Dear Friends,

    Welcome to the College of Engineering at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.  There is no better or more important time to be an engineer.  Engineering is ubiquitous.  Almost everything we do and touch today has been designed and built through the actions and oversight of engineers.  Engineers are directly helping society deal with the major issues that confront us today…mitigating the effects of climate change, improving the sustainability of our economy, ensuring our personal and national security as well as providing a better infrastructure for our daily life in areas of transportation, communications, housing, and fresh drinking water.

    Excellence…distinction…diversity…opportunities…capacity…growth…these are attributes of our College of Engineering, all of which serve as critical components to developing and enhancing our college’s potential of becoming an internationally recognized academy for interdisciplinary research and excellence in engineering.

    In 2008-09, we graduated 184 engineers, every one of whom was either recruited by a local or national engineering firm or went on to graduate school.  Today, our college numbers 62 faculty, 30 staff, 640 undergraduate students, and 130 graduate students.  Since its inception, our college has granted more than 9,105 engineering degrees.

    Our outstanding faculty continually devote themselves to teaching, mentoring and preparing our students for engineering leadership roles.  Our Native Hawaiian Science and Engineering Mentorship Program graduated its first class of 10 in Spring 2007.

    Exciting challenges abound: leveraging the presence of engineering to enhance educational opportunities in engineering and areas related to engineering in our schools, reaching out and integrating the indigenous population, building the pure and applied research programs through interdisciplinary work with other schools and disciplines and direct service to the local community through qualified graduates and consultancy, and involvement with economic development through direct participation by faculty in technology transfer and research.

    Last year (2008), we celebrated our 100th anniversary.  We will build upon our long tradition of education and professional service and our rich cultural environment to attract and involve a much enhanced portion of the College’s stakeholders to create a stronger and more vital force in the community.

    It is my distinct pleasure to work with our College of Engineering team and all of the individuals who are profoundly committed to the shared vision of an excellent engineering program for Hawai‘i and beyond.

                                             Peter E. Crouch
                                             Dean