From the Department Head
Dr. Walter W. Buchanan

Dear Fellow Aggies:

We are just finishing this academic year and looking forward to commencement presided over by our president, Dr. Elsa Murano. Here are some of the things that have been happening in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution:
 

• Some departmental accomplishments this year: Funded Research - $4.043M,  Research Expenditures - $1.25M; Average TCH Load = 9.83; Scholarships Awarded - $83,283; Donations of Cash and Equipment - $2.157M; Refereed Journal Publications – 39.24; Conference Publications – 46.64; Papers and Books Reviewed – 244; Professional Sessions Moderated – 34.  As you can see from these statistics are faculty are very engaged in teaching, research, and service to the profession.



• This year our faculty and staff have received the following awards: Dr. Jorge Alvarado, TEES Select Young Faculty; Mr. Norm Clark, AFS Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching at the College level; Dr. Joseph Morgan, Dwight Look College of Engineering Faculty Fellow; Mr. Matthew Whiteacre, Charles W. Crawford Service Award; Dr. Jay Porter, the 2009 ASEE Robert G. Quinn Award; and Dr. Walter Buchanan, the ASEE Distinguished Service Award.  In addition, Mrs. Peggy Jo Johnson received a College-Level Outstanding Support Staff Achievement Award.  Mrs. Faye Greenwade received a university level CSBA "Best in Business" award. Staff recognized for outstanding achievement at the departmental level at this year’s holiday social were Mr. Ray Kornhoff (Distinguished Achievement Award), Mrs. Necia Perdue (Outstanding Support Staff Award), Mrs. Emma Carrigan (Staff Appreciation Award), and Mr. Bill Coats (Staff Administrative Leave with Pay Award).  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.



• We are currently recruiting a new tenure-track faculty member in our Electronics Engineering Technology Program to replace Dr. John Fike, who will be retiring.  We just hired a new faculty member in our Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Technology Program, Dr. Nina Robson, who will be joining us from the University of California – Irvine, in September.  The addition of 12 new tenure-track faculty over the past three years has added greatly to the diversity of our faculty and productivity of the department.



• We have been very successful in student recruiting, with capped enrollments in Industrial Distribution and Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology and a 50% increase in enrollments in Electronics Engineering Technology, over the past two years.



• Our Healthcare Distribution Certificate, which started with the first course being offered this past fall, will have its full complement of four courses on line next year.  They are:  Health Care Technologies, which has been taught by Dr. Ryan Beasley; Medical Manufacturing, taught by Dr. Wayne Hung; Health Care Distribution, which will be taught by Dr. Chalam Narayanan; and Medical Terminology for Healthcare professionals, taught by the Department of Health and Kinesiology. The Dean has been very supportive of this initiative with new faculty positions over the past two years.



• Dr. John Fike, associate professor of electronics and telecommunications ET, who has been with us for 17 years, will be retiring this summer. A retirement party for John, and his lovely wife, Linda will be planned for late August.



• Our Texas A&M University Research Center at the Monterey Research and Innovation Technology Park in The State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, is proceeding well under the leadership of Drs. Jorge Leon and Barry Lawrence.   This center is making possible more faculty involvement in research across all program areas in our department.



• Drs. Joe Morgan and Jay Porter have led our engineering technology power initiative with an emphasis in nuclear power. This program will have four nuclear engineering courses taught by our Nuclear Engineering Department here.  In addition to our current courses, which will be used for this initiative, we are adding one in Thermal Systems, which will be taught by Dr. Jorge Alvarado.



• Drs. Jorge Leon and Barry Lawrence have led a collaborative effort between the ETID Department and the Department of Industrial Engineering that resulted in the acquisition of space in the Sbisa Center for an Enterprise Innovation and Integration Laboratory.  Renovation of this space started in April and should be completed by the end of the summer.  This renovation was made possible by financial support from the Dean’s Office and through the generosity of some of our major donors.



• We had a very successful PAID career fair this spring with over 80 exhibitors. This career fair continues to be a great avenue for our graduates to pursue careers in industry and it has also led to increased financial support of these industries to enhance undergraduate education in the Industrial Distribution Program.



• As the result of two full-day faculty retreats this past spring, we have seven focus areas with faculty champions for each area:  Faculty Development, Outreach and Recognition, Faculty Scholarship, Student Recruitment, Education/ Curriculum, Faculty Collaboration, and Development/Fundraising. These focus groups bring to the table ideas to support the department’s and College’s vision for undergraduate education, research, and outreach.



• 70 ETID supporters have attended Aggie football games, who we invite to show our appreciation for their contributions to our programs, and we have made almost 80 visits to industry for this also. We will be continuing this initiative this fall. This effort has resulted in over three million dollars in gifts to the department in the last four years. In September we will have the ribbon cutting ceremony for our new DXP Pump Laboratory, which has been endowed by DXP.  In addition, the first departmental Faculty Fellow endowment, our first endowment for the ET Honor Society (Tau Alpha Pi), and a new endowed scholarship fund for our Manufacturing and Mechanical ET Program have been completed.



• We had our first ever Engineering Technology Tailgate on April 18th, with over 130 attending in spite of the bad weather scare. James Boone, Class of 1944, informed us that Earl Rudder was a graduate of our department!



• The tenth 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 next year some of our top priorities are to continue growing the heathcare distribution program and our power 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!

Gig’em,
Walt