As I am writing this newsletter, we have just completed our fantastic first year! Our T&M Class of 2010 is smart, enthusiastic and impresses everyone they meet. Our corporate affiliates are actively involved in classes and extracurricular activities. T&M staff members have done an exceptional job of creating and managing a challenging but fun schedule of events. With commitments from our Corporate Affiliates, plans for T&M courses, and a schedule of outside-the-classroom events for next fall, I am confident that we will continue to raise the stature of the program.

Our first two courses were offered in the fall of 2008: Analysis of Emerging Technologies, for engineering and management students, and Introduction to Microelectronics and Nanotechnology for management students. Senior executives from Cox Communications, Siemens, and Timken visited the Emerging Technologies class as guest lecturers and challenged our students with their real world technology debates. Both of these courses received exceedingly positive student response. This spring all students took Managing Product, Service and Technology Development and management students took a Cutting-Edge Engineering Seminar. 

Corporate Affiliates are critical to the T&M program, advising the program, interacting with the students in outside-the-classroom activities and providing capstone projects for interdisciplinary student teams for their final semester of the program. We plan to have eight Corporate Affiliates and are just as selective in choosing our Corporate Affiliates as we are for our students and faculty. Five of the eight spots are filled by Caterpillar Inc., Cox Communications, Georgia-Pacific, Siemens Energy & Automation and The Timken Company. All are truly exceptional companies in their industries and we are honored to partner with them. The remaining three spots are being reserved for similar high-quality companies that will increase the breadth of industry coverage.           

Extracurricular activities strengthened our students' professional, teamwork, and leadership skills. Fall events included a leadership training simulation; a ropes course; workshops on dressing for success; interviewing skills and resume writing; and how to conduct business on the golf course. This spring we held a business communications workshop, a picnic to welcome our new class of 2011, and golf scramble with our Corporate Affiliates.

Our first Corporate Advisory Panel included a discussion with Mr. Steven A. Denning, chairman of General Atlantic and the financial benefactor of our program, who believes it is critical that today’s workforce have both technology and managerial skills in order for businesses to achieve global economic success.

I look forward to the next academic year and supervising our first T&M capstone projects provided by our Corporate Affiliates. Based on my assessment of the students’ performance this past year, I fully expect they will do an outstanding job on these projects.