Built FGrroomuned Up The First 50 Yea  Engineering at Old Dominion University

BRENDAN O’H ALLARN Author

OUTER BANKS PRESS Publisher www.outerbankspress.com Built Ground Up Built FGrroomuned Up

The First 50 Yea  ENGINEERING AT OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY

BRENDAN O’H ALLARN

OUTER BANKS PRESS Built From the Ground Up

THE FIRST 50 Y EARS OF

ENGINEERING AT OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY

Published in 2012 by Outer Banks Press for Old Dominion University Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without express written permission from the publisher. Printed in China

All images and text © Old Dominion University

ISBN: 978-0-9778924-7-1

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data available upon request MISSION STATEMENT

TEXT : Brendan O’Hallarn

DESIGN : Linda L. Lauby, Outer Banks Press In accordance with the mission of Old Dominion University,

PHOTOGRAPHY : Linda L. Lauby, Crystal Street, Chuck Thomas the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS : Old Dominion University Archives promotes the advancement of engineering knowledge,

Copies of this book are available from the Old Dominion University Bookstore and from the both in creation and dissemination, by providing office of the Dean of Engineering. successful graduates and a continuously improving learning envoronment to its constituents, while maintaining high ethical, multicultural and global standards.

FRANK BATTEN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 102 Kaufman Hall | Norfolk, Virginia 23529 | 757.683.3789 [email protected] | www.eng.odu.edu OKTAY BAYSAL , Dean

OSMAN AKAN , Associate Dean

LINDA VAHALA , Associate Dean

OUTER BANKS PRESS BERNDT BOHM , Assistant Dean 75 East Dogwood Trail | Kitty Hawk, North Carolina 27949 | 252.261.0612 [email protected] | www.outerbankspress.com PRESIDENT’S FOREWORD JOHN R. BRODERICK iii

DEAN’S FOREWORD Conten ts OKTAY BAYSAL iv BREAKING GROUND A NEW ENGINEERING BUILDING 1

CHAPTER 1 AN ENGINEERING SCHOOL FOR NORFOLK 5

CHAPTER 2 THE EARLY YEARS 25

CHAPTER 3 THE COLLEGE GROWS UP 45

CHAPTER 4 MAKING AN IMPACT 65

CHAPTER 5 POSITIONED FOR THE FUTURE 83

FIFTY AT FIFTY NOTABLE LANDMARKS 83 Named for the first Rector of Old Dominion University’s Board of Visitors, Frank Batten, the College has graduates spanning the globe, making their mark in countless ways, as entrepreneurs, with Fortune 500 firms, as captains of nuclear submarines, and in a myriad of government agencies and non-profits. In my nearly 20 years at Old Dominion University, I’ve seen the in genuity and passion of Batten College engineers on display almost every day. Initiatives like the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, ODU Business Gateway, and the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center contribute greatly to the economy of Hampton Roads and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Three Old Dominion engineering faculty have been recognized by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia with outstanding faculty awards: Sushil Chaturvedi, Gregory Selby and Bill Stanley. The accomplishments of our engineering students are numerous as well, including environmental engineering student Samantha Salvia being named Old Dominion University’s first (and still only) Rhodes Scholar in 1996. W. Channing Blackwell, a 1999 civil engineering grad uate, became the first undergraduate student in Virginia history to earn a U.S. patent. And momentum continues to build. The new home of engineering at Old Dominion, the Systems Research and Academics Building, will open in 2014. Located between Kaufman Hall and Perry Library, it will house a state-of-the-art clean room, lasers lab, plasma science lab, dynamic environment simulation lab, as well as four large student projects studios. I’m confident it will be the site of many discoveries.

To Dean Oktay Baysal and the entire faculty, staX and student body of the Old Dominion University Batten College of Engineering Congratulations to the Frank Batten College of Engineering and and Technology, congratulations. I look forward to the exciting Technology for 50 years of groundbreaking research, innovative discov eries of the next 50 years. teach ing and award-winning scholarship. From its roots as a division of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute Sincerely, in the 1930s, the College has grown into a hub of multidisciplinary John R. Broderick ex cellence. Its research breakthroughs in modeling and simulation, bioelectrics, machine vision and system of systems engineering have President, Old Dominion University earned acclaim for Old Dominion University, not only in Virginia, but worldwide.

ii iii In our first 50 years, we have been advancing engineering and technology for the community, region, and the world. As the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University celebrates its 50th anniversary year, I would like to take a brief look back, specifically through the lens of the firsts we intro duced, those milestones that have brought the college to be the powerhouse that I am fortunate to lead today. The College was the first at Old Dominion University to oXer a Ph.D. program, and it produced its first Ph.D. graduate. The College developed ODU’s first International Collaborative Graduate programs, with 50 alumni to date. We were the first College at Old Dominion to begin oXering graduate classes via televised distance learning, the first to oXer courses at the Peninsula Graduate Engineering Center, now simply the Peninsula Center for Higher Education, and we developed the first asynchronous distance-delivered degree program of ODU – Master of Engineering Management CD-ROM program. In the state, Old Dominion was the first university to offer engineering management and engineering technology degree programs, and departments. In the nation, ODU established the first modeling, simulation and visualization engineering department, and its first-ever Ph.D. graduate in modeling and simulation. Our close collaboration with the NASA Langley Research Since its inaugural class of 12 students, the College can now boast Center aided in the transformation of ODU engineering to become more than 3,200 students currently enrolled, more than 14,000 alumni a research-intensive university, producing hundreds of graduate living worldwide, and it confers about 600 degrees every year. We are stu dents and degrees, and tens of millions of dollars of funding for proud of our modest beginnings and those milestones that have led groundbreaking research. this great College to what it is today. That is why I look to the history of ODU Engineering as my guiding light each day I serve this remarkable Through the formation of very successful enterprise centers, school as its dean. Here’s to many more trailblazing years of ODU’s ODU Engineering helped transform the University to a research-and Batten College of Engineering! outreach-intensive focus. Centers such as the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center in Suffolk, the Applied Research With my best wishes, Center in Newport News, and the Frank Reidy Center for Bio electrics, Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, and Business Gateway Oktay Baysal in our Research Park, have each made a tangible contribution to ad vancing the University’s goals. Dean, The Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology

iv v Breaking Ground Paving the Way for the State’s Most Advanced University Engineering Building

ODU President John R. Broderick, engineering student Brittany Gesner, Batten College Dean Oktay Baysal, Board of Visitors student representativeand engineering student Kevin Muchiri, and Virginia Delegate John A. Cosgrove turn earth at the groundbreaking for the new Systems Research and Academic Building. The entire day spoke about the future, but John Weese, who served as dean of the College of Engineering from 1974 to 1982, couldn’t help but think about the past. Despite leaving Old Dominion University in 1983 to become director of the mechanical A contingency plan for the rain was prepared, but it couldn’t possibly engineering and mechanics division of the National Science have been less necessary. Foundation, Weese has kept in close contact with the school. He Instead, the large, enthusiastic crowd that gathered in a fenced-oX still serves on the ODU Engineering advisory board. He and his former parking lot between the Kaufman Engineering Building and wife, Betty, had traveled from Annapolis, Maryland to attend the Perry Library on the Old Dominion University campus would have groundbreaking ceremony. been well served to smear healthy doses of sunscreen. Looking around at the bustling event – the construction Almost the entire faculty and staX of the Frank Batten College kick-oX for a state-of-the-art engineering building – Weese was of Engineering and Technology, along with University President John decidedly reflective. “It really is amazing how far this school has R. Broderick, Provost Carol Simpson, local dignitaries and even long- come,” he said. “You feel very good about things like that. It’s very retired faculty members gathered in the sun-drenched space to satisfying to go back and take a look at it.” celebrate the Batten College of Engineering and Technology’s future. The occasion was the October 5, 2012 groundbreaking for the new 50,500-square-foot Engineering Systems Building, also marking the oWcial kick-oX of the College of Engineering’s 50th anniversary celebration. Only steps from Kaufman Hall, the new building is scheduled for completion in spring of 2014, and will feature a state-of- the-art clean room, a lasers lab, a plasma science lab and a dynamic environment simulation lab, as well as four large student project studios. President Broderick, in his remarks, stressed the new engineering building will be tangible proof of Old Dominion’s commitment to graduating students in the vital STEM-H fields of science, technology, engineering, math and health sciences. Speaking on behalf of the engineering faculty, Batten Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering Stephen Knisley, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, echoed how moving from 47-year-old Kaufman Hall to the state’s most advanced university engineering building will be a distinction for Old Dominion. Knisley said he hoped to see students “making a diXerence” with the projects they tackle in the new building, such as the new volunteer partnership in which Old Dominion’s engineering students test medical equipment for the non-profit advocacy group Physicians for Peace. Dean Oktay Baysal, who led the celebration, referenced the Col lege’s many accomplishments, from breakthroughs in bio-engineering and modeling and simulation, to the grant-funded research of faculty in every engineering discipline, to the successes of Old Dominion graduates in the workforce and in other academic programs. Baysal said the new building will “oXer new opportunities for student learning and faculty research while working toward the vision of becoming a world-class engineering college connecting knowledge, practice and research.”

2 CHAPTER 1 AN ENGINEERING SCHOOL FOR NORFOLK E. B. Norris, VPI ’s dean of engineering, said that the program would allow the school to bring its strengths in technical education “directly to the people in this area who are unable to go away for a four-year college training.” Because the College of William and Mary’s Old Dominion University’s School of Engineering was founded on curriculum did not include engineering education, it was a good July 1, 1962. But the roots of engineering on the Norfolk campus match, and engineering classes began in the old Larchmont School in stretch back three decades earlier. the fall semester of 1931. In 1930, five years after the idea was first proposed, the College of Among the first faculty members hired was Lewis W. Webb Jr., William and Mary established its Norfolk Division, using the old who would go on to be president of the school from 1946 to 1969. In a Larchmont School on Hampton Boulevard to teach college classes in series of interviews with historian and Old Dominion University Norfolk. At the time, Norfolk was the largest English-speaking city Archivist James Sweeney, Webb described his journey back to his in the world without an institution of higher learning. The Great hometown school in the summer of 1932: De pression had set in worldwide, and southeastern Virginia was hard hit. The new school, however, attracted students right away, due in no “I’m a native of Norfolk, and my first interest was in engineering, small part to the fact Norfolk residents could no longer aXord to as my father was an electrical engineer, and I guess I absorbed a great travel to attend post-secondary school. deal of his interest in things. And so, I elected to go to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. This was back in the days just prior to the The following year, an agreement was struck between William Below: Classes at the Norfolk de pression. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1931. and Mary President J. A. C. Chandler and Julian A. Burruss, president Division of the College of William of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (now Virginia Tech) to oXer the first “In 1931, there were no job openings for electrical engineers ... or and Mary-VPI were held in the old two years of its standard engineering program through cooperative any engineer. And so, I decided to go back to graduate school. After Larchmont Elementary School building getting my master’s degree, I still didn’t have any job and was ready in Norfolk. education in Norfolk. A member of the VPI faculty, W. Forrest Harrington, was dispatched to Norfolk to found and supervise to leave the VPI campus when the dean of engineering called me and Opposite: VPI student body, 1935, the program. asked me if I wanted a job. I said, very positively, I’d take it. He said, in front of the old Larchmont School.

