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Dartmouth Engineering Strategic Plan

Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth's 2030 strategic plan guides our community in navigating future growth and working together to realize the School's highest aspirations.

Feedback is welcome. Please contact the Dean's Office with questions or comments.

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Activity

In 2019, Thayer School of Engineering assembled the Strategic Planning Working Group, comprised of faculty, staff, and students. Their efforts resulted in a one-page strategic plan articulating Thayer's core values, focus, points of distinction, and vision, as well as 3- and 10-year activities in support of long-term goals.

Planning continued in 2020, with a focus on graduate and research programs. In the Fall of 2022, we began implementation of year-three activities and will soon revisit and reset our goals for 2023–2026.

Values & Focus

Core Values

We are a school and community that is:

  • Intellectually challenging and stimulating
  • Innovative, bold, and visionary
  • Dedicated to solving the world’s important challenges
  • Tirelessly collaborative and team-oriented
  • Human-centered, inclusive, and personal

Core Focus

Our purpose, cause, and passion is to make the world a better place by creating knowledge, fostering innovation, and preparing the most capable leaders.

Our overarching niche is experiential discovery and boundaryless innovation that improve the human experience.

Points of Distinction

Undergraduate Programs

We set ourselves apart through:

  • A systems-based, interdisciplinary engineering education in the context of the liberal arts
  • Substantive hands-on and experiential learning from the start
  • Personalized education within a collegial, inclusive, and human-centered culture
Two researchers in a lab are focused on an experiment. They wear white lab coats, safety goggles, and face masks, with one wearing purple gloves. The lab is equipped with various bottles and containers.

Graduate Programs

We set ourselves apart through:

  • Collaborative, interdisciplinary, world-class programs
  • Real-world impact through a focus on translational research and entrepreneurship
  • Personalized education within a collegial, inclusive, and human-centered culture

Vision

Building on our strengths, we envision a future where Dartmouth Engineering achieves:

  • National prominence for our distinctive undergraduate engineering education with graduates that have an impact on the world
  • Top graduate engineering school status for our innovative programs; world-class, high-impact research, and individualized student experience
  • National leadership in faculty and student translation, entrepreneurship, and innovation
  • An open, diverse, welcoming, and inclusive community for all who learn and work here

Goals & Achievements

Each year, the academic and administrative leadership develops the "Goals, Activities, and Achievements at Thayer" planning documents grounded in the vision set forth by the strategic plan. The 3- and 10-year targets are monitored in Thayer's online goal tracker. (For access to the "Goals, Activities, and Achievements at Thayer" document or the goal tracker, contact the Dean's Office.)

The following three-year goals and activities for 2020–2023 are either achieved or are currently underway:

Operations-Focused

  • Ensure all faculty and staff understand strategy and goals and implement processes for more efficient and effective operations.
  • Create new partnerships to augment graduate course access, graduate recruiting, faculty collaboration, and diversity of our community.
  • Strengthen reputation as a best-in-class engineering school through increased strategic marketing efforts that highlight faculty and student research, innovation, and achievements.
  • Increase and diversify our graduate recruitment efforts to support future growth.
Two students are engaged in assembling electronic circuits, with one soldering parts as smoke rises. They are focused on their task in a laboratory setting. One has a grey shift and the other is red.

Student-Focused

  • Develop and launch a new vision and structure for our graduate and research programs.
  • Launch strategic planning process around undergraduate curriculum and advising.
  • Launch a new campus-wide design initiative.
  • Increase research opportunities for undergraduate engineering students.
  • Increase introductory and non-major engineering course offerings.

  • Re-envision and revamp Master of Engineering and Master of Science degree programs in select areas.
  • Explore the launch of online Master of Engineering and Master of Engineering Management degree programs.
  • Fund the fifth-year Bachelor of Engineering for all students with demonstrated need.
  • Enhance and expand our Dartmouth Emerging Engineers program to provide access for students underrepresented in STEM and attract more women and students of color.

Faculty-Focused

  • Provide additional seed funding for external collaborations.
  • Develop strategy for large grants and centers for high-level, high-impact research.
  • Hire faculty in strategic research areas and increase faculty diversity.
  • Launch innovative faculty search strategy and process.
  • Hold bi-annual education opportunities to increase faculty awareness and capacity to create a welcoming and inclusive culture.
  • Increase efforts to nominate and recognize faculty for national prizes, awards, and honors.
  • Provide new research incentives.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion-Focused

Led by Thayer's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, we have established the following goals to build a more equitable, diverse, inclusive and welcoming place to learn and work:

  • Invest in initiatives that prioritize equity and access by giving deliberate attention to recruitment, retention, or training hurdles for historically marginalized groups.
  • Improve community health and well-being through programming and resources that support diverse needs and create a culture where acts of caretaking and wellness are uplifted.
  • Listen, learn from, and integrate the voices of individuals from historically marginalized groups into solutions for a more inclusive and equitable community.