Arnold was instrumental with us entering this year by raising money from private donors. This year was designing a machine to pop a balloon.

• Our strategic plan is proceeding well. We have four focus areas with faculty champions for each area:  Faculty Development and Scholarship, Outreach and Student Recruitment, Education/ Curriculum, and Development/Fundraising. These focus groups bring to the table ideas to support the vision for undergraduate education, research, and outreach at the departmental and College levels.

• To show our appreciation for donor contributions, over 100 ETID supporters have attended Aggie football games at our invitation and we have made almost 100 visits to industry.  This effort has resulted in over $16+ million in gifts to the department during the past five years and this past year we rose over $1,772K dollars for student scholarships and $1,003K faculty fellowships.

• We are having our fourth ETID Tailgate on May 12th, and expect a big turnout.

• The sixteenth issue of the department’s newsletter, “The Link,” which you are seeing now, is going to over 10,000 of our alums and supporters.   This will be the last issue of “The Link.”  Future news will come to you in the form of a very professionally done “Annual Report,” which will go out in the summer of each year.  Budget reductions and a cut in staff have necessitated us going with one annual communication to our alums and supporters.

This next year some of our top priorities are to continue growing our Electronics Engineering Technology program, plus working on our strategic planning focus areas. With several new endowments in place, we will be able to increase our support of faculty in their professional development and outreach activities.

I hope you will come and visit us and let us show you the exciting things that are going on in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution. You are welcome to visit anytime!