6 7 ‘But you don’t know what it is,’ and I said, ‘That keep him fed, they could send their child to doesn’t make any diXerence; I’ll take the job.’ He college, whereas they couldn’t aXord to send him Studying in Tidewater said to report tomorrow morning to Norfolk.” to William and Mary or VPI and pay their room and board along with the tuition,” Webb said. as Students of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute Webb joined the faculty in 1932, along with Ed ward White, his roommate at VPI. They Edward White’s background was similar to In the 1931-32 Bulletin of the Norfolk Division of the completed, will ensure admission to the junior class of teamed up with Harrington, and helped broaden that of his colleague Webb in that he was born and College of William and Mary, readers learned of a the VPI, or of other standard engineering schools, with the course oXerings to include survey engineering reared in Norfolk, and attended engineering school first- time partnership between full credit.” William and Mary and Virginia and applied mathematics. at VPI. White majored in electrical engineering. In case there were worries about Polytechnic Institute to provide Norfolk engineering students Webb said the value of the program was Graduating with a bachelor of science in 1931, engineering in struction in the re ceiving an inferior engineering Norfolk area. The students who enroll rein forced regularly in the financial struggles White faced the same economic realities of education, the Bulletin continued: faced by the students’ families. It was truly a many others enduring the Depression, so he went “The Virginia Polytechnic Institute,” for the engineering “The technical courses in the Bulletin announced, “through a engineering are taught by regular ter rible time for families all across America. back to VPI as a student assistant in the physics courses are carried on department, earning his master of science in cooperative arrangement with the members of the Virginia Polytechnic “We came and started the summer program in Norfolk Division of the College of the rolls as students of Institute faculty, who have been elec trical engineering. William and Mary, is offering to assigned to teach this work in the June of 1932,” said Webb. “It was a dismal year for the young men of Tidewater, the Virginia Polytechnic Norfolk Division. The students most people, as jobs were practically unattainable, With a job lined up in Norfolk with the Carry Vir ginia the first two years of its Institute. who enroll for the engineering and this little Division, which was being formed in Engineering Company, White was excited to leave standard engineering courses. This courses are carried on the rolls as Norfolk, survived simply because people didn’t the academic world for work as an air conditioning plan makes it possible for students students of the Virginia Polytechnic have enough money to send their children to VPI field engineer. But only days before his job was to of the Norfolk community to take Institute.” their first two years’ work in the VPI engineering courses or send them to William and Mary.” begin, White was informed by Dean Norris at VPI at home and to carry a program which, if satisfactorily that his employment contract was being rescinded. A student could study at the Norfolk Division In an interview with University Archivist Sweeney, for $90 per year. “So, if the parents could aXord to White explained what happened next:

Left: December 1960 pre- registration for engineers. Students (from left): Bobby Nelson, Gary Smyle and Allan Kjeldsen, with Edward L. White of the engineering department.

Opposite: During the first year of instruction, 10 faculty members taught engineering to 200 students in the former Larchmont Elementary School.

8 9 News, Virginia. George Webb said that his father possessed an abiding desire to help better the lives of his fellow citizens. “He really, very early on, got this burning drive to build something [in Norfolk] for people who were not privileged to be able to go to William and Mary, or go away to school,” George Webb said. “Because he was an engineer, he had this visual way of dealing with things. He would take Styrofoam and cut out these little blocks to be dormitories. ... There are some pictures of him with these things he made at home that he brought to community clubs and to the state legislature, showing his vision of where the Division ought to go. “We saw a lot of activity, and that became the life of the family. It was like a family business, and we all did things, including his parents and my mom’s parents. Everybody sort of pitched in.” The Norfolk Division began to offer evening classes in 1935, to edu cate students who couldn’t aXord to leave whatever employment they had secured in order to attend school full time. That year also saw the first construction on campus specific to the Norfolk Division – physical growth that was helped considerably by an alliance with the City of Norfolk. With nearly 500 students enrolled, the Norfolk Division had out - grown the former Larchmont School. William and Mary President Chandler put forth an ambitious proposal for a classroom building and “The Dean explained that he had something in esprit de corps among the small staX. gymnasium, as well as a stadium. our back yard that might entertain us until things “It was quite cozy, and everyone knew each got better. And what I was saying also goes true The stadium, which still stands as S. B. Ballard Stadium at Foreman other,” Webb said. “In the beginning, when I first for Lewis Webb – of course, he and I were college Field, was unimaginably large for such a small college division. It was came, there were 10 faculty members, about 200 mates together. And so he said, until things got funded by applications to various Depression-era government agencies students. Some of the faculty members were better, why not try teaching?” and completed in partnership with the City of Norfolk, which was com muting from William and Mary, and so they in eligible for such program funding. So Edward White became an engineering were part time; I think we had six full-time and fac ulty member in 1932, and “trying teaching” four part-time faculty members. We were assigned After the initial stadium project was rejected, the school reapplied worked out pretty well. His interview with to teach most anything that came up.” under the Virginia Emergency Relief Association and the federal Works Sweeney was conducted in 1974, following White’s Progress Administration, pledging to turn five acres of property Despite the school’s modest scope, Webb said retirement from Old Dominion, where he taught deeded by the City of Norfolk to the College. The project was approved the Norfolk Division attracted good students right for 42 years. June 18, 1935, for a stadium that seated 17,500, more than 20 times the away. These were students who would have gone enrollment of the Norfolk Division at the time. Throughout the 1930s, the Norfolk Division away to study at university, but whose plans were grew gradually. Money was exceedingly hard to altered by the Depression. By the end of the decade, the Norfolk Division of the College of find, as the Great Depression aXected institutions William and Mary-VPI had a faculty of 24, teaching a student body of “Those students were very good students, and of higher learning as hard as individuals. 522. But growth in engineering education at the Norfolk Division was I see them from time to time now. They are top about to explode. The Norfolk Division’s entire teaching staX – engineers in the city, in the state, and in the Opposite: Starting with the creation and all of its classes – were housed in the old country,” he said. of an Aircraft Instruments Institute in 1938, the Norfolk Division contributed Larchmont Elementary School. Professors’ WORLD WAR II C ONTRIBUTES TO GROWTH George Webb, Lewis Webb’s son, would go on strongly to America’s war effort. A offices were constructed from former cloak rooms. to his own 40-plus-year career as a professor, at pilot training program was added in According to Lewis Webb, it was hardly plush. In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, beginning the Tulane University in New Orleans, and at 1940, also before America’s entry But he said that closeness also created a feeling of Second World War. Despite friendly relations with Great Britain and Christopher Newport University in Newport into World War II.

10 11 War College night courses were being offered The Norfolk Division Leads the Fight at Home for free at the Norfolk Division of VPI, funded by a federal grant. Up to 300 workers would receive For a few years in the 1940s, the Norfolk Division of The fact that women were eligible to be equal participants education in the following skilled Virginia Polytechnic Institute had the most engineering in the program proved irresistible to local media. trades: surveying and topographic students of any school on the East Coast. This was thanks “Pretty, blonde Sarah Frances Potts, 19-year-old student mapping; engineering principles to a forward-thinking decision by Division leaders and of the Norfolk Division, College of William and Mary, of aircraft; explosives production the military to invest in war preparedness well before the VPI, has learned to fly an airplane even before knowing and inspection; application of United States officially entered how to operate an automobile,” aircraft carburetion; aircraft the war. The Virginian-Pilot newspaper ac cessories; welding aviation The initial spark was a Civilian Lewis Webb’s son George reported. “The comely young materials; application of aircraft Pilot Training Program created in said he remembers an aunt avi atrix, who has yet to drive an power plants; sheet metal layout October 1939 by the Civil Aviation automobile, completed her first for aircraft production; electro - Authority, using instructors from working on the skeleton solo flight at the Norfolk Municipal plating for aviation; and heat Naval Air Station Norfolk. War Airport a few days ago. treatment of materials. was already under way in Europe of a Piper Cub aircraft “She is one of a group of 10 Clearly, this was a college preparing for war. Lewis working. “And from that, it developed into engineering and Asia, and though the United Nor folk Division students who are Webb was thinking of keeping his faculty working. science management war training after the war started. States wouldn’t enter the war until under the bleachers of learning to fly at the Norfolk This area, this program that we had, was the largest December 1941, faculty member “In order to keep the faculty busy, we started a war- Foreman Field. Avi ation School under the Civilian area on the East Coast – the greatest number of students W. Forrest Harrington, coordinator training program,” Webb told James Sweeney. “It was Pilot Training Program sponsored along the East Coast, taking these programs. We had of the VPI program in Norfolk, called an engineering defense training program to start by the Civil Aeronautics Authority.” several thousand when it was at its peak. But the main enlisted as a Navy cryptographer. with. In fact, the first courses that were taught on a purpose was to keep your faculty busy and also to serve As the American entry into the Second World War grew vo cational level were taught in The Civilian Pilot Training Program, part of America’s the defense and war needs of closer, the federal Department of Education set up its the physics department.” national defense plan, offered four full college credits the community.” En gineering Defense Training Program, a series of for aeronautics students who had at least two years of Immediately following the attack courses conducted by select schools of engineering Engineering professor Edward college credits. on Pearl Harbor, the Engineering throughout the United States. The Norfolk Division program White said it was quite an Defense Training Program changed The program, open to American citizens between the ages was accepted because it was part of VPI. ef fort. He said that they taught its name to the Engineering War of 19 and 26 who met the physical strength re quirements, classes day and evening, Under the headline “Defense Courses,” the Norfolk Training Program. The Norfolk graduated its first class of licensed pilots in May 1940. placing an added burden on News-Index reported on February 6, 1941 that the new Division was divided into a day the Division’s meager support college and an evening college, staff, as well as its faculty. allowing it to offer both war training and vocational courses. The war ended with two major As the global conflict dragged impacts to the Norfolk Division. on, more students signed up for The applied education offered war training, and fewer for the at the war college ended up During World War II, more engineering vocational courses. being rolled into what would students attended the Norfolk Division of become the Technical Institute. The courses were a change It would coexist with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute than any because they offered women engi neering school across the other school on the East Coast, thanks to an equal opportunity to tackle street before merging with Old the Engineering War Training Program. the challenging work. And they Dominion’s School of Engineering Students studied welding and sheet occupied whatever space on more than two decades later. metal layout, aviation principles (left and campus could be made available. Lewis Webb’s son George said As well, the veterans that opposite top), and offered women an he remembers an aunt working re turned from the Second World equal opportunity to tackle the important on the skeleton of a Piper Cub War were serious-minded and work (opposite bottom). aircraft under the bleachers of Foreman Field, learning determined, and they were adamant that the Norfolk aviation concepts. Di vision achieve its independence from William and Mary, and attain its status as a four-year college. Webb told Sweeney that the War Training Program gave faculty who were qualified an opportunity to keep

12 13 Canada, which had both declared war on Nazi Germany, the United After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Defense Training Program States maintained the isolationist policies that it had adopted following became the War Training Program. The program was split into the First World War. tradi tional vocational engineering studies, and the war-training courses, which proved much more popular. The demand for training However, as the United States ramped up its eXort to help supply placed such a strain on the campus that makeshift laboratories were Great Britain with war provisions, and possibly enter the war itself, set up in buildings all around campus, including the football stadium. the Norfolk Division’s proximity to Naval Station Norfolk, Langley Lewis Webb said that by the end of the war, more than 5,000 individuals Field and other military installations soon made it a hub of activity. had received technical instruction at the Norfolk Division, a number The Norfolk Division had already established an Aircraft greater than that of any other East Coast school. Instruments Institute in 1938, to teach students to overhaul and “The attempt to get more of the women to take part in the activities re pair aircraft. A month after England and her allies went to war of the Naval Operating Base and the Naval Air Station and the Norfolk against Germany, the Civil Aviation Authority created a pilot training Naval Shipyard and other defense industries was made very strongly,” program for civilians through the Division, tapping into Norfolk Naval Webb said, “and we did have a number of women that took courses, Air Station’s pool of experienced pilots as flight instructors. even such courses as aircraft welding, aircraft instruments, many in The first students completed the course in May 1940, becoming drafting and photographic mapping.” full-fledged pilots. A. Lee Smith, professor and advisor to the Enrollment in the Division swelled after the war, owing to an influx Divi sion’s Aeronautics Club, provided instruction to the students in of returning veterans. That was a problem when it came to housing meteorology and navigation. By December of that year, nine graduates everyone. In response, Lewis Webb, who was appointed director of of the program had joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, and another nine the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary-VPI in 1946, had enlisted with the U.S. Navy. Lee himself would leave the Division continued to build. in 1943 to enlist in the Navy for the war eXort. “His job was to find little pieces of stuX that could be used to help EXorts accelerated in early 1941, when the U.S. OWce of Education faculty members at an underdog school produce at a level that the selected the Norfolk Division as one of a handful of colleges to teach Virginia Techs and William and Marys could produce at naturally,” Engineering Defense Training. The program taught civilians a series George Webb said. of intensive engineering-related, college-grade courses, such as principles of aviation, sheet metal layout for aircraft production, and “He would, for example, go to Navy surplus sales and buy buildings. heat treatment of metals. He bought these little one-story buildings that were military surplus

Above: A glimpse into ODU engineering classes of the 1940s.

