<p>The end of year letter from Katepalli R. Sreenivasan</p>
<p>In the year to come, we will complete the process of selecting a new NYU-Poly president and dean of engineering across NYU, and make further gains toward our larger goals as we prepare ourselves for the upcoming merger and the many exciting opportunities that come with it.</p>
<p>These positive traits do not mean that all is well at Poly. We do not operate like great schools in many respects—the most important one being the institutional commitment that ought to go beyond personal concerns. In style and substance, we have some work to do. Poly has made strides in research, continues to recruit top faculty, and attracts better students now than a few years ago, but a long gap still exists before we become uniformly attractive for the best talent. </p>
<p>We have made only incremental improvements in our approach to education and the reshaping of our curricula. While I hesitate to use the acronym i2e glibly, I have little doubt that its incorporation into teaching summarizes an aspiration which has yet to be realized more fully. I urge all departments to examine their current course offerings, and broaden their respective curricula by supplementing course offerings that convey the core disciplinary knowledge with steps that better integrate research into the curricula, bring inventiveness into the classroom and the laboratory, and challenge students to draw on knowledge from neighboring disciplines. </p>
<p>Creating a first-rate School of Engineering in a large research university will be a challenge for us all. Modern engineers need a solid foundation in sciences, mathematics, business, financial acumen and humanities, but in these matters we have to find our way through NYU as a whole. We have strengths—and merger with NYU will add some more—but the most important attribute that will determine Polys future is its own initiative and sense of destiny. It is this quality that will eventually bring the much-needed resources to Poly. With all of them in place, the odds of success are strong. My own commitment to Poly is not based on any historical ties but on the conviction that Poly is now in the midst of a great experiment that deserves success.</p>
<p>As we move through 2013, I look forward to updating you frequently about other advances and achievements, and the progress of our merger with NYU.
Wishing everyone the best for the New Year,</p>
<p>Katepalli R. Sreenivasan
Acting President and Provost</p>