Messages from the Department Head
Winter 2021 - New spaces, new plans
Dear CEE Friends,
It has been an exciting fall semester in CEE at Illinois! It’s wonderful for the faculty, staff, and students in the department to be back together in person, albeit with face masks. When I wrote my spring magazine message, we were hopeful that we could welcome all of you back in October for the grand opening of our new CEE Building and the Kavita and Lalit Bahl Smart Bridge. Unfortunately, lingering pandemic concerns prevented that. Now we are aiming for a grand opening celebration on April 29, 2022. Please save the date and watch your email for more information. We look forward to welcoming you home and thanking you in person for your generosity in making this project a reality.
Although we haven’t yet had our official ribbon-cutting, our faculty and students are enjoying the new building, which opened for use in August. You can view some photos of the building in this issue of the magazine. The classrooms and some teaching labs are in use, and the public spaces were instantly popular with students! Also in this issue is our list of donors as it stood at press time. We are hoping this list will grow before our final donor signage is completed.
There is still a need for gifts to this project. The graph on this page shows that the department still needs to raise approximately $5 million to do away with the building debt and thoroughly outfit the teaching labs. Even if all pledges are paid on time, we are facing a significant deficit in the next several years. If you are able to give more, please consider doing so. There are still naming opportunities – including the opportunity to name student offices and the building as a whole; that would truly be a transformative gift.
Even as we work to close the chapter on this exciting project, we look to the future. Our goal is to continue to evolve to meet the demands of a changing world, make the most of emerging research opportunities and ensure that the department retains its leadership position. We are planning still more capital improvements, this time focused on our main building, Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, which is approaching 60 years of age. Our vision is to transform our spaces into the most innovative and forward-looking CEE research facilities anywhere. We are committed to strengthen our partnerships with industry, and we hope to partner with companies to create facilities and acquire equipment that will both meet the needs of industry and serve our research and education mission. We invite your input on the most pressing needs and the most impactful facilities.
Two new initiatives are in the planning stages, tentatively named (we may yet find better acronyms!) The Center for Transformative Engineering Solutions and Society (TESS), and the Illinois Sustainability Innovation and Technology for Engagement (ISITE) Testbed. These initiatives will leverage ongoing initiatives in the College and in CEE including AI, transportation, remote sensing, climate science and environmental sustainability in addition to our traditional core areas, as well as the depth and breadth of expertise in our department, across campus and beyond to rethink critical infrastructure systems, climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions, quality of life and the human future.
With an eye toward increasing our enrollment and diversity, we are broadening our recruitment efforts. At the undergraduate level, we are reaching out to high schools to educate students about the diverse and ever-growing opportunities in civil and environmental engineering. At the graduate level, we are working to increase the numbers of students from under-represented populations. We are privileged to have a large, talented population of international graduate students – truly the best in the world – but we realize we can do more to attract domestic students from the Midwest’s excellent colleges and from those institutions that have historically served minority populations. Improving the diversity of our student body will ensure that all members of society are represented as we educate the future professionals who will work to address the world’s greatest challenges and improve quality of life for all.
In this season of Thanksgiving, please know that the department is deeply grateful for you, our alumni, and everything you do to improve the educational experience of those who are following in your footsteps – today’s CEE students. You have my very best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season.
-Ana P. Barros Donald Biggar Willett Chair of Engineering Department Head, Civil and Environmental Engineering