Right: A spring 1943 engineering drawing class at the Norfolk Division. As it was held during the Second World War, the class was almost exclusively women.

Opposite: Professor Yates Stirling (with glasses, in all three photos) instructs engineering students in mathematical applications, field surveying and laboratory analysis.

14 15 Pro gram, the Institute initially consisted of shops William and Mary’s Board of Visitors. Select under the grandstands at Foreman Field. pro grams began to be oXered as a four-year option that same year. By 1960, the matter “We were overrun with veterans. After the war, the had been taken up by the Virginia We had lots of them. We had all we General Assembly, with full could handle and more, too. We set hands-on skills inde pendence granted in 1962. up what we thought were very practical programs,” Klinefelter that students were A third engineering school in told University Archivist James learning at the the Commonwealth of Virginia Sweeney. was another matter altogether. War Training Through their determination Lewis Webb told the story to and achievement, the focused Program were James Sweeney in 1974. In 1961 stu dents helped the inexorable he had raised the subject of his push of the Norfolk Division toward taught at a new desire for an engineering school in accreditation as a degree-granting, entity called the Hampton Roads, and the reaction four-year institution, as well as couldn’t have been less enthusiastic helping it to gain independence Norfolk Division of from the University of Virginia from the College of William and William and Mary and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Mary and Virginia Polytechnic “It was quite obvious that In stitute. Technical Institute. engineering training ... should In August 1953, the Norfolk be done in a situation that Division’s Four-Year College Committee – comprised was urban and engineering-oriented,” Webb Above: Electronics instruction at the technical institute. Opposite: Promotional images for the technical institute in 1948. of Norfolk community leaders, many recruited by told Sweeney. Lewis Webb himself – met with the College of and he put them up on campus so they could when he got some more students,” Stirling said. [conduct] classes,” George Webb explained. He returned to campus two years later. “He was an engineer in the way he managed the The students who came to the campus after university, taking the pieces and putting it together.” the war also demonstrated a spurt in maturity, Yates Stirling came to the Norfolk Division as a de veloped during the war eXort. faculty member in 1946, after retiring as a Navy “In a way they were more serious minded than aviator. He said the facilities on campus were the pre-war students,” said Lewis Webb. “We’ve enough to get by – barely. had good students all along. But these students “They were, you might say, adequate for the that came back definitely had a more serious moment,” Stirling told James Sweeney in 1975. ob jective and it reflected all the way back to a high “But nothing fancy at all. We were able to follow school group as well ... They were both put in the through on carrying out the curriculums which same classrooms, and the [recently graduated] had been outlined for us, but there were no frills high school students were suddenly faced with a at all. It was very fundamental.” quicker maturity and producing to stay in pace with the veterans. The veterans definitely had a Unfortunately, there weren’t enough resources very good influence on our academic side of the on campus for Stirling himself, when the school in stitution.” couldn’t pay him a salary. He left the Norfolk Divi sion in 1951 to teach at Norfolk Collegiate. After the war, the hands-on skills taught formerly in the War Training Program were “We ran out of students and I was low man on relo cated to the Norfolk Division of William and the totem pole. And so Lewis Webb at that time Mary Technical Institute. Led by Lee Klinefelter, said he was very sorry but he couldn’t renew my who was an instructor in the War Training contract. ... he would be very glad to see me again

16 17 “The objections, of course, came violently from the University of “Traditional engineering programs are not meeting the demands Virginia and VPI ... Their argument was at that time [the Norfolk of the individual. Nationwide, the number of freshmen enrolled in Di vision’s] applications for students in engineering were low and the en gineering decreased from 7,900 in 1957 to 6,800 in 1962,” Lampe University’s program in engineering was very small, and should have said. “Young people are not challenged by the old, traditional been phased out.” concept.” His engineering rivals at the University of Virginia and VPI under - Lampe said he wanted to create a new breed of “scientist doer,” estimated Lewis Webb. shaped in part by a specially designed senior-year course consisting of lectures, seminars and special projects on the problems of present-day Webb and his supporters from Hampton Roads engineering groups American society. hammered away at the State Council of Higher Education, arguing that the issue of need for a four-year engineering school should at Encouraged by the new building being constructed to house the least be discussed. Under constant pressure, it agreed to appoint a engineering school, Lampe used his nationally known reputation to hire panel comprised of the state’s two engineering deans and Webb, as a smart young faculty members from top engineering schools in the representative of the Norfolk Division. Southeast. There was an air of optimism around what was being built. Freshman engineering major David Not liking his odds with that arrangement, Webb convinced the Clearly, the School of Engineering still had a long way to go. And Braitsch was the first recipient of the Council to invite three experts from out of state to sit on the committee. precious little in the way of financial resources to help get it there. Epes-Fitzgerald Paper Company, Inc. Deans of engineering schools at North Carolina State, Michigan State scholarship in 1963. and Yale heard the Norfolk Division appeal.

Lewis Webb left nothing to chance. He arranged for a U.S. Navy Below: The faculty of the Engineering School of the Norfolk Division of the College of helicopter to fly the committee members over Hampton Roads, pointing William and Mary in 1965. out by air vital industrial cogs such as Langley Field, the Newport News Shipyard and NASA, all located within a short drive of campus. The committee met four times, concluding with the out-of-state members being convinced. Webb said Dean J. Harold Lampe of North Carolina State said to the group, “Why don’t we quit fooling around with this thing and go ahead and admit that there’s need for an engi neering school here? It’s quite obvious.” The final vote was four to two, with all three out-of-state committee members voting in favor of establishing a school of engineering at the Norfolk Division. In 1962, the Virginia General Assembly authorized the College to oXer a bachelor of science in engineering degree, taught in Norfolk and awarded in Norfolk. The College’s formal relationship with Virginia Polytechnic Institute ended in September 1963. As a final act, Webb convinced Lampe to delay his retirement plans and relocate to Norfolk, serving as the first dean of engineering at newly named Old Dominion College. In a story in Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot newspaper on January 20, 1963, the State Council of Higher Education Director William H. Mc Farlane praised the hire eXusively. “Dr. Lampe is the kind of good fortune that befalls a college once in 10 years,” he said. “You don’t find men like that every day.” Lampe told the newspaper of his intention to build a different type of engineering program at Old Dominion College, unlike existing programs at the University of Virginia and VPI.

18 19 Kaufman Hall level ing block after block of sub-standard buildings.” ground – he was from a large family in a small city with no college. He had long thought, and hoped, that everyone Harrison told the crowd of civic leaders and College A New Building for an Engineering School should have a chance at college. “Old Dominion College boosters that Old Dominion also had the “priceless has done much to make my dreams advantage” of the citizens of come true that all young men Hampton Roads, who saw the After laboring for years to educate its growing student That’s why Old Dominion’s emphasis on the “fundamental and women get an ed ucation,” potential of a four-year college in population in any space that could be found, the and basic” laws of a broad cross-section of engineering Kaufman said. engineering school’s own building, Charles L. Kaufman was important, Lampe said. Norfolk, and worked to build it. On the second night of building Hall, opened in 1965. One such citizen, had his name Virginia Governor Albertis S. Harrison Jr. also spoke on dedication, Newman Hall of placed on the outside of the Such an occasion merited a grand celebration, and Old the first night of dedication. His remarks were anything Washington, D.C., executive director $580,000 building, despite Dominion College hosted one, spread over three days, but understated as he declared, “I truly believe the next of the Commission on Engineering humbly trying to refuse the honor. April 29 through May 1, 1965. century in America belongs to the South.” Education, and S. E. Liles, president The opening was treated as the A lawyer from Southside, Virginia, Charles L. Kaufman, an attorney of Tidewater Construction Co., true inauguration of engineering Harrison had been pivotal in who came to Norfolk in 1919, were the featured speakers, education at Old Dominion — convincing Virginia’s General was an ardent supporter of the articu lating their vision for the at least the visible one — as “Old Dominion College Assembly to sever the ties between humanitarian, civic and educa - future of engineering in the United laboratories in the new building the College of William and Mary tional needs of his community. States. has done much to make As chairman of the Norfolk Re - would offer education in thermo - and what would become Old For day three, Saturday, May 1, development and Housing Authority, dynamics, mechanical properties my dreams come true Dominion College. Harrison an open house at Kaufman Hall he was instrumental in the action it and even the brand-new technol - said in his speech that he had showed off the new building to took to allocate land to the College ogy of computers. that all young men and “no cause to regret that Bill of parents, high school teachers, Divorcement!” He said Old for the enlargement of its campus. The building opening featured women get an pupils and the public. Dominion College would offer a Governor Harrison paid tribute to the dedication of a statue on the With an enrollment of 250, and education.” challenge to any other college or the man for whom the building front steps, “Free Form,” by local the first class set for graduation university in the state through its was named, saying: “Perhaps sculptor Victor A. Pickett. “My in June of 1966, Lampe said Old leadership. more than any other one man, dad loved that statue,” George – Charles L. Kaufman Dominion College’s School of Charles L. Kaufman, a decade ago Webb recalled. “It has the advantage of being En gineering benefited from strong a downtown college, and across persuaded the Board of Visitors of In his brief, understated remarks full-time faculty, and was poised our nation the educational tides the College of William and Mary on the first night of dedication, to offer a stronger curriculum to its students in the are coming in for institutions with urban locations. I that Old Dominion must become a degree-granting Dean J. Harold Lampe said new materials, methods near future. am told that more than half of America’s total college college to fulfill its destiny and its obligation to and frontiers would be dynamic factors in the world of enrollment is in institutions of this kind, if not always of Norfolk and to all of Tidewater. This Charles L. Kauf man “Outstanding engineers engaged in professional work engineering that lay ahead. this caliber,” Harrison said. Engineering Building launches a degree-granting in the area will serve as part-time teachers for some of “It is undoubtedly true that engineering graduates of four program in Engineering.” the more specialized courses of an advanced nature,” “Old Dominion has the advantage of being located in or five years hence will be working on and responsible for he said. “These men will bring to the students their Norfolk, a city in which there is no temporizing with the In The Virginian-Pilot the next day, reporter John the solution of new and complex problems of which we own wealth of experience and knowledge within a demands of progress, and where public support can Moreau wrote that Kaufman recalled his modest back - have little knowledge at this time,” said Lampe. par ticular specialty.” make possible the creation of a college campus by

Opposite far left: Kaufman Hall takes shape in 1964.

