USC Engineering and Computing Dean Briefs
Civil Engineers’ Advisory Board

Dean Michael Amiridis told the Civil and Environmental Engineering Advisory Board his goals for the College of Engineering were to keep them simple and on course.

Dr. Amiridis wants to increase undergraduates by 25 percent. He said this goal is ambitious because the college has experienced declining enrollments for the past eight years.  However, in the engineering education arena, size does matter.

Big corporations recruit at big schools; research goes to big schools. Actual College of Engineering and Computing funding is dependent upon the number of students.  He gave an example of Disney, a large engineering employer, recruited at USC for the first time last year. The recruiter said he saw many more students at the bigger schools.

Dr. Amiridis said this year, the college is on the way to recovery with eight percent more students. The college is proactive in its quest for increasing its undergraduates. It is involved in programs in 129 middle and high schools across the state, where engineering courses are taught in the schools by teachers who were taught by the USC College of Engineering and Computing to instruct these classes. The program is popular and other states are sending teachers to USC for this training.

The college is bringing students to the campus. By the end of the spring semester, 500 to 600 students will visit.

By another program, the college has bridged the tuition gap between the State’s Life Scholarships and actual tuition costs to give scholarships to engineering student’s tuition-free schooling. This year, 128 engineering students received these scholarships. As long as they retain their Life Scholarships, they maintain this assistance from the college. The revenue to fund this program came from alumni, corporations, and friends of the college.

The dean said size is important when it comes to graduate programs as well. Graduate programs’ recognition, faculty attraction and student enrollment is proportional to the programs’ size.  He wants the USC College of Engineering and Computing to be recognized in the top 10 in five years and in the top 5 in ten years. Currently Clemson University is 11 and USC is 20.

The Dean said the 20th position means the College is average, but “I don’t like being average.”

Comparing Clemson and USC, he said Clemson has a faculty of 200 while USC has 90. Nevertheless, research grants are up at USC by 30 percent.