\u201cNever before have we been so excited about the quality and number of students and the far reaching impact of the research done by the faculty, students and industry partners, all of which we\u2019ve done together,\u201d He said.<\/p>\n
UConn President Susan Herbst emphasized the impressive growth that UConn Engineering has seen since 1916, when the first four year program in engineering at UConn was offered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the first bachelor\u2019s degrees in engineering were offered in Storrs a century ago, an event like this was not to be imagined. UConn wasn\u2019t even a full fledged university yet. In 1916 there were just two faculty members dedicated to engineering education,\u201d Herbst said.<\/p>\n
Herbst then discussed where engineering is now, with 161 full time faculty, over 3,300 undergraduates and around 900 graduate students. There are eight applicants for each new undergraduate slot in the school.<\/p>\n
UConn Provost Mun Choi further emphasized the impressive expansion that UConn Engineering has undergone in recent years, especially under the watch of Engineering Dean Kazem Kazerounian.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring Kazem\u2019s time as dean he increased enrollment in four years by 110 percent. He hired more than 50 outstanding professors with an emphasis on women and underrepresented minorities. He increased research awards to $60 million, three times more than it was 10 years ago, despite reductions in overall spending on federal research,\u201d Choi said.<\/p>\n Kazerounian discussed the tight bond that exists within engineering, calling everyone assembled a member of a family.<\/p>\n \u201cToday is practically a family birthday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Kazerounian also emphasized how important increasing the population of women students is to UConn Engineering. He referred to the recent story about UConn Engineering closing the gender gap at a faster rate than other public universities<\/a>.<\/p>\n To emphasize how far UConn has come in welcoming women into engineering, a video tribute of Tina Lewis played. Lewis was one of the first two women to attend UConn Engineering, graduating in 1955. In the video, Lewis talks about getting her first engineering texts and being told they were boy\u2019s books.<\/p>\n \u201cI smiled and said \u2018no, they\u2019re engineering books, they\u2019re not boy\u2019s books,\u2019\u201d Lewis said in the video.<\/p>\n![\"mun-and-kazen-smaller\"](\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mun-and-Kazen-smaller.jpg\")