Note from the Dean

MESSAGE FROM THE

College Dean

The 2020-2021 academic year for the College of Science and Technology will be a year that we will likely never forget.

Dr. Michael Huggins, Dean

Tarleton faculty and staff welcomed a record number of students to the university in the middle of a record setting pandemic. With a little more than 14,000 students enrolled in the Fall, 2020 semester, Tarleton has continued its transition towards becoming a large institution (many sources consider 15,000 students as the threshold for being considered a large university). For the College of Science and Technology, overall student enrollment for Fall 2020 was up 10.1% as compared to the enrollment in Fall 2019 – 1,690 students enrolled in COST programs. And, spring 2021 data shows that Tarleton has had three consecutive semesters of record enrollment. It is great to see so many students pursuing their education at Tarleton. The enrollment growth has also put us in a much better position to weather any budget cuts we might experience in our state funding due to the pandemic impact.

Tarleton is working on a new and ambitious 2020-2030 strategic plan that will assist in mapping out the next 10 years. The plan is due to be launched on April 8th. As part of the strategic planning efforts, the academic colleges have been working on plans to expand our degree offering. For COST, we have proposed 14 bachelor’s, 11 master’s, and two doctoral programs to consider for additions to our program portfolio. The first programs on the list are BS Cybersecurity, BS Forensic Science, BS Statistics, BS Industrial Distribution, and MS Mechanical Engineering that will all launch in Fall 2021 or Fall 2022. The remaining programs should be added slowly over the next 10 years.

The fall semester did bring its challenges as well. All Tarleton’s courses were offered either in the fully online mode or “hyflex” mode of delivery. In hyflex, course content is delivered to students in the classroom as well as live streamed to students online and recorded for students to use at alternate times. Most of our traditional face-to-face courses were offered in the hyflex mode. Teaching in hyflex added a substantial amount of work for our faculty, but they did an outstanding job adjusting to ensure continued delivery of high quality educational experiences for our students.

Having just completed my first year at Tarleton and as Dean of the College of Science and Technology, I continue to be excited about the future for the College. We have a great team of faculty and staff!

Sincerely

1 | COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY