Mo Dehghani, who has led Missouri University of Science and Technology for 100 days, already has ambitious plans to increase the size and impact of the school.
He laid out his vision for the campus in Rolla during a State of the University address last week.
The plans include strengthening ties between S&T and the Army with a research building on campus.
“We need to have an Army center at S&T. We would like to be the trusted agent of the Army here,” Dehghani said.
He turned his attention to a representative from Fort Leonard Wood, which is about 40 miles from Rolla.
“We will be coming to you with a plan. We are in the process of making all of our plans,” he told Col. Dave Caldwell.
Dehghani also pointed to another Midwestern school with a strong engineering and science reputation for inspiration on what S&T needs to do.
Discovery Park is a 40-acre, multibuilding site at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where faculty and students work side by side with high-tech companies on research and product development.
“And there is no reason that we should not have that same process in place. We have what it takes,” Dehghani said.
The chancellor did not provide specifics on how these projects would be funded. He did identify the university’s shuttered golf course as a possible location for expansion.
Dehghani’s goals include increasing enrollment from about 8,000 to 12,000, diversifying the gender and racial makeup of the student body and improving retention and graduation rates.
Dehghani became the 22nd leader of Missouri S&T in August. He previously was the vice provost for research, innovation and entrepreneurship at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He also held positions at Johns Hopkins University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
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