Opposite: Virginia Governor Albertis S. Harrison Jr. (center) with Norfolk Division President Lewis W. Webb Jr. (right) and school benefactor Charles L. Kaufman at the Dedication of Kaufman Hall.

Above: Kaufman Hall’s iconic sculpture “Free Form” by local artist Victor A. Pickett.

Right: When opened in 1965, Kaufman Hall was hailed as one of the most modern engineering buildings in the state.

20 21 everyone in the country when he came to engineering at class. Though his stay was short, Lewis Webb said he J. Harold Lampe: The Pioneer the Norfolk Division. And, of course, the timetable was and Lampe used the four years to design an engineering Helping a Fledgling Engineering School Take Flight such that he retired at NC State just at the time when we curriculum unique in the state. needed a new dean.” Truthfully, Old Dominion University should never have persuasive influence of President Lewis W. Webb. “He and I worked daily on developing the curriculum been able to attract a first engineering school dean the Lewis Webb’s pitch appealed to the which would not duplicate VPI’s, which “I…knew that he was within a very short time of retiring quality of J. Harold Lampe. engineer in Lampe – build something would not duplicate University of from NC State. I approached him and first he turned me here. The new school needed Vir ginia, and be of a different type,” When Lampe came to Norfolk in 1962, the newly minted down cold and said, no, he had no desire to do that and Webb said. “We visited a number of Webb said he told Lampe, “We Old Dominion College was still instructing engineering his wife, of course, objected, too,” Webb told Old Dominion a man of stature as its different engineering schools ... I’d needed someone badly to take hold students in any space on campus that could be found, Archivist James Sweeney. say we visited some 10 or 15 different and that we could not attract a very first dean, and there including Navy surplus tar-paper shacks that Division schools and looked over their programs However, Webb’s personal rapport with Lampe would strong individual such as himself Head Louis Webb had purchased for $100 each. The weren’t many engineers and talked to schools in large urban eventually win the day. He had been one of three deans because the School of Engineering new engineering building, Kaufman Hall, wouldn’t open held in the regard of areas to see just how they were training from out-of-state colleges selected to sit on a committee was not developed, was not accredited, for another three years. their engineers. The results were the that would arbitrate the request for a degree-granting and a great deal of work had to be J. Harold Lampe. type of program …we developed and Lampe was nearing the end of an esteemed career, hav ing engineering school in Norfolk. After tense meetings, and done. There was no building to house which I still feel is the effective way to spent the previous 17 years as dean of engineering at despite strenuous objections from the University of Virginia it, very meager laboratories were educate engineers.” North Carolina State. The longest-tenured dean of and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, all three out-of-state available, and so it would be a job of building it engi neering in NC State history, Lampe had led many deans had voted to create the new engineering school. from scratch.” After overseeing the first class of graduates from the Old advances during his time in Raleigh, developing courses “It’s hard to say exactly what happened, but clearly he Dominion College School of Engineering, Lampe retired for in furniture manufacturing and other fields that served He even used guilt to try to entice Lampe to come. and my dad got along really, really well. And he and the second time in 1966, but Edward White said he North Carolina’s industrial needs. NC State built the Dean Lampe convinced enough people on the committee “I kept after him and pointed out to him that, although at continued to provide advice and counsel to the engineering country’s first nuclear reactor on a university campus there was a need for an engineering school here,” said 64 or 65, he was very strong, [and] active mentally and school that he helped build well into the 1970s. during his tenure, and Lampe was an important figure in physically, that he couldn’t possibly just retire and do Lewis Webb’s son George. J. Harold Lampe died in 1986, leaving a legacy here the planning for what would become the state’s Research nothing; and also that he would waste his talent by just and at North Carolina State, where four generations of Triangle Park. Webb decided the new school needed a man of stature taking odd jobs and consulting work ... I think I really as its first dean, and there weren’t many engineers held Lampes have made their mark. His family had deep roots in that community: Lampe Drive shamed him into taking this job.” in the regard of J. Harold Lampe. Edward White, who at near campus is named for him. Lampe and his wife did not the time was acting as dean of engineering studies at Lampe finally agreed to retire from NC State and come want to relocate, but they were powerless to resist the the Norfolk Division, said: “Dean Lampe was known to to the school, organizing efforts to graduate its first

Opposie: Harold J. Lampe, the first dean of the School of Engineering, addresses a class of students.

Right: J. Harold Lampe and Walter Hixon Jr. of NASA survey plans for the new engineering building, to be named Kaufman Hall. CHAPTER 2 THE EARLY YEARS And of course, money was tight. Despite becoming Old Dominion University in 1969, a nod to the fact that almost all of its programs now granted four-year, baccalaureate degrees, and that graduate pro grams had been introduced, Old Dominion’s second president, Old Dominion College President Lewis Webb and J. Harold Lampe, James Bugg, wrestled with near-constant budget pressure for his the man chosen to be the School of Engineering’s first dean, had laid young institution. the groundwork for engineering to succeed in southeastern Virginia. However, the young, enthusiastic faculty who arrived to teach at this News stories at the time focused on state cutbacks to education, brand-new engineering school quickly realized the challenges. reductions that would only get worse in the first few years of the School of Engineering’s history. By 1970, Old Dominion University “The idea of coming into a new academic program, a new Rector Frank Batten declared that the state government’s drastic engineering program, was appealing. But we were truly just beginning,” cuts to its budget request represented a “true and serious crisis said Sid Roberts, who was one of several faculty who followed Lampe for ODU.” Then-Governor Linwood Holton, who Batten said was from North Carolina State to Old Dominion. He arrived in 1965. “sympathetic” to Old Dominion’s concerns, still threatened to cut the “Many of the buildings that currently exist did not exist then,” said university’s operating budget funds from $15.6 million to $11.2 million, Bill Stanley, who joined the faculty a year later from South Carolina’s and its capital outlay requests from $8.1 million to $4.1 million. Ralph Rotty, the second Dean of Clemson University. “I didn’t really think about [the modest state of Old Dominion University’s School Batten noted that the proposed budget would allow Old Dominion of Engineering the campus] a great deal. I came from a fairly modest background, so only $709 per student from the state’s general fund, compared with it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.” $1,651 per student for the University of Virginia, and $1,384 per Bob Ash arrived in 1967, and the professor and eminent scholar is student for the College of William and Mary. Successive Old Dominion still a full-time faculty member. He remembers being taller than the presidents and University of Virginia Board of Visitors rectors have trees on Kaufman Mall. “It was a brand-new university, basically,” since made the argument nonstop for more than 40 years that the said Ash. “The only engineering building was Kaufman Hall. When I school is still underfunded, compared to other public university peers Below: Construction of Kaufman first came here, there was no landscaping to speak of.” in the state. Mall, 1965. Lampe had retired after the first class of four-year engineering students was graduated from Old Dominion, but before he left, he hired a stable of bright, ambitious, young faculty members, professors who were undaunted by the University’s lack of resources. Ash, one of the early hires, said after faculty members got over the initial shock of arriving at a school that was in such a beginning state, it ended up being an unexpected benefit. “I used to say we do things because that seems like the best way to do them, as opposed to that being the way we’ve always done them,” he said. “That really does cre ate an unusual paradigm.” When he retired, Lampe was succeeded by Ralph Rotty from Tulane University, who first came to President Lewis Webb’s atten tion because of his son George. “He was my department chair at Tulane, and he was so terrific, I told my dad he had to look at him. So he came down to New Orleans and see me and the kids, and met Dr. Rotty,” George Webb said. “To get somebody with Ralph’s credentials to ODU, which was so new then, was tricky.” But the persuasive skills of Lewis Webb won the day again, and Rotty decamped to Norfolk. Rotty’s academic credentials were undeniable. But from the beginning, George Webb said he struggled to fit in with the unique, Bob Ash Longest-Tenured Engineering Faculty Member

When Bob Ash was completing his engineering studies across disciplines without any trouble, because you at Tulane University in 1967, he looked for jobs across knew everybody.” the United States. On his way back from a job interview Ash was also attracted to the type of students who in Philadelphia, Ash’s mentor, Ralph Rotty, convinced wanted to study here. “We typically don’t attract kids him to come for an interview at Old Dominion University, who get into MIT,” he said. “But this much is still true: where Rotty was the dean of the School of Engineering. we attract kids who are very willing to work, and willing “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you stay here a couple of to do whatever you assign them to do.” years, and then go somewhere else?’” Ash recalled. “I He still rides his bicycle to work. said, ‘That sounds like a great But Ash said the campus he rides idea.’ And here I am.” to has undergone an incredible Ash, professor and eminent scholar “I love it here,” Ash said transformation, both academically of mechanical and aerospace and in terms of campus life. en gineering, is now, in his 46th in a 2012 interview. “We’re a first-rate university, with year, the longest-tenured faculty virtually all the attributes of a first- member in the Frank Batten College “In fact, I’m doing some rate university,” he remarked. “We of Engineering and Technology. of the most exciting have faculty who are toe-to-toe Twice he has left, for two years to with anybody in the world. We a job at NASA’s Jet Propulsion research I’ve done in have a vibrant student environment Laboratory in Pasadena, California, now. I used to ride my bike here on and for another year as a research my entire time at Old the weekends and there wouldn’t collaborative tradition that was quickly evolving at Old Dominion. fellow at NASA Langley Research Above: Professor Gene Goglia be anyone around. Now there’s Professor Gene Goglia had started a soon-to-be lucrative pipeline to Center. Each time, Ash returned to Dominion University. (right) was instrumental in creating always something happening here, the only university where he has the research partnership with the the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Other I’m feeling really good whether it’s football or theater, or ever worked. NASA Langley Research Center. faculty members were teaching courses for the U.S. Navy and for about where I am.” students in Kaufman Mall.” Newport News Ship Building and Dry Dock Company, which was “I love it here,” he said in a 2012 later sold to Northrop Grumman. interview. “In fact, I’m doing some of the most exciting research I’ve “Ralph had one diWculty, which was he really wanted to make done in my entire time at Old Dominion ODU an engineering school more like Tulane,” Goglia said. “The task Uni versity. I’m feeling really good about where I am.” of sending his faculty all over the place to teach…always made him kind of uncomfortable. I think he would have been better if he had Right away, Ash felt a kinship with the new engineering school he joined in 1967. embraced that kind of model.” “The neat thing was that people who came Additionally, Rotty faced an unexpected obstacle in the leaders of here were really devoted to the programs the research specializations, who had all expected to get the dean’s job they built,” he said. “Also, we did things themselves. “You’re a brand new engineering school, and the way you because it seemed like the best way to do get good people to come to your engineering school is you tell all the them, not because it was the way we had always done them. That was the advan - new department heads that they’re going to become the dean after tage being in a new school.” you’re retired. That created some issues early on,” Ash said. When Ash started in Norfolk, the school’s Despite this tension, there existed strong camaraderie among the size ended up being an advantage as well. people building the new engineering school. “Things were much more “We were so small – the engineering school was entirely in Kaufman Hall – that casual then,” Stanley said. “There were a lot of parties in my first you really got to know faculty across the couple of years there, and almost every faculty member in the university,” he said. “We could do things engineering school went to almost every party.” This small staff was also charged with building a new type of

