Welcome from the Dean

At Texas A&M University, "honor" and "duty" might be everyday words, but they certainly shouldn't be mistaken for casual references.

More than a century after being founded as the land-grant institution for Texas, we still consider it an honor to carry out our duty to provide access to affordable education and unbridled opportunity for anyone willing to answer the Aggie call to excellence.

With a birthright bigger than Texas, our ingenuity continues to feed a global appetite for innovation, annually resulting in nearly $570 million — $38.5 in the College of Science alone — in sponsored research projects that create new knowledge and help drive economies around the world. At Texas A&M, graduates walk off our stage and into influential positions of leadership in a range of world-changing areas, including industry, health care, business, and government.

As I reflect back on another successful year, I see many tangible examples of College-wide excellence in achieving our three-part University mission: teaching, research, and service. To name but a representative few, Chemistry's Dave Bergbreiter earned a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence Award, Texas A&M's highest recognition for excellence in the classroom. Physics' Chris Pope was promoted to distinguished professor of physics, Texas A&M's highest faculty rank reserved for those deemed by their peers as among the top five percent of scientists worldwide in their field. The Cyclotron Institute's Bob Tribble was selected for a three-year term as chair of the Department of Energy/National Science Foundation Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, an appointment that speaks volumes regarding our faculty's collective international professional service reputation and value.

In direct support of this mission, the College closed out the phenomenally successful six-year One Spirit One Vision capital campaign, raising just over $129 million and nearly tripling its original goal of $45 million. In 2006 alone, we broke ground on two Physics buildings and received commitments to fund the first chairs in both Biology and Statistics. Past chairs, fellowships, and scholarships funded in Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics helped to attract top faculty candidates — including John Gladysz in the Dow Chair in Chemical Invention and Nicholas Suntzeff in the Mitchell/Heep/Munnerlyn Chair in Observational Astronomy — and graduate students as we strive to fulfill the promise of Texas A&M's faculty reinvestment program.

In celebrating another year of great achievement, we vow to bring continued distinction to both Texas A&M University and the College of Science through our efforts to deliver the highest quality of science education, scholarly research, and technical expertise to benefit our world.

H Joseph Newton
Dean