Major Academic Reorganization

Troy announces engineering college among other changes

Jameson Fowler photos

Dr. Chancellor Jack Hawkins Jr. Announces the new engeneering college.

The first ever engineering undergraduate degree at Troy University will soon be offered as the university undergoes a major reorganization of academic colleges, as announced at a press conference Wednesday morning.

The Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering will be offered beginning Aug. 1. The program will be housed in newly created College of Science and Engineering.

Chancellor Dr. Jack Hawkins Jr. called the creation of this program “transformational.”

“It’s all need-based,” Hawkins said. “It’s about doing what we need to do to meet the needs of the community.

“Today truly is about focusing on the future. The number of jobs in STEM based programs doubled, and we won’t walk into the future, detrimentally, to the humanities, the arts, education, but we also need to focus more particularly on STEM areas.”

As part of the academic reorganization, the College of Education will be renamed the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences and will now include areas of study like criminology and psychology; the College of Communication and Fine Arts will be renamed the College of Arts and Humanities and will include areas of study like history and philosophy.

"We put the names of our departments on index cards and said, ‘if we were starting Troy University from scratch today, how would you organize these departments?’” said Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dr. Kerry Palmer. “This leaves the College of Science and Engineering with purely hard sciences and our engineering programs, and we did that so we can effectively communicate our commitment to science and engineering.

“With the name of the College of Arts and Humanities, we also demonstrate the university’s commitment to the fine arts . . . all of this is part of a well-rounded education.”

Palmer also announced that the university will begin reviewing the core curriculum and general education courses offered at Troy to better help produce graduates with the skills industry leaders are looking for.

In attendance at the press conference were Kenneth Boswell, the Executive Director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, Clay Scofield from the Business Council of Alabama, and Adam Carson from Lockheed Martin.

Students currently majoring in electronics engineering technology were in attendance as many of them will become the first students to join the engineering program.

“I’ve known since high school that I wanted to go into engineering,” said Aiden Dewoody, a freshman from Birmingham. “Now that Troy is offering this type of engineering, it’s definitely opened a lot of doors for me, and I’m really excited to continue my studies.

“It makes me feel proud to be a Troy University student.”