The mission clearly articulates a dual role and mission for the College of Sciences and Arts: a service, or better, a general-education mission in which the College provides the foundation for all baccalaureate degrees at Michigan Tech and, secondly, specialized studies for baccalaureate majors, masters, and doctoral students in the Sciences and Arts.

Vision Statement

In 1992, as part of a five-year planning process, the College adopted the following vision statement:

The College of Sciences and Arts will host programs which educate exceptional undergraduate majors and graduate researchers in their respective fields. These programs will also provide the basic foundations, fundamental principles, and areas of enrichment required by all areas of specialized education at MTU. The programs and their learning environments will be leaders in their own sub-disciplines and at the same time contribute to cross-disciplinary research and educational opportunities appropriate to a technological university.

In 1978, the Committee C Report [2.1A] set out a long-range vision for the growth and maturation of MTU. The vision was centered around further development and growth of graduate programs, especially at the Ph.D. level. In building focused, high-quality graduate programs, MTU faculty were challenged to increase their scholarship and their disciplinary engagement to levels necessary for success in national funding competitions. Policies for resource allocation, faculty appointments, and tenure and promotion were all made consistent with this vision. After nearly two decades, this priority has transformed MTU from an undergraduate engineering teaching college to a true university of science and technology.

The basic expectations and goals of the College have proven to be remarkably stable over the last decade. The 1991 discussion paper for a College long-range plan (see Attachment) served as a useful blueprint and provides a frame of reference to gauge the developments of these last ten years. Individual departmental reports [2.6B] highlight departmental accomplishments and goals. Beyond these individual accomplishments, there is a sense of synergism that brought closure to a decade-long phase of development for the College.

Program Developments

The College of Sciences and Arts played a major role in this transformation. In 1988, the College had two Ph.D. programs: Biological Sciences (since 1972) and Physics (since 1987). By 1996, the College had introduced a Ph.D. program in Rhetoric and Technical Communication (in 1989), in Computational Science and Engineering (in 1994), and in Mathematical Sciences (in 1996). The Department of Social Sciences developed two masters programs: an MS in Industrial Archaeology (in 1992) and an MS in Environmental Policy (in 1996). Since 1996 the college has also been home to the MS and Ph.D. in Chemistry. Graduate enrollment has doubled since 1988 (from 128 in 1988 to 233 in 1996), and research funding has nearly doubled since 1990 (see below). Many of the qualitative goals set out in the Committee C Report have now been accomplished. The result is a College that is comprised of departments which are each strong in their own right as centers of disciplinary scholarship.

A second, equally profound change in the evolution of the College is, in part, a response to the changing role of baccalaureate-level education in America. Employers, alumni, and national commentators on higher education all now emphasize the importance of skills, knowledge, and perspectives that allow graduates to contribute to teams with diverse members, to reason and communicate clearly and critically, and to continue to learn. These attributes are typically developed in the general-education portion of the curriculum, and the College of Sciences and Arts provides essentially all of the general-education curriculum for MTU graduates. Whereas general education has been viewed as a means to the end of disciplinary learning, we now appreciate that many of the enduring benefits of a university education derive directly from the general-education curriculum. Given the frequency with which many young professionals make major changes in their careers, course work taken by some students to meet disciplinary-major requirements will ultimately serve to provide the technical expertise necessary to allow these young professionals the initial opportunity to apply their general educations.

This new perspective on the importance of the courses taught in Sciences and Arts has resulted in our leaving behind the notion of a "service role" in favor of a more active interest in general education. To date, most efforts to improve General Education have been initiated by individual faculty, groups of faculty, or in a few cases, by departments. In the future, we anticipate that the College will play a leading role in the reform of general education at the University level. If we move to semesters, there will be an opportunity and a need to completely re-evalutae General Education.

Thus, enhancement of undergraduate education and development of doctoral programs have been the two areas central to the evolution of the College. This underlines and articulates a vision of a university which is characterized not by tension between teaching and research but by the unity of teaching and research. The change in the College’s role and mission from one of undergraduate teaching alone reflects MTU’s transformation from a predominantly undergraduate engineering college to a research university. Over the last ten years, the College of Sciences and Arts has become a strong partner in this change.

Today the College teaches 51% of all student credit hours with 48% of all faculty (compared to the College of Engineering, which teaches 34% of all student credit hours with 37% of all faculty). The reason why the College teaches more than 50% of the student credit hours, despite the fact that only 21% of the student body is enrolled in the College, is simply that the engineering students who make up 67% of Michigan Tech's student body receive approximately 50% of their instruction from non-engineering (mainly sciences and arts) departments.

Therefore, even if Michigan Tech is considered primarily an engineering school because two thirds of our students major in engineering, excellence in the education of an engineer requires excellence in the sciences and arts. An outstanding professional degree demands an equally outstanding foundation.

Organizational Changes

The College of Sciences and Arts now includes the Departments of

• Biological Sciences,
• Chemistry (since 1996),
• Computer Science,
• Education (since 1995),
• Fine Arts (since 1993),
• Humanities,
• Mathematical Sciences,
• Physical Education,
• Physics,
• Social Sciences, and the
• Air Force and Army ROTC units.

The Department of Fine Arts split off from the Department of Humanities when Humanities became a Ph.D.-granting department with a teaching- and research-oriented faculty. Fine Arts is responsible for the cultural and creative needs of the entire campus; it provides students with opportunities for a well-rounded education.

The move of the Department of Chemistry to the College, which unites all the sciences in one college, concludes a development which started six years ago when the Department of Chemistry separated from the Department of Chemical Engineering. The move will not only benefit chemistry instruction and research but all of the sciences at Michigan Tech. Each discipline shares in the responsibility to provide a solid foundation for all MTU students in addition to educating their own majors and graduate students.

The reorganization of the Teacher Education Program as a Department of Education within the College of Sciences and Arts was prompted by a growing awareness that economic competitiveness depends critically upon a work force that is well educated in science and mathematics and that Michigan Tech must assume an increasing responsibility and role in providing well-educated science and mathematics teachers. The reorganization will increase the visibility and academic credibility of the Teacher Education Program by strengthening its ties to the academic departments.

The current Dean of the College has served since 1990. A full-time Associate Dean position was created in 1995 to provide leadership in the development of academic programs which support growth in the College and the University and to develop and increase the College's relationships with external constituencies. In 1996, a Senior Advancement Director for Sciences and Arts joined the College staff to assist the dean in setting fundraising priorities and objectives and in coordinating institutional-advancement activities. The Senior Advancement Director reports to the Director of Advancement while adhering to the agenda, goals, and objectives established by the Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts.

These program developments and organizational changes have positioned the College to enhance its infrastructure and resource base and increase the number of majors and graduate students. Diversification of the University’s degree offerings is a University-wide goal to make Michigan Tech less vulnerable to engineering enrollment fluctuations brought on by fluctuations in the engineering job market. However, three obstacles to growth in the College persist:

1. MTU has a century-old reputation as an engineering school only.
2. Students from downstate drive by at least a half dozen universities with full-fledged sciences and arts departments to study those disciplines at MTU.
3. While MTU’s tuition is low for an engineering school, it is not low for students who wish to study in traditional sciences and arts areas.

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