Greetings from the College of Applied Science and Technology! I hope you are well and enjoying the start of 2023.
CAST enjoyed a wonderful fall semester of growth with an all-time record enrollment of 4,746 undergraduate and graduate students working on their academic and professional goals in one or more of our 70 majors or sequences! We are also exploring the addition of new programs to complement the outstanding curricula offered by our talented and amazing faculty and supported by the wonderful staff who make it all possible. Our newest graduate degree program in computer science exceeded all expectations with an enrollment of 155 students. The faculty went above and beyond to accommodate the growth in a program originally designed for 50 students.
We are in the second year of our college student success initiative called CAST Connections. After a great launch year, during which we served dozens of students, we added a graduate assistant to the program to assist the growing number of interested students with the services aimed at enriching the first-year experience and enhancing the sense of belonging among CAST students. This year I also focused needed attention on faculty and staff success efforts to demonstrate my gratitude for all they have done and continue to do in support of our programs and students. After surveying our faculty and staff in the early fall semester, we are adding more faculty and staff appreciation events and support opportunities in direct response to the survey results.
With the growth of our enrollment comes a need for additional resources. We are searching for 10 new tenure-track and three new nontenure-track faculty colleagues this year. CAST has also been allocated the former fire station facility located at the corner of Adelaide and Gregory Streets near Weibring Golf Club along with two classroom trailers that were formerly being used as COVID testing sites. The additional facilities will accommodate growth in the construction management and criminal justice sciences programs. We plan to renovate part of the space for a forensic investigation laboratory for criminal justice sciences and a portion of the space for a construction management teaching laboratory. The two classroom trailers located at the site will provide additional teaching space for the faculty in the two program areas.
Planning for the new College of Engineering continues and includes the expertise of several CAST faculty and staff. The focus this year is on development of the curricula for mechanical and electrical engineering so we can seek approval of the two programs from the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Illinois State has also hired the inaugural dean of the college.
I hope you enjoy this issue of ForeCAST as you learn more about the impressive work of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
Todd McLoda, Ph.D., ATC
Dean, College of Applied Science and Technology