28 29 engi neering school. Part of the agreement that engineering is pretty much the same curriculum permitted the creation of an engineering school for the first two years.” Clarence Ray in Norfolk stipulated that Old Dominion wasn’t Ash said it also allowed Old Dominion to allowed to stream its students into traditional A 40-Year Career Designing Power Plants branch out in terms of its expertise into diXerent engineering disciplines. “Lewis Webb had to agree areas: “We had thermal engineering, administrative that our program could not be similar, or even engineering, materials engineering. There were Clarence Ray grew up in Norfolk, and had the grades 2012, marveling at how much the campus has grown. very competitive, with the existing programs in to go anywhere for school. But he stayed home, in part “There sure is a lot more here than when I left,” he said, these non-traditional disciplines, which was very the state of Virginia,” Roberts said. because his dad made him an offer “We had one computer on our whole forward-thinking in my opinion. The people who he couldn’t refuse. campus, in the Kaufman building, and What Webb and Lampe decided was to provide came really were devoted to the departments that you’d be there late at night punching “I would work in the summers and “We had one a general engineering education for a student’s they built. That resulted in a really exciting cards, making sure you didn’t get part-time on the weekend during the them out of order.” But even at that first two years, with students specializing in their department to be a part of.” school year. If I paid for the first computer on our time, Ray said his classmates, mostly upper-class years, but not into discrete departments. semester, my father would pay for the whole campus, in local students, were serious about Long-time faculty member Edward White said second semester. Tuition was only Roberts said it made for a challenging first few their studies. “You could see the that there was one thing of which Rotty was fully about $600 then, but it was a lot of the Kaufman years, because the faculty had all come from school getting a little better each supportive. “What Dean Rotty had in mind, I’m money for me,” Ray laughed. insti tutions where rigid engineering tracks had building, and you’d year.” sure, was the fact that our engineers, regardless Graduating with a degree from Old existed for years. When he was a student, Ray and of what their specialty may turn out to be – civil, Dominion in 1970, with a concentration be there late at night classmate Dennis Fallon – now dean in civil engineering, Ray has gone “We were housed there in Kaufman Hall, and electrical, or mechanical – are going to receive punching cards, of engineering at The Citadel – onto a more than 40-year career we were plenty busy, trying to put together a new good fundamental information in regard to across- founded a student chapter of the designing and building power plants, making sure you American Society of Civil Engineers. style of academic program. Not the conventional, the-board types of subjects that embrace all of our for Duke Power in North Carolina for Ray said many of his classmates have traditional tracks of electrical, mechanical and engineering,” White told University Archivist 36 years, then the last six for The didn’t get them out gone on to do very well in engineering civil,” said Roberts, adding: “And that was part of James Sweeney in 1974. Shaw Group, Inc., a consulting firm fields, mostly in the Hampton Roads based in Charlotte, North Carolina. of order.” the excitement, really. The fact of the matter is, area, but also across the country. Ray and his wife, Sandy, were back During his Homecoming visit, Ray at Old Dominion for Homecoming was excited to see how much the campus has changed Below: Electronics instruction at the Technical Institute. since reinstatement of Old Dominion football, a sport that had been dropped from 1941 to 2009. It’s changed his office culture, too. “I would hear colleagues talking about their football team and the big game that weekend and I always felt like I was missing out,” Ray said. “But the guys I work with sure know about ODU football now.”

Above: Officers of the first national society to be organized on campus, the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Right: Clarence Ray and his wife, Sandy, returned to the ODU campus for Homecoming in October 2012. While a student at ODU, Ray co-founded a campus chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

30 31 Technical Institute From HVAC to High Tech

Its history as part of higher education in Norfolk is completely separately, academically. It had its own stu dent proud and vital. But without a key partnership with the records and its own humanities faculty. The technical School of Engineering at Old Dominion University, the skills taught to students, such as refrigeration and air Technical Institute might have disappeared altogether. conditioning, radio and television electronics, and automotive mechanics, grew out of the war-training Instead, its rich story has combined with that of the pro grams offered on campus in the Second World War. Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology, Its first classrooms were located under the bleachers of creating the joint history that helps Old Dominion Foreman Field. conduct engineering technology education better than Throughout the 1960s, attendance at the Technical Institute was getting into and he has proved to be a gem.” that offered at just about any school in the country. The Technical Institute was formally established in 1945, sagged. The rise of the community college system meant Within the first year under Stanley’s leadership, the new and by 1962, had grown to offer three-year, associate- that aspiring television repairmen or air conditioning While still part of the Norfolk Division of the College of department became the first in the state to offer a four- degree programs in three different disciplines. While technologists could get an associate degree in two years William and Mary, the Technical Institute existed year degree in engineering technology. And its enrollment Norfolk Division President Lewis Webb was still trying to – at a far lower price – than the three-year program offered increased five-fold in the first four years, “the largest convince the state to grant a new engineering school to by Old Dominion. Despite being the only institute of its en rollment increase in any department of the University,” Norfolk, the Technical Institute moved across the street kind in the state recognized by the accreditation Stanley said. from its humble beginnings and into a building on organization that would become the Accreditation Hampton Boulevard in 1959, the shell of which is now Board for Engineering and Technology, the Technical Stanley had a foot in each camp, teaching in both occupied by ODU’s College of Health Sciences. Institute saw its enrollment dwindle to only 60 students. engi neering technology and electrical engineering for the first few years. He helped navigate the adjustment The Ledger-Dispatch and Star, a former Norfolk newspaper, When the specter of closing the Technical Institute was period between the two sides. reported that the Technical Institute’s new facility raised, the School of Engineering’s second dean, Ralph “promises to be a prime example of a school specifically Rotty, decided to do something bold. He had been “There’s always been some...friendly competition,” designed for its function. Faculty members, expecting the following the creation of four-year engineering technol ogy Stanley said. “The worst I could say is engineering building to be ready for Christmas, believe it to be the degree programs at a few universities across the U.S., fac ulty thought we [didn’t] need technology programs. finest technical school in the vicinity, tailor-made to turn and he decided to roll the Technical Institute into the Engineering faculty members have a certain level they out technicians in specialized areas.” School of Engineering. Up to that point, engineering think at, and that you’re going to learn practical Edgar Kovner, who became director of the Technical technology degrees were much like associate degrees. appli cations after you get out of college. The fact is, In stitute in 1959, remembered the tension that existed After the merger, Old Dominion ended up with the first many of the things that are done in engineering have between the three-year associate-degree faculty and the university-level engineering technology program in the a hands-on focus.” state, and one of the first in the country. faculty of the College as a whole. He told University Despite complaints from some traditional engineers, Archivist James Sweeney in 1974, “They were not “I think Ralph Rotty, who was very clever, started studying early support of engineering technology education was accepted. They were looked upon as a thing that these four-year programs, and decided [that an key to its growth at Old Dominion. In the 1970s, Old shouldn’t be there. As a matter of fact when the college engi neering technology program] might work,” said Bill Dominion had three engineering programs and three eventually went up for four-year accreditation in 1961, Stanley, then a young professor in electrical engineering. engineering technology programs. they specifically excluded the technical program.” “And for whatever reason, he picked me to run it. In the fall of 1970, I moved my office across Hampton Boulevard Gary Crossman, the last engineering faculty member to the old Technical Institute to become chair.” who actually taught classes at the Technical Institute, said that early investment has paid huge dividends for Top left: Faculty of the Technical Institute. It turns out that Kovner had been in on the plan. Figuring Old Dominion. In terms of the number of engineering his own dictatorial style wouldn’t work well with the new technology graduates, Old Dominion is in the top ten in Bottom left: Electronics instruction at the Technical Institute. partnership, Kovner had declined the offer to be chair. the country. “So [President James Bugg] suggested Dr. Stanley,” Opposite left: Gary Crossman taught at the Technical Kovner told Sweeney. “While I was here, I was on the accreditation board for Institute, then for more than 30 years in the College of engineering technology. I was an evaluator, and I visited En gineering. “He seemed like an ideal person, he also had a doctorate, probably 25 different schools. I saw technology programs, which I didn’t,” Kovner explained. “He had some clout and I didn’t see any better than ours, in all honesty,” Opposite right: Bill Stanley, professor of electrical with the president to keep the program going, plus he Crossman said. “We’re probably in the top three in the engineering, who became chair of the engineering had respectability in any field. Rotty sent him over and it country in terms of engineering technology, but there’s tech nology program. was my job to con him or hoodwink him in any way I no real measuring stick. We would like there to be a could to see him take the job. I’m happy to say I was measuring stick.” able to fool him. He took the job, not knowing what he

32 33 “This type of modern education has been well received by industry. They’re fascinated by it; they like it and they tell us so. And so our engineers have done well wherever they go. We’ve sent them to all Thomas Sterling kinds of graduate schools and industry writes back and tells us what “The Father of Beowolf” a good job our students are doing, and they come back for more engi neers, which makes us very happy.” Students at the School of Informatics and Computing at earning his doctorate in 1984. His professional career Rotty was also pivotal in developing the degree program in Indiana University Bloomington are fortunate to receive has been filled with accomplishment, from earning a engi neering technology. Old Dominion University was the first school instruction from Thomas Sterling, whose pioneering Hertz Fellowship while at MIT, to a distinguished 14-year in the state – and one of the first in the country – to oXer a four-year re search in community/Linux cluster computing led to career at NASA, to the 30 years of groundbreaking work his receiving the Gordon Bell Prize in 1997. in parallel computing that led Sterling to be known as degree in engineering technology. Bill Stanley, who was dispatched to the “father of Beowulf.” become department chair of engineering technology when the School Forty years ago, Sterling was an anxious undergraduate student in engineering at Old Dominion The co-author of six books and the of Engineering absorbed the Technical Institute in 1970, said it took University, having discovered the owner of six patents, Sterling is Rotty being very persistent with President James Bugg that Old school while stationed at Naval Air His enthusiasm for currently associate director of Indiana Do minion apply to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. University’s Center for Research in tackling his school Extreme Scale Technologies. to start the program. “I remember when I first became aware of it; I saw an ODU bumper problems led to his In the 1970s, Old Dominion might “The president wanted to wait another year. But Ralph Rotty was sticker on a car in a parking lot at the engineering research not have had the academic pedigree going to push the idea,” Stanley said. “I remember one Saturday ... we Navy base at which I was stationed,” of schools like Indiana or MIT, but interrupted a football game [Bugg] was watching. Rotty was insistent. Sterling said. “I found a map – there laboratory at Sterling considers the University to be President Bugg met the three of us in the administrative building, and was no Web, Internet, laptops – figured Old Dominion the launching pad of his whole career. out where ODU was and drove the 25 he was mad. ‘How can you justify this?’ he kept saying.” “Perhaps it was not the most difficult miles from Virginia Beach to Hampton being dubbed curriculum in academia, but it was a Boulevard.” “TRON-sylvania.” Stanley said Rotty had heard that Virginia Polytechnic Institute challenge to me, and I came away was planning to apply to create its own engineering technology program Sterling enrolled in some night with a sound engineering education the following year. Rotty figured that VPI would be chosen above Old classes, and found them rewarding that has served me well to this day,” Dominion, so the school needed to get its application in a year earlier. and challenging. So he adjusted his schedule to work on he said. “I feel very lucky that I was able to go there fighters on the graveyard shift while he attended Old under such difficult circumstances. I cannot imagine how President Bugg finally relented. “Within two years, we had the highest Dominion full time, starting in 1972. I would have succeeded without that opportunity.” percentage increase in enrollment in any department on campus,” He remembers a school where things were in the process And Sterling’s nickname from his time at Old Dominion said Stanley. “We had the highest enrollment in the state; we started Top: Bill Stanley. of getting built, perpetually. “The setup was modest but has followed him through the years. His e-mail address to get the word out to other states. Within a couple of years, we were it provided opportunity, too,” he said. “I remember the at Indiana University starts with four characters: T-R-O-N. Bottom: School of Engineering Dean getting students from all over.” faculty as being competent and considerate. I always felt John A. Weese. welcome. The courses were of quality and I remember This unconventional approach to engineering instruction, and working hard to get through them, although I did the enthusiasm with which faculty pursued teaching and research pretty well.” partnerships with local industry, meant that the School of Engineering Sterling also somehow found time to get involved in grew faster in its first decade than any other school on campus. In student organizations, leading the student electrical 1971, the Engineering Laboratory Building was opened, eventually engineering organization and publishing the student named Duckworth Hall, for former Norfolk Mayor Fred Duckworth, en gineering bulletin, writing editorials under the pen name “Tron.” Sterling was conferred with it in the Navy a long-time champion of the university. The next year, Old Dominion because of his enthusiasm for solving debugging problems University’s first doctorate program by the School of Engineering was with military technology. His enthusiasm for tackling his introduced. school problems led to his engineering research laboratory at Old Dominion being dubbed “TRON-sylvania.” Dean Rotty moved on from Old Dominion in 1973, following a “ODU was really my life during those years. [It] gave year’s leave of absence as a senior post-doctoral research associate me direction, accomplishment, and the education step-up of the Air Resources Laboratory within the National Oceanic and that was enough such that the momentum has never At mospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland. been quenched,” Sterling said. Rotty’s successor, John Weese, arrived in 1974 from the University After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering of Denver and immediately realized the scope of the funding problem. in 1974, Sterling went on to do graduate work at MIT, Reductions in state funding, combined with an overall sag in the

