College of Science & Engineering Alumni Newsletter

Spring 1997

Reconstruction, Renewal, Resurgence
by James C. Kelley, Dean

In the College of Science and Engineering we’ve had an exciting fall semester, welcoming eleven new faculty members to five departments: Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Engineering, Math, and Physics & Astronomy. They come from such prestigious institutions as UC Berkeley, UCSF, Harvard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute. They are an enthusiastic, talented group of people, and we welcome them to San Francisco State.

This year there are also faculty searches going on for four biologists, a geohydrologist, a communications engineer, a mathematics chair, and an associate dean.

Our student enrollment at the University and in the College is stronger than it’s ever been, with 3200 full time students enrolled in the College for the fall 1996 semester.
 

Grant Awards

The first quarter of academic year 1996 has been the best ever for extramural funding. During the period of July 1 through November 30, 1996, the faculty of the College of Science and Engineering were awarded a total of $9 million. By comparison, we had a total of $9 million in new starts for all of last year.

• MASTEP

$5 million received from the National Science Foundation for the MASTEP program (Math and Science Teacher Education Program), a collaborative project to improve the teaching of science and mathematics in the Bay Area. Operating as a consortium of the math and science faculty from SFSU and five other bay area colleges (SJSU, City College of San Francisco, College of San Mateo, Evergreen Valley Community College, and San Jose City College), the program aims to attract more underrepresented minorities to teach science and math.

RTC
The Romberg Tiburon Centers for Environmental Studies received $1.6 million also from NSF, matched with $.8 million from SFSU, for lab renovation. This was the last year that NSF will be awarding grants for capital improvements.
 

• Biomedical Research Facility

$4.4 million from NIH to create a Biomedical Research Facility to encourage biomedical research at non-doctoral granting universities and to strengthen the number of underrepresented minorities in the biomedical sciences. One of only six awardees nationwide, and the only recipient west of the Mississippi, the grant will allow SFSU faculty to create research collaborations with faculty at three University of California campuses: San Francisco, Davis and Berkeley. The grant will also bring a number of postdoctoral fellows to our campus. Bruce Macher, Chemistry and Biochemistry, will direct the new center.

The campus is undergoing a major infrastructure renewal project, which is the reason why you’ll see plenty of trenches, fences and heavy machinery if you visit campus this year. We are getting a new power plant, sewer lines, electrical and fiber optic system. . It is a $67 million project, and will be underway for the next 18 months. Many buildings, including the Administration Building and Hensill Hall, are also scheduled for seismic upgrades. Hensill Hall will be seismically upgraded by enclosing the third floor, adding 17,500 square feet of new space. We plan to build a multimedia production facility, which will fall under the aegis of the Computer Science Department.
 

Focus on Industry

According to recent data from NSF, federal funding of academic research is decreasing, while corporate-sponsored research is on the rise. We therefore intend to look more than we have at developing corporate-academic relationships. Competition from other universities will be intense, but we plan to increase corporate research at the College. One of our newest programs is the Project Center, which will assign faculty and students to work on a problem from industry. We are also pursuing Faculty/Industrial Leaves at Bay Area science and technology corporations. We have also initiated company-based alumni groups, which you can read about in Chapter News.

1996 was a great year for us, and we hope to see some of you soon, either at an alumni gathering at your workplace, or in an individual visit to campus.
 
 

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