DEAN'S CORNER

Last month, the College officially began its celebration of 50 years of ODU Engineering with our groundbreaking ceremony on October 5th. We hosted nearly 200 students and alumni, faculty and staff, and campus and local officials for this, the latest in a long line of milestones, within the College.

Although, it now may be no more than a construction site fenced off and filled with equipment, progress is seen daily and the infrastructure that will come in its completion are worth the wait. This building will further the College's commitment to STEM-H as the third largest provider of graduates in the Commonwealth in these fields. What is more, it will have regional impacts thanks to the additional student project studios and high-tech labs. As part of a metropolitan research university, the labs and other learning spaces will create new opportunities for partnerships and space for high-quality and high-touch education.

Within the building, there will be an emphasis on learn by doing, learn by discovery, in the project-based learning environment. Among the tenants inside the building, a clean room, a microfluidics lab, a microelectromechanical lab, a lasers and plasmas lab, a plasma science lab and a suite of biomedical engineering program labs as well as the engineering management and systems engineering departments.

It is difficult for those of us at the College to contain our excitement over the addition of this new building and were happy to have been able to share its humble beginnings with so many of our friends and peers. We thank all our decision makers here at ODU and Richmond for this wonderful new addition to OUD Engineering. For more details on the groundbreaking ceremony, please see the building update article later in this edition of e-Interaction!

With all best wishes for an enjoyable and successful 50th year.