34 35 econ omy from the OPEC fuel crisis and the lingering Vietnam War The School of Engineering was growing steadily through the 1970s, had caused enrollment to decline precipitously. Old Dominion had 168 but one trend was vexing to administrators. The minuscule percentage students majoring in engineering in the fall of 1974, along with another of female students had not grown; if anything, it had shrunk. In 188 majoring in engineering technology. “Conditions were pretty dire,” April 1975, the School of Engineering sponsored its first “Women Weese said. in Engi neering” conference, designed to inform female high school students of opportunities in engineering. To remedy that, the School of Engineering attempted to market it self a little better, especially locally. The following year, the question “Do women have a place in engineering?” was addressed by a panel at the University’s second In February 1972, the school held its first Engineering Open House. Women in Engineering Conference. With women numbering only 27 The doors of Kaufman Hall and what would become Duckworth Hall of the 480 students in Old Dominion’s School of Engineering, the were opened to teachers, schoolchildren and the community, and conference was held to “try to make female students aware of the students demonstrated projects such as the concrete canoe and the op portunities in engineering,” Assistant Dean Kenneth H. Murray egg drop. told a reporter from the Old Dominion publication UNews. Weese saw the Engineering Open House as a way to entice local More than 20 years later, Old Dominion University’s College of parents and teachers, who had heard little about the commuter Engineering would take further steps to strongly encourage women to campus in their city, to consider Old Dominion. The annual Engineering choose engineering as a possible career. In 2000, responding to a Open House has continued for more than 40 years. National Science Foundation report that women were underrepresented The eXort went further. Weese personally reached out to guidance in science and engineering, the College would begin a new initiative counselors at high schools in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and aimed at the education, recruitment and retention of female students Hampton, and traveled with Old Dominion University’s director of from elementary school through college, called “Womengineers.” admissions to recruit future students to Old Dominion’s local, aXordable “In order for our country to have the quantity and quality of option for an engineering education. engi neers that will be required to maintain our competitiveness in the Many of the students who did choose Old Dominion, however, global marketplace, it is imperative that we reach out to groups that were different from the students that Stanley had encountered at traditionally have been underrepresented in engineering,” Bill Swart, NC State. “Here in Norfolk, we had to get used to the idea that the dean of the college, said when the initiative was launched. students came to us and were part-time students, and [they were] Early in the 21st century, two other initiatives would be launched older. That was a benefit, however. By the time people came to us, they Top: Local students attend ODU’s by the College, an ODU chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, Engineering Open House. had some life experiences, and they wanted to focus on engineer ing.”

Bottom: Gregory Selby, professor of electrical engineering, speaks with an aspiring engineer.

Right: A concrete canoe being readied for competition.

In the 1970s, Old Dominion University began hosting Women in Engineering conferences.

36 37 and the Engineering Early Advantage Program who came as professor and chair of civil engineering John Weese: The Ambassador (EEAP). Sponsored by the Virginia Space Grant in 1976 from the University of Tennessee. “There Consortium and administered by ODU’s Career was a major rework on the mall, and I remember Growing the School of Engineering Management Center, the EEAP looking across on a hot day in One Community Contact at a Time now introduces admitted female August and there were about engineering freshmen to the In October 1981, a 12 inches of dust all over that When John Weese came from the University of Denver in which you and engineers from other schools can work College, and engineering as mall. I thought, ‘My God, what 1974 to take over as the third dean of Old Dominion together.” a career. group of Old Dominion did I get into?’” University’s School of Engineering, he knew the challenges Weese left Norfolk in 1983 for a job in Maryland with he faced. As it grew gradually researchers led by Part of the problem was, the National Science Foundation. When he left Old In an environment of decreasing support for higher Dominion, he wrote a two-page progress statement about through the 1970s, the school G. Marshall Molen, as a school with very little education, enrollment in Old Dominion’s traditional where the school had come in his nine years in Norfolk. was under pressure from within en gineering history, the donor en gineering programs had dipped to fewer than 200 to conform to educational norms. associate professor of base of successful graduates He highlighted the growth in enrollment and faculty, and students. Five faculty members had been denied tenure Faculty members, whose was exceedingly small. Without the large amount of funded research generated by the because the school simply couldn’t afford to make the col leagues at other universities electrical engineering, donors writing checks, and in a School of Engineering, a figure equaling more than two- long-term financial commitment to them. belonged to formal departments time of state budget cuts, the thirds of the entire amount received by Old Dominion. received a $613,079 in their discipline, grew louder result was a school with books It was clear that the state’s other two engineering “The faculty of the engineering departments conducts schools, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, most of the University’s funded research,” Weese wrote. in their concerns that Old grant from the U.S. stacked all over its “rinky- were not eager to see Old Dominion grow. “They were not Dominion’s lack of a depart - dink” university bookstore, Weese also wrote about the strength of the partnerships Navy to investigate really anxious for Old Dominion’s School of Engi neering mental structure for engineering Drewry said. that had been developed in the previous decade with to be successful. Conditions were not ideal for ODU’s made it more diWcult when NASA Langley, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the the passage of large The fact that there was no engineering school at that point,” Weese said. dealing with other agencies. General Electric Television Plant and others: “These amounts of current proper, well-stocked campus But the new Hampton Roads resident took a look around inter actions have produced or enhanced opportunities Weese gave formal names bookstore suggested that the the region and saw the need for engineers at the region’s for graduates...professional contacts for faculty, to six departments: electrical through an electrical school was flying by the seat of shipyards, at Norfolk Southern and for the U.S. Navy. scholarships, and general support for the School and the engi neering, civil engineering, its pants. A long-time faculty “We had a lot of things with which relationships were University.” mechanical engineering and switch. It was one of member took it upon himself to possible,” Weese said. So he set about trying to build Almost 30 years after leaving, Weese has warm feelings mechanics, as well as civil the largest non-NASA try to remedy that problem. them. engineering technology, about his time at Old Dominion. He continues his In 1978, Edgar Kovner, electrical engineering technology grants ever received A relationship with NASA Langley was already flourishing relationship with the school by serving on the ODU former director of the Technical when Weese arrived, so he helped cultivate cooperative En gi neering advisory board. and mechanical engineering Institute and then-chairman of engineering education programs with other institutions technology. by the School of “The years I spent at ODU, the years I spent in Virginia the Department of Mechanical and businesses. Beach, were immensely rewarding. Our daughters grew A cooperative education Engineering, and Engineering Technology, and Relationship-building was done in the other direction up there,” Weese said. “It was a fine experience, and program was established in helped spark a fruitful his wife, Kathleen, offered to as well. An annual Engineering Open House was [wife] Betty and I look back fondly.” tandem with Old Dominion’s match up to $75,000 in implemented, to interest local high school students in School of Business Adminis- research relationship. contri butions to establish an attending engineering school at Old Dominion. “It was tration, making it possible for endowed scholarship fund of a program to increase our outreach to all schools in the engineering or engineering $150,000. region,” Weese said. “We also reached out to all the technology undergraduates to take prerequisites community colleges with which we had any connection The money, which could support as many at 20 for an MBA program while doing their engineering whatsoever.” scholarships a year, was to aid students in all six studies, thereby clearing the way for quicker departments of the engineering school, putting Old Weese encouraged faculty to join or even create regional com pletion of an MBA degree after graduation. chapters of national engineering societies, taking a turn Dominion on the register of institutions providing himself as president of the Engineers Club of Hampton But make no mistake – this was still an large scholarships to “attract the cream of the crop,” Roads in 1980-’81. ex ceedingly modest operation. Everyone who came Kovner told the UNews. An employee since 1943 of to the school from a more established institution what would become Old Dominion University, Those professional associations with engineers from other has his own stories. Kovner said the endowment, “established with the schools helped Old Dominion break out of the percep tion help of many hard-working people, will give some that its education wasn’t valued by peers, Weese said. “It was a mess, campus then,” said Bill Drewry, of our students the hand they need.” “You begin to find that there are all kinds of things on Left: Engineering Technology Professor Edgar Kovner and his NASA: A Fruitful Partnership wife, Kathleen, established a $150,000 endowed scholarship Proximity Integral to Growth fund that has funded the education of hundreds of ODU students in the past 30 years. The early growth of the School of Engineering at Old Besides proximity to the strategic space resource, Old Dominion College, and then Old Dominion University, Dominion’s engineering school had a few other things owed a debt to geography. going for it in cultivating its relationship with NASA. One was Goglia, who had followed Dean J. Harold Lewis Webb recognized this, and used it to his advantage Lampe (formerly of North Carolina State), to Norfolk. during the campaign to have Old Dominion named Prior to moving south, Goglia had worked many years Vir ginia’s third engineering school. While serving as the at the University of Maine. first president of Old Dominion College, he arranged for a Navy helicopter to fly the state-appointed decision- Ash said Goglia wouldn’t have been tenured at a classic makers around Hampton Roads, making sure to point research institution like the University of Michigan or Cornell, out that the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis - “But he was a really solid teacher of thermodynamics.” tration operation at Langley Air Force Base was only 22 Because of the way Old Dominion’s engineering program miles away. was structured, every student needed to take thermodynamics as part of the first two years of basic engineering education. The engineers at NASA Langley were well aware of the foundation of an engineering school in their back yard. (Continued on the following page) With the launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957, the United States government was en gaged in a space race with the Soviets, and needed expertise. Other changes were occurring on campus, the largest non-NASA grants ever received by the which would pay many dividends. An Army School of Engineering, and helped spark a fruitful The late Gene Goglia, then-chair of Old Dominion’s Re serve OWcers’ Training Corps program started research relationship. thermal engineering department, struck up a friendship with John Duberg, associate director of the NASA Langley at the university in fall 1969, attracting 131 students. Weese stepped down in July 1983 to become Research Center. These soon-to-be Army officers would become director of the mechanical engineering and “John Duberg kind of took ODU under his wing,” said some of the best students in Old Dominion’s mechanics division of the National Science Bob Ash, who arrived as a mechanical engineering engi neering classes in future years. Foundation. In a letter about the School of pro fessor on campus in 1967. “And as deputy director, he was in a position to have a strategic vision of where In fall of 1982, the Hampton Roads Naval Engineering in 1983, Weese highlighted the NASA was trying to go. And they needed a strong local ROTC joined the Army ROTC on campus, a joint growth in enrollment, faculty and funded research. engineering school. By and large, what happened was eXort that also involved Norfolk State University He also wrote at length about the partnerships Duberg encouraged people like Gene Goglia to come and Hampton Institute. Under the command of that Old Dominion was attempting to form with over there and kick the hubcaps.” Captain Harold J. Sutphen, the program numbered local industry, military and government bodies. On April 16, 1968, The Virginian-Pilot newspaper re ported an initial 70 students. “[We] intend for the unit to that Goglia had received a grant of $213,800 “to Weese wrote that Old Dominion University was be active in community and university affairs,” conduct two research institutes” at NASA’s Langley helping fulfill its mandate as an urban university Re search Center that summer. Goglia was to co-direct Sutphen told a reporter from The Courier, Old through collaborative relationships. These 10-week research institutes, attracting 52 research Dominion University’s faculty and staX newspaper. rela tionships provided opportunities with nearby fel lows from across the country. The following year, the “We’re looking forward to being active participants program expanded, and the grant for Old Dominion institutions, and in turn provided opportunities in the life of the university.” College grew to $256,000. for Old Dominion’s growing cohort of engineering The summer research institutes still exist at NASA Langley, The School of Engineering had already started graduates. and they were the first tangible example of a mutually to form strong research partnerships with Naval After more than two decades of granting four- beneficial partnership that has lasted for almost 50 years. Station Norfolk. In October 1981, a group of Old year engineering degrees, the School of Engineering Dominion researchers led by G. Marshall Molen, was looking for another dean. It was also about to associate professor of electrical engineering, Right: Mechanical Engineering Professor Samir Ibrahim, undergo a number of major changes, because of re ceived a $613,079 grant from the U.S. Navy to who helped develop an accurate and economical the man who ended up accepting the position. investigate the passage of large amounts of method for vibration testing on the first Space Shuttle. cur rent through an electrical switch. It was one of

