Engineering News Summer 2018

As I reach the end of my year as dean of the School of Engineering, it is a good time to take stock.

From my first days, I believed that a vision of SCU Engineering would evolve from a focus on four distinct areas, or pillars, of our program: Curricula/Co-Curricula, Discovery/Research, Innovation/Entrepreneurship, and Humanitarian Engineering/Service (see page 2). Working with students and faculty over the past year, I am further convinced that these pillars are the support structure upon which we will build a stronger brand for Santa Clara Engineering, which in turn will lead to increased engagement with Silicon Valley partners for educational, research, and philanthropic advancement.

I look forward to fleshing out a number of initiatives that arose this year—among them, the Community for Innovation and Entrepreneurship—and determining how to institutionalize and scale curricular and co-curricular programs in that arena. Our focus is on developing an entrepreneurial mindset which will serve our students well whether they launch their own companies, become innovative “intrapreneurs” within large corporations, or bring creative engineering solutions to needy communities. And my goal is to see that each engineering student experiences the startup process realistically, taking a concept through fully funded channels—an idea incubator, a mentored accelerator, and eventually to a pitch in front of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

Our shared vision for SCU Engineering will evolve over the next year, and I look forward to every minute of it!

Alfonso (Al) Ortega, Ph.D.

Dean

School of Engineering