University Times

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., is both the oldest and one of the best engineering schools in the country. It currently ranks 14th in the United States. Pitt's School of Engineering has a good record when it comes to educating engineers — its graduates have included chief executive officers at Westing-house and USX — but it is not listed among the top 40 engineering schools in the country.

So why would H.K. Chang, founding dean of the School of Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, one the of the most modern engineering schools in the world, accept Pitt's offer to become dean of its School of Engineering over that of Rensselaer? "I think it is because we are in a very, very good metropolitan area where there is a diversity of industry and a diversity of talents," says Chang, who assumed his post last term. "Also, Pitt is a very comprehensive university with all the potential for becoming an even greater institution in the 21st century. "Of course, we have to do things right," he adds. "But this is how I view the prospect between Pitt and other universities." In hopes of doing things right, Chang has instituted a new plan for the school. Before 1999, he says, he would like to see the School of Engineering show measurable progress in five areas represented by the acronym "UNIRA." "U" in the plan stands for undergraduate experience. One of the school's great strengths over the years has been undergraduate education and Chang wants that to continue.

Currently, the school has about 1,400 undergraduate students. Without giving any figures, Chang says he would like to see undergraduate enrollment increase, "but not by much." Doing so, he admits, will be difficult. There is a nationwide downward trend in engineering enrollment because of downsiz-ing by industry. Then, too, the number of 18 to 22 year olds in the western Pennsylvania region, from which the school draws most of its undergraduate students, has been declining for years. Still, Chang believes the downward trend in enrollment will level off by the turn of the century. "We will have a hard fight to increase enrollment significantly, but we will try to do so with messages in the media and with marketing," he says.

As for graduate students, he believes the number currently enrolled, about 700, is sufficient. But he would like to increase the quality of the school's graduate students and expand the applicant pool beyond western Pennsylvania.

"N" in the plan represents niche research. "Because we cannot just expand and go in all directions, we have chosen several areas in which we will concentrate our energy," Chang says.

Chosen areas for research include bioengineering, manufacturing engineering, environmental and energy resources, and high performance materials.

The "I" in UNIRA stands for international strategy. Chang says he wants the school's students and faculty to be keenly aware of the global economy. "Our education should adapt to that reality," he explains. "We can no longer say our engineers will only work in the western Pennsylvania region. Even though their company may be here and they may be headquartered here, many companies, including mid-sized companies, are already having interaction with other countries." The letter "R" in the plan means resource development, making use of every resource available to the school. That includes donations from corporations, foundations and alumni. Along those lines, Chang says he is grateful that the school will be expanding into the basement of Benedum Hall. The space, currently occupied by Facilities Management, will be converted into engineering offices and classrooms, Chang said.

"A," the final point in the plan, stands for accountability, something Chang believes is very important for everybody to bear in mind. "The administrators, the staff, the faculty have to be accountable," he maintains. "We want to improve our quality of performance. We are instituting in-house continued quality improvement measures. I have told all the staff I want them to be cheerful and efficient. That is a byline they have willingly accepted." Chang says he has met with many staff members and urged them to be cheerfully efficient because he feels it not only helps them better serve the University, but also improves their own job satisfaction. Among the great strengths of the school that will help to drive the new plan, according to Chang, are the quality of the faculty and their research.

"The rest of the University community may not know about it," he says, "but we have good faculty, especially some of the younger or newer faculty. They are just outstanding. They can stack up with anybody in the world. Some of the research results of our faculty are nothing short of astonishing." Faculty members Chang cites as tops in their field include Fred Pettit in materials, Fred Pohland in environmental engineering and S.H. Chiang in coal processing. Pettit's research has made him a world expert in high temperature erosion/corrosion of metal and alloys for turbine improvement. Pohland is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a leading researcher in landfill and solid waste disposal in anaerobic processes. Chiang invented a new technique for clean coal processing.

According to the dean, the School of Engineering also has some of the best bioengineering professors in the nation in Alan Russell, Jerry Schultz and Savio Woo. Schultz and Woo are members of the National Academy of Engineering. Chang himself is a former president of the Biomedical Engineering Society.

