Dean's Welcome
Thank you for exploring the School of Computing and Engineering (SCE) at UMKC through our website. During my first academic year at UMKC and SCE, we have been working on the strategic vision for SCE and the implementation of several initiatives that will help us reach that vision. The SCE vision is to have a student centric school that provides students with exceptional educational, research and extracurricular experiences within computing and engineering. A significant component of our vision is to increase our current student population of 800 students to 1500 students and remain steady at this enrollment. This will allow us to provide a personal, quality education with a small liberal arts college "feel".
As part of this personal experience, we encourage and are very proud of our student's involvement in extracurricular projects. Samples of our student successes are: our "Steel Bridge Team" winning 1st place in their regional competition for the fourth year in a row while placing 7th and 14th in the 2008 and 2009 national competition, our "Baja Buggy Team" placing 47th in a field of 118 teams this year, our "Robotics Team" competing nationally and placing in the top 1/2 of the entries and we are in the beginning phase of establishing a multi-disciplinary "Engineers Without Borders" chapter.
We also have had many successes this year with undergraduate and graduate educational and research efforts. In addition to nearly tripling our research grants this year, we had student award winners in a national robotics research paper competition, in an international earthquake modeling competition, in a regional and nationally competitive team for Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) which included two SCE students, and a Civil Engineering Senior Capstone Design Team that placed in the top six teams in the nation. For a "small" computing and engineering school, we have had a tremendous year which is a direct reflection on the personal attention from the faculty and staff, and the fact that SCE values these opportunities for our students. (For more graduate related research successes, please see the research section of the website.)
SCE is also very lucky to be located in the 4th largest engineering community in the nation. Many of our students take advantage of Kansas City's large engineering community through co-ops, internships and part-time employment while studying at SCE. Being situated in the heart of Kansas City, allows SCE to have a close relationship with the numerous engineering, computing and technology based companies. Our student's educational and extracurricular experiences are clearly enriched through our relationship with these companies. We rely on these companies for expert adjunct faculty, mentors for the extracurricular projects, mentors for senior capstone projects, job opportunities, tours, guest speakers and more. This symbiotic relationship is a win-win for SCE, the companies and most importantly our students.
Once again, thank you for your interest in SCE. The website contains far more detail about our successes, but I hope you can feel the enthusiasm and excitement that I have for SCE and its future growth. We, the SCE faculty, staff and administration, are committed to making SCE an educational experience that will serve you, not just for today, but for a lifetime.
Sincerely,
Kevin Z. Truman, Dean
