As Dean of the College of Engineering, Dr. Joseph B. Hughes says he aims to create a “culture of planning.” But as it turns out, one of the biggest decisions in his life arrived through serendipity.
After majoring in chemistry as an undergraduate at Cornell, Hughes had decided to study engineering at his home-state university, the University of Iowa. Accepted into the doctoral program but undecided about what discipline to pursue, he visited campus to interview with the various engineering and science departments. “I parked my car right in front of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,” he says. “And I thought, ‘Well, I’m right here, I might as well go in and talk to them.’ I signed up and never looked back.”
Hughes arrived at Drexel in January after a hugely successful tenure as chair and professor of civil, environmental and materials science engineering at Georgia Tech. After his arrival, he spoke about his impression of Drexel Engineering, and how he aims to take the College forward.
‘Drexel is unique in several different facets. The undergraduate engineering program has a strong focus on design early in the curriculum, and the other factor is the co-op program. I had to understand that it’s different from other places I’ve been.’
‘When you’re in the outside world and you mention Drexel, a lot of people think, “Oh, that’s an engineering program.” If there’s a challenge for me, it’s being able to say, “Yes, we have a very strong tradition in engineering, but Drexel is a complete university, and our objective at the College of Engineering is to integrate horizontally across the University. We want to have the most impact an engineering program can.”’
‘We know what works—what it takes to turn a student into a professional engineer. But we want them to walk out the door with the skill set of what’s done in modern engineering—new software platforms, and classes in areas that are becoming more and more important, like systems engineering.’
‘On the undergraduate level, my vision is to put gasoline on an existing fire that’s been burning here at Drexel for a long time. That’s experiential learning. I want to integrate leadership skills into experiential learning so that our students graduate with the engineering skill set people expect from Drexel, and also so they are capable of running their own company, beginning a startup, or having a rapid ascent in a larger corporation because of their ability to lead.’
‘On the graduate level, we want to see programs that have impact on large societal issues—health, energy, the environment. We want our growing research programs to bubble up information and have an impact on global challenges.’
‘My research is trying to understand processes of evolution, and in particular evolution in the environment. A lot of my work has been related to hazardous chemicals—learning how microorganisms respond to them and how to engineer processes that exploit those abilities to get rid of chemicals.’
‘I’m very pleased to be reunited with Mira Olsen, a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, who was actually an assistant in my laboratory when I was at Rice University.’
‘I really want to ramp up our institutional advancement program to increase the financial resources of the College. We just hired the person who’s going to run that for us, John F. Dolan, and we’re really excited about him being here.’
‘I also want to create a culture of planning. I always tell faculty and students there’s nothing about excellence that’s accidental.’
‘There’s a lot more here [at Drexel] than people know about. I hope that in the years ahead we’re able to communicate the quality of Drexel—we need to brag a little bit more. We need to get the word out.’