School of Chemical Engineering

A Message from

                 the School Head

The fall semester is in full swing and the campus is brimming with activities. So, as we are becoming immersed in the new academic year, allow me first to reflect on last year’s harvest.

Our students continue their tradition of outstanding performance. Here are some examples of our students’ achievements:

• The AIChE student chapter won a national “Outstanding” (top 10%) rating for the tenth year in a row.

• Our student teams won First Place in the National Plant Design contest five times in the past 14 years, including the 2008 contest. In fact, the 2008 team comprised of Aleisha McCabe, Grant McCool and Derek Sumner recently won first place at the SNC-Lavalin International Design Competition hosted at the 8th World Congress of Chemical Engineering in Montreal, Canada.

• OSU ChE students continue to out-score (95% first-time pass rate) the nation (85%) on the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam.

• School of Chemical Engineering remains among the leading departments at OSU in the number of national scholarships received. These include the Goldwater, Udall, and Gates scholarships.

• Recent OSU graduate Ben Lawrence won the 2009 Graduate Research Excellence Award. He was honored for his research on Mass Transfer in Porous Tissue Engineering Scaffolds.

These recognitions and honors reveal the exceptional quality and dedication of our students as well as the expertise of our faculty and their commitment to provide an outstanding educational experience to our students.

Similarly, a number of our faculty have been honored for their teaching and research excellence. I invite you to visit our website at http://www.cheng.okstate.edu to see briefs and photos of these and other school successes and events.

Our alumni and industrial partners continue their generosity and support for our academic mission. Gifts from alumni and industrial sponsors provide our only support for the scholarships and enrichment activities, which enable us to recruit and develop such outstanding students. We are very grateful for your continuing support of the School of Chemical Engineering, and we thank you for your commitment to our program. Here, I would also like to extend our special thanks to our Industrial Advisory Committee for their valuable advice and insightful recommendations on how best to prepare our students for industrial practice.

Turning to the future, earlier this year we held a strategic planning retreat. A partial list of goals and objectives were developed to help us fulfill the mission of the School of Chemical Engineering in the next three years. The Strategic Goals for 2009-2011 are:

• Enhance our research capabilities and scholarly contributions.

• Sustain the excellence in our undergraduate program.

• Develop the graduate program.

• Enhance the visibility of our program.

• Develop facilities, personnel, policies, and procedures to actualize our mission.

Perhaps in my next message, I will share with you our accomplishments to date pursuant to the strategic plan.

The faculty and staff are dedicated to our mission of developing outstanding graduates. Your continued support and commitment to this shared vision reinforces our dedication. We are excited about what the future holds for the School of Chemical Engineering, and we do value and appreciate your partnership in this enterprise.

Thank you very much for your support, and please keep in touch.

Regards,

Khaled A. M. Gasem

Professor, Bartlett Chair and School Head