Bioengineering research at the school includes Woo's work in soft tissue analysis, which has greatly contributed to understanding knee behavior, and Russell's work in designing molecular structures to make proteins for biomedical and environmental purposes. "We have one of the highest concentrations of high-caliber biomedical engineers on one campus in the country, or in the world for that matter," Chang says. "And yet, we don't really have an undergraduate educational program to go with it. So, there is one chance for us to build." Chang believes bioengineering is a natural for the engineering school because of the presence of the medical school and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "That is something a lot of people don't appreciate, but when I tell them they say, 'Of course. It makes sense.'" Plans to improve the school's standing in bioengineering recently received a boost when The Whitaker Foundation of Washington, D.C., awarded Pitt a $750,000 grant to develop the nation's first certificate program in clinical cardiovascular bioengineering. The new training program will be offered jointly through the Schools of Engineering and Medicine and will combine the latest advances in bioengineering with the current clinical practice of cardiovascular surgery and medicine.

Graduate students in bioengineering will receive training in cardiovascular biomaterials, cardiovascular organ replacement and cardiovascular physiology. They also will be exposed to ethical and regulatory considerations surrounding the implementation of modern medical technologies, through specialized courses and clinical internships.

Classes are expected to begin this fall, with clinical internships to start in 1996.

Another strength of the school, according to Chang, is its Manufacturing Assistance Center at Pitt's Applied Research Center in Harmarville. The center helps industry to solve its problems, while giving students firsthand experience in the work world.

He says the school also has a successful minorities program that has allowed it to add substantially to the nation's pool of minority engineers since the program started in 1972.

Chang believes the school has two weaknesses, one material, the other spiritual.

Materially, he says, the engineering laboratories are outdated. "That is really the shortcoming," he says. "We don't necessarily need more space, but we need better equipment in the same space." Spiritually, Chang says that faculty and staff do not seem to appreciate what strengths the school has or what it has accomplished. "They tend to have a habit of looking across the street [to Carnegie Mellon University] and saying, 'That's a good engineering school,' and forgetting that there are some really positive strengths here," he explains. "There is a lack of appreciation for ourselves. This is definitely a weakness." While acknowledging that Pitt, like almost every other university around the country, is facing numerous fiscal problems, Chang believes engineering is one area where the University can do much better with the resources available. Chang thinks the engineering school will become better because engineering is what society needs and will continue to need in the future. He points out that every major behavioral change that has occurred in society over the past 50 years has come about because of technological innovation. Yet, he notes, the United States has fewer engineers per capita than most other industrialized societies. For that reason, he believes, the United States will need more engineers.

As an example of what he means, Chang points to the growth in use of the fax machine over the past five years. Today, people use fax machines to do everything from exchanging contracts to ordering lunch at a restaurant. A meal ordered ahead by fax saves time and increases the turnaround of the restaurant. "So the behavioral patterns of the society, or all of us, are dependent on technological improvement and I think engineering schools have been at the center of these innovations," he explains.

The fact that Pitt's School of Engineering has to compete for resources with other, often better known, engineering schools, does not intimidate him. He notes that the school has been able to attract "a fair amount of money since I came." Along with The Whitaker Foundation grant, the school also recently has had renewed a $2.5 million Material Research Center grant from the Department of Defense and has received other funds from the Alcoa Foundation.

Whether the school will continue to attract funds is uncertain, but the dean says: "We will work very diligently. We will work harder than before and we will work in a more effective way. We will work with more team spirit and more of a team fashion rather than an individual, Lone Ranger type of operation. That I can say." Over the past 25 years, Chang has taught at four universities in three countries. In addition to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, he has served as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California and as professor of biomedical engineering at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and the State University of New York in Buffalo.

Chang earned a B.S. in civil engineering from National Taiwan University in 1962, a master's degree in structural engineering from Stanford University in 1964, and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University in 1969. He has served as a member of the council of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the council of City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation.

In addition, Chang has been appointed a member of the respiratory and applied physiology study section of the National Institutes of Health, the board of directors of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the editorial boards of Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering and the Journal of Biomedical Engineering.

Among Chang's numerous publications are the books "Respiratory Physiology: An Analytical Approach" and "Fluid and Solute Transport in the Airspaces of the Lungs." He also has been awarded a Canadian patent for "method and apparatus for applying high frequency extrathoracic induced breathing." His research includes work in nasal airflow dynamics, lung mechanics in neonates, measurement of nasal impedance, pulsatile pulmonary hemodynamics, and fluid and solute transport across the lung epithelium.

Chang believes his experience in a variety of academic settings gives him a good sense of what the strengths and potentials are for a university and he likes what he has seen so far at Pitt.

"I would like to really bring what I've learned to Pitt to really make the School of Engineering flourish," he says. "I have that firm intention and I think I have that opportunity and want to give every ounce of my energy to help that come true."

–Mike Sajna