New dean hopes to do more teaching
With all the force available to elementary particles, the electrons zip through metal wires faster and faster until they emerge into a transistor, and are forced to a complete stop. Talk about rush hour traffic.
This semester the College of Engineering has a new dean. Having recently arrived from the University of Kansas with his wife and eight children, Scott Hinton is raring and ready to go.
Hinton said his large family and their various activities are not the only thing keeping him busy. With departmental accreditation coming up in November and the construction of a new engineering building, he already has his hands full.
“Most of my time is spent dealing with fundraising for the new building project,” he said.
His goal of the department is first to improve the graduate school, Hinton said. By improving the graduate school, the research side of the department will grow, which will bring in more money to the department.
“When times are tough, grants, research money and proposals help in subsidizing the rest of the program,” he said. “We end up buying equipment that students can use … and hiring students to help with research projects. So it really makes the undergraduate program stronger.”
The department’s next goal is to improve availability to the outside world. He said they plan to do this by improving their Web site and building a marketing plan for the college.
“We need to push ourselves further than we ever have before in these areas,” Hinton said.
He also said he wants to increase the scholarship of the college by publishing more articles in journals and attending conferences.
Unfortunately, because there is so much administrative work to be done, Hinton said he will not be able to spend much time in the classroom.
“We have several things going on this semester which make me concerned that if I tried teaching, I would just get pulled out,” he said.
However, Hinton also said he is concerned when deans don’t teach because they can lose touch with the students. When he is able to get back in the classroom, he will be involved with electrical engineering, optical networking, telecommunications, semiconductors and integrated circuits.
He said he is excited about his field because it is all about creating things that can be a benefit to mankind.
“That’s engineering … it’s building and creating,” he said. “There is a lot of understanding but there is also a lot of creativity involved which makes it an exciting field.”
Even though Hinton is a native of Lehi, Utah, he has worked all over the country.
“After I went to BYU, I went off to work for Bell Labs in Illinois for about 13 years,” he said.
He then spent a good amount of time at various universities, eventually becoming a dean at Kansas State University.
“Now I am back in Utah, and although my hometown is no longer the quiet village it was when I was a kid, it is nice to be back in Utah looking at the mountains,” he said.
After only one month, Hinton has already made a good impression on the students as well as his office staff.
Chris Fox, a senior majoring in engineering, said Hinton is an asset to the college.
“He’s great. He works hard and is nice to everyone,” Fox said.
-joshrober@cc.usu.edu