40 41 NASA: A Fruitful Partnership

As well, Goglia recruited graduate students from NASA unbe lievable. Surendra was a person who covered the to come to Old Dominion. “We were doing the required really tough part of high-speed flight and aerodynamics. course in thermal engineering, which helped. But if Suddenly ODU had a world-class guy in this area.” NASA said ‘We need somebody who knows about sonic Ti wari was another protégé of Goglia, who had taught fatigue,’ Gene would always say: ‘We have someone him at Maine. Left: Gene Goglia like that.’ He was very, very successful,” Ash said. Ash himself started doing work in the Instrument Right: Sid Roberts The partnership led to a generation of bright students Re search Division of NASA, getting dozens of his own being turned on to the concepts vital to space flight. projects funded by NASA. “Gene Goglia would Below: Professor Stephen More ODU graduates are employed in cultivate, for us, these opportunities to build a Barna (left) conducts an engi neering at NASA Langley than from research relationship with senior researchers experiment with an Old any other university in the country. at NASA Langley,” said Ash, now a Dominion University student pro fessor and eminent scholar. “I can Eventually, the success of Old Dominion without reservations say I owe my brought competitors. George Washington ca reer to that relationship.” University began a graduate program two decades since to become more innovative in its Old Dominion University’s stature as a research partner in aerospace engineering, bringing The partnership only grew. By 1984, partner ships. Old Dominion took over operations of the in the aerospace industry was so prominent that the 114 students to the campus of the more than 40 percent of the university’s aging spaceport on Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern 2004 book “Aerospace Engineering Education During NASA Langley Research Center in fall $5.5 million in research grants and Shore, an initiative that has ultimately led to the state-run the First Century of Flight” included a chapter on Old 1968. Old Dominion joined with other sponsored programs was coming from Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority. Dominion’s aerospace efforts. Virginia Universities in forming the the NASA Langley Research Center. Vir ginia Associated Research Campus Mechanical Engineering Professor Samir NASA had been doing research into aviation on the site “There was a concentration of resources, faculty positions (VARC) in Hampton, a graduate program in Ibrahim helped develop an accurate and in Hampton since 1930, and the Batten College of and laboratories, in several aerospace sub-disciplines, engineering that would provide skilled professionals not eco nomical method for vibration testing on the first Engi neering and Technology even inherited a decade’s that ... served the perceived opportunities and research only to NASA, but to the Army research Space Shuttle. A senior design project by worth of operation of the historic Langley Full-Scale Wind needs of the Langley Research Center and the regional center at Fort Eustis and to Newport students Nhu Vinh and Ravi Ku rumety Tunnel, a historic facility on NASA Langley property. industrial base,” the book said. News Ship Building and Dry Dock. – to test the consequences of a heated More ODU space probe landing on a very cold Sid Roberts, who took over as assistant planet – was tested on the Space Shuttle dean in charge of graduate engineering graduates are a year later. programs at VARC in 1971, said Old Dominion was dismayed that George employed in The relationship between NASA and Washington University was able to create Old Dominion helped add to the a center on the NASA Langley campus. engineering at Uni versity’s faculty as well. Oktay Baysal “But we did come up with the idea of NASA Langley came from Louisiana State Uni versity in placing ourselves close enough to them 1982, founding ODU’s Computational that we could teach their engineers who than from any Fluid Dynamics lab. Duc Nguyen came were interested in graduate programs,” from Northeastern University to work on Roberts said. other university the summer program at NASA Langley, and encountered the engineering program “At the peak period in the 1970s, we in the country. at Old Dominion. He’s been a faculty were probably teaching as many as 20 member in Norfolk since 1985, doing graduate courses a semester. That research in parallel computing. “Eighty-five caused us to get busy, and we promised to 90 percent of my funded projects have come from them that we would provide that graduate resource, as NASA Langley,” Nguyen said. Colin Britcher, professor long as we continued to get the students.” and associate chair of the mechanical and aerospace Roberts oversaw the creation of a Ph.D. program in engineering de partment, came from England to en gineering, with specialization in aeronautics, which NASA Langley Re search Center, and ended up on the helped attract even more bright young researchers, Old Dominion faculty. in cluding mechanical engineering professor Surendra After the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, and Tiwari. following a corresponding cut in funding nationwide for “He would have been a distinguished professor at any NASA research, securing grants became more difficult. university in the United States,” Ash said. “He was But that has only led Old Dominion University in the

42 43 CHAPTER 3 THE COLLEGE GROWS UP The first problem was to settle, once and for all, a battle that had simmered at Old Dominion University for years. After the Second World War, a Technical Institute was created at College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University, has little in the Norfolk Division of William and Mary, oXering three-year associate common with Norfolk. Ernest James (Jim) Cross realized this almost degrees in engineering technology, hands-on courses like heating and immediately after arriving from that school in 1984 as the fourth dean cooling systems, and television repair. of Old Dominion University’s College of Engineering. Under Dean Ralph Rotty, the Technical Institute was rolled into Yet the new boss was puzzled as to why Old Dominion was trying the School of Engineering, and ODU began offering four-year to fashion itself in the mold of Texas A&M, a traditional land-grant engi neering technology degrees, the first school in the state to do so. university where the campus is a village unto itself. That wasn’t Old The two faculty groups, despite peace-keeping eXorts by Rotty and Dominion, a new university in the middle of a large urban area. then Weese, remained distrustful of each other. “I guess the thing that struck me initially was here we are in an “There was a virtual fistfight between the groups,” Cross said. urban situation, totally different than these land-grant schools. “Engineering wanted to eliminate engineering technology, and Totally diXerent than William and Mary, totally diXerent than Virginia technology was very resentful of their attitude.” The solution? Cross Tech,” Cross said. “It seemed to me that in the past, the University changed the name of the School of Engineering to the College of was attempting to emulate William and Mary, and in the case of Engi neering and Technology. “It was not favored by many!” he said engi neering, Virginia Tech, which made no sense to me. So I set about with a laugh. trying to change that whole situation.” But the hands-on skills that engineering technology oXered were In the next dozen years, the now-College of Engineering and an ideal fit for the community in which Old Dominion was situated. Tech nology at Old Dominion University would transform its entire The engineering technology faculty were used as the lead workers in approach, and that shift in emphasis is prevalent in the College today. the Engineering Clinic, an operation created in late 1984 to match up local businesses that had engineering problems with the expertise Some of that work had already begun. Mechanical and aerospace that existed at Old Dominion. engineers were into their second decade of a fruitful partnership with NASA Langley. Cross’s predecessor, John Weese, had made a point of seeking out collaborative opportunities with other companies and Bill Drewry (left) arrived at Old gov ernment agencies that needed engineers. Dominion in 1976 from the University of Tennessee. Those steps became flying leaps into areas that, on the surface, seemed an odd fit for an urban engineering college. Bill Drewry, chair of the civil engineering department, told Weese when he was hired in 1976 what needed to happen at Old Dominion University: “When I got here, the very last thing from Weese was something like, ‘Bill, what do you think of the place?’” Drewry re called. “And my answer was very close to this: ‘John, you really don’t want to know what I think of this place. But I’ll be glad to tell you about what I think the possibilities are for the future.’” Drewry said he told Weese the school had tremendous potential, because of the market in which Old Dominion University was situated. Practically none of that potential had been tapped. “That really began to happen under the leadership of Jim Cross. The guy was phenomenal,” Drewry said. “Cross’s philosophy, which I loved, was ‘in times of adversity, you look at that as an opportunity to do new things.’ That’s what engineers do. Problems? We solve problems.”

