Administrative Leadership Highlights

My career goals focus on establishing large multifaceted teams to successfully address engineering grand challenges. I’ve engaged, facilitated and led collaborations of faculty members, staff and students: to conduct research and education, to develop large funded grants and administer departmental resources, to meet with collaborators and stakeholders, and to disseminate findings. These endeavors entailed hiring and supervising: faculty members, administrative assistants, students, and post-docs; and managing complicated budgets across departmental, college and university units.

Establishing Leadership Teams towards Collective Successes

• Serving as chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and chair of the Department of Construction Management and Engineering at North Dakota State University.
• Created Associate Chair positions to build synergies and successes across civil and environmental engineering, and construction management and engineering.
• My goal of developing faculty leaders is pursued during frequent interactions, for example, during regularly scheduled meetings with tenure track faculty. 
• Represented COE on Provost’s ad hoc committee: to make recommendations for potentially merging the graduate school with research and create activities, to promote interdisciplinary programs, and to evaluate the role of institutional structures on Carnegie Classification.
• Led the Consortium for Global Research on Water Based Economies 2001-16, with a leadership team from: agricultural economics, agronomy, civil engineering, computer and information sciences, landscape architecture, political science, sociology, and veterinary medicine.
• Chaired the Mathematics-Engineering Liaison Committee, which provides a college-level forum contributing to open dialogue, conflict resolution and ABET review preparation.

Establishing a Culture of Diversity and Inclusion

• Led establishment of a new BSEnvE degree program, which is already achieving a goal of 50% female students in its inaugural year.
• Supported articulation agreements for transfer students with AS degree colleges.
• Incorporated ASEE diversity statement into faculty position descriptions, and successfully recruited to increase diversity.
• Developed international student experiences in Provost Office’s International Service Learning Task Force.
• Served as faculty mentor in the Developing Scholars Program for first generation undergraduate college students.
• Participated in and supported faculty involvement in K-12 activities, including hosting water resources hands-on experiential learning activities.

Organizing and Engaging Activities towards Program Successes

• Standardized faculty evaluations: approved PTE document, developed position descriptions, and established metrics for annual evaluations.
• Established course offering schedule and standardized teaching responsibilities.
• Collectively administered departments via weekly staff meetings and bi-weekly department chairs meetings, while advancing college and university directives.
• Managed departmental finances, planning encumbrances and budgets within tight constraints. Established accounting structure to manage complicated multi-million dollar research grants across departments and colleges.
• Established a department laboratory safety manual that articulates expectations and grows student awareness and competencies.
• Addressed faculty performance issues, student misconduct, and laboratory safety violations within NDSU policies, procedures and institutional offices.

Sustaining departments through coronavirus pandemic, and strategically planning for current and future successes in distance/online platforms

• Prepared faculty with tools for virtual education, as first NDSU department to conduct training in distance education tools and methods.
• Established virtual modes of telecommuting and meetings to limit potential for department simultaneous exposures. First department to transition to entirely digital approvals.
• Established transparent communication to prepare departments for university budgetary constraints and opportunities.
• Engaged faculty and staff to build program successes (promoting awards and accomplishments, building team spirit, positioning departmental resources to leverage opportunities, hiring faculty members, engaging faculty in ACCE/ABET preparation, etc.)
• Built upon experiences teaching all graduate courses with remote students, and leadership in COE transition from video recording to digital recording to online teaching platforms.