Bobby Braun, the new dean of the University of Colorado’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, thinks his school is the best kept secret on the Boulder campus — and he’s doing everything short of screaming from the hilltops to get the word out.
Friday, the engineering school is launching a set of goals separate from the university’s own framework — goals so ambitious, Braun admits maybe they won’t be met — designed to lead the college through a physical and mission-based metamorphosis.
Within five years, the College of Engineering intends to be the school first of its kind to achieve an undergraduate population that’s 50 percent women. In 2016, around 26 percent of undergraduate engineering students at CU were women.
“That’s an ambitious one,” Braun said. “We’re obviously not there yet, but we’re taking big steps forward. We’re not just doing one thing to address it, but a whole series of activities like the I Look Like an Engineer campaign — showcasing that all kinds of people go into engineering and that we’re an inclusive community of professionals.”
In the same time frame, the college aspires to hire 20 mid-career faculty who align with their research vision; establish an endowment to fund global program development; place at least 10 percent of faculty on assignments that shape the national agenda; and conduct a biannual climate survey for all faculty, staff and students with results shared between all levels.
These are just a smattering of the engineering school’s new plan.
Four cornerstones — accelerating research impact, embracing a public education mission, increasing global engagement and enriching professional environment — branch out into several specific objectives Braun intends to tackle throughout the next few years.
At the end of five years, Braun believes the CU engineering school will emerge as a top 10 public engineering institution. Right now, U.S. News and World Report ranks the college about 20th in the nation among public universities.
“I want to transform the college from being the best kept secret in the Rocky Mountain region to just being the best college in engineering, period,” Braun said.
Braun came to CU in the spring, bringing with him experience he gathered from his time with NASA, the Obama administration and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
In one way or another, Braun has been involved in the landing of every Mars mission since the late ’90s.
He started his career right out of college as an engineer at NASA. At the time he was hired in the late ’80s, there wasn’t a Mars program, but Braun had a dream of landing things on the Red Planet. He worked on the development of the Mars Pathfinder Project from its early stages to its end.
“It landed successfully, and this was a huge Super Bowl moment for me in my career,” Braun said. “I was just over 30 years old, and I had landed something on Mars.”
From there, Braun’s career continued skyrocketing.
He stayed with NASA until 2003, when he wanted to try his hand at something new: being a professor. He moved to Georgia Tech, created a research lab and started working with students. In 2010 and 2011, Braun took a leave of absence to join the Obama administration as the chief technologist at NASA, a policy and leadership role for the agency.
When Braun spied an opening with the CU engineering school, he jumped at the chance to integrate his time as a faculty member with his leadership and experience at NASA.
“I was looking for a position to put those two things together, which I think this position does, but I was also looking for a place that was good that wanted to be great,” he said. “During the interview process here, I just fell in love with the place.”
Like any love, Braun can’t help but want to gush.
In a Thursday meeting with other engineering leaders on campus, Braun suggested more aggressive recruiting efforts to reach students in high school.
“They all know about the mountains and the football team, but not a lot of them know about engineering,” Braun said.
Braun wants prospective students to know about the new Aerospace Building in the works dedicated to unique lab space and immersive classrooms. He wants them to know his college is the No. 1 public school in NASA research funding and the No. 18 most entrepreneurial school. He wants to prove his dedication to all students through initiatives like more merit-based scholarships and fellowships.
An overarching theme throughout the school’s new framework is finding the humanity in engineering.
“That is the fundamental shift,” Braun said. “I would argue that engineers go into engineering because they want to change the world. They don’t typically do it just because they like math or science. The shift this vision represents is really a public statement of why we exist, which is to have an impact on humanity.”
To achieve all of these enterprising endeavors, Braun says the community has to be strong, first.
“It needs to be a place that’s inclusive and respectful of diverse opinions,” he said. “A place that values all of its members. I think of that goal as being the underpinning of everything else. Frankly, if we don’t do well on that goal, we won’t achieve the others.”
The goals, themselves, were the product of months of brainstorming sessions among students, faculty and staff about how to make the college better. Braun took that feedback and created a plan with his team. He sees no reason in striving for the easily attained.
“If our goal is to be the first public engineering educational organization for gender equity and we reach for that goal and come in second, is it really such a bad thing?” Braun said. “I fully understand that by publishing this, at some level, I’m taking a risk because people will judge my time here based on these goals and how much progress we made against each one.
“But that’s not really how I think about it. It’s much more important that we publicly communicate these and for the whole college to have a common set of goals.”
Elizabeth Hernandez: 303-473-1106, hernandeze@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/ehernandez
