Dean's Welcome

Welcome to the first edition of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering's E-Newsletter. As dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, it is my hope that this newsletter will serve as a dynamic vehicle to keep alumni and friends like yourself informed of the people, places and things that make Auburn Engineering so special. Our initial plans call for mailing the newsletter to you on bi-monthly basis, which will allow us to keep you abreast of developments in a timely manner. As we move along with our electronic communication program, we may want to change the frequency of our mail outs, or to add special mail outs to announce one-time or recurring events on and off campus that are of interest. You will be able to move on and off the mail list by clicking on the link at the bottom of this email.

There's a lot going on in Auburn Engineering today, and we feel good about our future. Among the stories you will see in this edition of the E-Newsletter are updates on our current construction projects, including the new Transportation Technology Center, a $108 million facility which will be built in two phases with completion dates of 2007 for the first phase, and 2009 for the second. This project follows on the heels of the Ross Hall renovation project, which represents a restoration of the old chemistry building to a state-of-the-art facility that respects the historic architecture of this 1930 landmark. At a cost of approximately $13.5 million - $3.5 million of which will be raised from private funds - it will house classrooms, laboratories and administrative offices for the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering through 2009, when Mechanical moves to the new Transportation Technology Center. See it on our live cam.

We also have stories in this edition of the E-Newsletter of some of the activities that our students, faculty and alumni are involved in on campus, in their careers, and in the many ways in which they remain involved in the Auburn family. Again, we hope that you will find the content of this inaugural edition interesting and informative. We do not envision the E-Newsletter as replacing the "hard-copy" newsletter, Auburn Engineering, that is distributed through postal mail, but as an adjunct to that publication to better meet the needs of our alumni in a new format.