46 47 Jim Cross: The Visionary Taking Chances Brilliantly, Boldly and Brashly

Jim Cross is still engineering, and still doing it on his terms. idea of an Engineering Clinic, to solve engineering prob lems for local industries. Almost 30 years later, that In fact he’s happily losing money in the car restoration business, Crossmen Industries, a company he started center has grown and evolved into the ODU Business after retiring from Old Dominion University in 2008. Gateway, a dynamic entity that provides links to Old Do minion faculty and spurs regional economic growth. “I restore old sports cars. I thought it would work as a business but it has not. But it allows me to pretend I have Under Cross, Old Dominion’s Engineering College a business I can go to during the opened a graduate center on the day, so I can get out of the house peninsula. The school began its and come down here and do “The university can, and foray into modeling and simulation, whatever the hell I please,” Cross should, be a major which has become a spectacular said with a laugh. contributor to the economic success. Old Dominion engineers even took over operation of the Some might argue that was how development of the urban Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, he operated when he was dean of a bold initiative that has helped the College of Engineering and region, and not try to the institute at Wallops Island on Technology. emulate the large, land Virginia’s Eastern Shore become a Cross arrived in Norfolk August 1, grant schools.” viable national facility. 1984, brought to the region in Above: ODU's Engineering Clinic has evolved since being formed in 1984. It is now known as the ODU Business Gateway, To undertake these steps, Cross part to be closer to aging parents. charged with linking businesses and organizations with the expertise of the Old Dominion University campus. said he had to get Old Dominion to stop thinking that “But I did see opportunities here,” he said. “However, it was Virginia Tech or Texas A&M. Not in terms of when I first walked into the place I thought, ‘Oh my God, “The plan was for it to emulate a medical Veteran faculty members still at Old Dominion accomplishment, rather in terms of being an urban what have I done?’ There was no money. There was no clinic,” Cross said. “It would provide the faculty an University share a similar view of the Engineering insti tution. Cross believed that Old Dominion needed to enthusiasm for hardly anything.” opportunity to do engineering things, and it would College they arrived to join. They all could feel the concentrate on entirely different things. provide services to the community in terms of school going places, but those places seemed to be In his brash style, Cross threw his enthusiasm behind The three parts of a university’s responsibility are teaching, many innovative projects. The engineering technology so lutions to engineering problems.” a ways oX, and progress was slow. research and service, Cross explained, adding: “I chose to program was a unique asset, so Cross spearheaded the find ways to emphasize the service concept, and contribute Gary Crossman, an engineering technology “My first thought was that they didn’t spend a in some ways to the urban economic development.” faculty member, was appointed as the first director lot of money landscaping. I used to joke that the of the Engineering Clinic. “The idea was that it landscaping back then was just allowing the “The university can, and should, be a major contributor would be an entity here that could communicate different colored broken glass to lie along the to the economic development of the urban region, and with industry and help solve engineering problems sidewalks,” said Gary Schafran, now professor and not try to emulate the large, land-grant schools,” he said. by using faculty expertise,” Crossman said. chair of the civil and environmental engineering And yes, Cross ruffled a few feathers along the way, department. A $200,000 grant from Virginia’s Center for from members of his faculty all the way up to then-Old Dominion University President Jim Koch. “He fired me at In novative Technology oXered matching funds for “First of all, campus was very diXerent. We least once,” said Cross, “but we had a great working industry that used the expertise of the Engineering didn’t have all of the buildings we have now,” said re lationship.” Not everything that was tried in those Clinic. That was the start. Almost 30 years later, Osman Akan, present-day associate dean. “The years was a success. But at the end of his tenure as the Engineering Clinic has evolved into the ODU student body was also diXerent. It was basically dean, it was clear that the College of Engineering and Business Gateway, a university-wide initiative that a university for commuters, there was almost no Technology had made major strides. serves as a one-stop shop for companies and non- campus community. As far as academics was for-profit or for military organizations seeking a concerned, we were pretty much a teaching “I had a whole lot of fun,” Cross said. “When I came here, I thought it was a terrible mistake. But the more range of problem-solving services. college.” I got into it, the more I thought, ‘We’ve really got “Who would have ever thought that we would Drewry, who retired in 2009, said the University something here.’ I don’t think we’re done growing at all.” have gotten to where we are now?” Crossman said. was growing up, “but people wanted to grow up at

49 a faster pace than what the budgets would pay for.” Farmer actually taught as an adjunct for Old Another example of the civil engineering department adapting and In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Old Dominion Dominion University for 30 years, finally stopping changing to meet the community’s needs was the hiring of David lost some promising researchers to other schools in 2009 when the Hampton Roads Planning Basco as a coastal engineering professor in 1986. From Texas A&M and private industry because the school’s progress District Commission named him executive director. like Cross, Basco felt this region lent itself to topical work in the field, wasn’t fast enough. By then, Old Dominion had finally hired a not only academic study, but also through local agencies that needed transportation engineer in Asad Khattak. the expertise. In each engineering department, however, Farmer had taught more than 1,000 engineering there were signs of growth. “It’s this ability for us from ODU to reach out and touch all these students. That illustrated to him the value of Old people who need us. Water-wave mechanics, beach erosion, sea walls, Dominion University’s engineering program. CIVIL ENGINEERING bulkheads – all of this infrastructure that we rely on to protect us “I think it helped folks believe they could stay from flooding is right here,” Basco said. here and practice engineering. If the university Old Dominion’s original plan as an engineering Still, the College needed to grow. When Schafran came to Old could support them, people could do pretty much school was to oXer a general engineering education Dominion from Syracuse University, Drewry showed him what anything they wanted, professionally, in Hampton for every student, then stream into disciplines for amounted to the environmental engineering laboratory. “It was pretty Roads,” Farmer said. “Now, every week I meet the later years of an undergraduate degree. But by apparent right oX that [the labs] weren’t really being used. There was somebody who says ‘I was in your class.’” the time Drewry arrived on campus in 1976, the all sorts of detritus from the structural engineering group just lying diXerent engineering departments had started to around. There was archaic equipment, and a lot of the stuX they had take shape. just wasn’t functional,” Schafran said. The challenge was that they all needed to be Excited by the challenge of resurrecting a lab, Schafran moved to built from the ground up. “It was nice. I started Norfolk, and found there was little in the way of resources at Old basically with a blank sheet of paper,” Drewry Do minion. He had no computer for a month, then finally received a said. hand-me-down from the civil engineering oWce. “It was diXerent times,” he laughed. As an example, when taking over as chair of the new department, Drewry took a peek inside Despite the challenges, it was a good time to start, as well. the three file cabinets in the departmental oWce in Envi ronmental engineering, Schafran’s specialty, was just catching on Duckworth Hall. “The only thing that was in those as a discipline, and through hustle, Old Dominion took advantage of a file cabinets was decorations for the office for chance to be first. Christmas, the Fourth of July and other holidays,” “We were the first in the Commonwealth to change the name of he said. the department to civil and environmental engineering. We were the A key component of civil engineering is first to create a bachelor of science in environmental engineering,” transportation engineering. Unfortunately, he said. there wasn’t the budget to hire a full-time The engineers at Old Dominion also tried to engage with their transportation engineer. “We had to use an community. Drewry, an environmental engineer himself, helped ad junct, Dwight Farmer, chief engineer with the over see a project to bring sanitation to the impoverished community Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. of Bayview on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, in tandem with the Virginia Thank God we had him. That way we had at least Department of Health and The Nature Conservancy. “It was a great one course in transportation engineering, beginning opportunity for us to make a diXerence,” Drewry said. in the late 1970s,” Drewry said. Farmer grew up in Norfolk. When he graduated ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY high school in 1969, engineering at Old Dominion University simply wasn’t an option. Ten years Underappreciated no more inside the College, the department of later, when he started teaching classes, Farmer engineering technology (actually three departments at first: noticed the progression. “ODU was just beginning mechanical, civil and electrical engineering technology) continued to to bud. It was a credible engineering program, but grow throughout the 1980s. very, very modest.” Above: A civil engineering river model.

50 51 Crossman, who did his studies at the Technical Institute before it merged with the School of JTohhen(EWngeiensee ering) “Doctor” is In Engineering, said the laboratory equipment Long before he came to work at Old Dominion University, “One of the first things I did was put together a pro posal By broadening the scope of what the brought from the Technical Institute, especially in Associate Vice President Jerry Robertson realized the need to establish an engineering clinic, which would emulate Engi neering Clinic did, Old Dominion soon for what is now known as the ODU Business Gateway. a medical clinic,” Cross said. “It would provide the faculty accessed other state and federal funding mechanical engineering technology, put the School an opportunity to do engineering things, and it would sources, offering retraining and job placement of Engineering equipment to shame. Working for a local manufacturing company that made provide services to the local community in terms of for military personnel, and help with grant decorative Christmas garland, Robertson’s company was solutions to engineering problems.” proposals. By the mid 1990s, the name of Engineering definitely benefited from us coming having difficulty with static electricity causing the garland the office had been changed a couple of over. In fact, we still use some of that equipment,” to stick in the machine that cut it into strips. Gary Crossman, a professor of engineering technology, times, as it took on different functions. Crossman said. “Students today want something was installed as the first director of the ODU Engineering “I suggested we go to Old Dominion University, to see if Robertson was appointed director late in that Clinic. He laughed at the memory. “It was me, a that you punch a button and it spits out numbers. they had someone to help,” Robertson said. “So here I decade when then-Dean Bill Swart didn’t like phone, and a desk,” Crossman said, likening it to the They don’t want to sit there and write down am walking around the engineering building, seeing if either of the candidates being interviewed fake companies that act as fronts for spy agencies in there was someone who could help me. I finally ended for the position. numbers. I hate to tell them, but that still happens the movies. up in electrical engineering, and in the office of some one in the real world.” Crossman still teaches as an In 2004, Batten College Dean Oktay Baysal who ended up becoming a pretty But as an engineering technology changed its name to the Virginia Applied adjunct faculty member in engineering technology, good friend of mine, Griff McRee. faculty member, Cross said Crossman Technology and Professional Development even after having retired in 2008. He was the first one I found with was the perfect candi date to start “We should be a resource Center, reflecting the full range of services his door open.” and grow the clinic. “The initial done out of the center, jobs as varied as Alok Verma, Ray Ferrari Professor of for the business community. plan was that the engineering As a university in an urban area, out reach to schools and grant procurement engineering technology, is another long-time tech nology faculty would be the surrounded by companies and We’ve got infrastructure for military veterans. faculty involved in these projects. fac ulty member in engineering technology. He mil itary bases doing real-world that’s worth tens of millions And the engineering faculty would The center had also proved its value to the started in 1981, and learned under many faculty engineering, Old Dominion’s be involved in the more traditional university as a whole, and in May 2010 was members from the old Technical Institute, including ex pertise could play a key role in of dollars, paid for by engineering research,” he said. re-launched as the ODU Business Gateway. the community. The question asked Ray Ferrari, whose endowed professorship Verma That in turn helped bolster the in the1980s was, how do you do it? taxpayers. We have Today, the Gateway has transformed the way holds. credibility of the engineering higher education interacts with businesses, Shortly after he started at Old intellectual capital here tech nology department, which was acting as a business-friendly entry point to Verma said the hands-on tradition of building Dominion University, Dean Jim still being viewed a little skeptically that’s tremendous.” the intellectual capital, innovative technologies things has served the entire engineering college. Cross tried to re-orient the engi - by some faculty members in the and world-class infrastructure of the university. neering education model away traditional engineering disciplines. “Of course the focus is different,” he said. from a traditional baccalaureate – Jerry Robertson Operating from its headquarters at Innovation “Engineering programs are focused on the research The clinic was also helped by the engineering model, and toward Research Park @ ODU, the mission of the ODU fact that it had modest success and development and theoretical analysis. And one that was more service- Business Gateway is to provide companies al most immediately. A grant from Virginia’s Center for en gineering technology programs are more hands-on ori ented, to help the community solve problems. large and small, not-for-profit organizations, Innovative Technology offered incentive for local companies military commands and entrepreneurs a and practical, and support manufacturing.” to seek out Old Dominion’s engineering expertise. dedicated resource to help solve business That line of thinking inspired Old Dominion’s “They provided matching funds so we could go to industry. problems, expand capabilities and create It gave them a good deal, and we would use faculty and new ventures. creation of the Lean Institute in 2004, of which staff to solve those problems,” Crossman said. Verma has been the only director. The Lean Ever since its launch, the ODU Business Insti tute aids companies in the transition to lean Robertson, who started working at Old Dominion Gateway has evolved and expanded, adding Uni versity in 1981 as resident engineer for the College the Hampton Roads Veterans Business manufacturing techniques. These techniques of Engineering, said the initial clients of the center were Outreach Center, which offers entrepreneurial are of increasing importance as survival of people “who showed up with [ideas for] better mouse - development services and training to military manu facturing jobs depends on meeting bottom- traps, and they wanted us to help build them.” veterans and reservists. line imperatives. Robertson said the transformation in the center occurred At its essence, however, the ODU Business when Old Dominion experts began to offer advice that Gateway is still that one-stop shop for the The hands-on nature of engineering technology stretched beyond mousetraps, into finding different cheese. person in the community who wants problems also helped inspire design of the atrium that now solved, and thinks Old Dominion’s expertise “We should be a resource for the business community. connects the former Kaufman and Duckworth can help. “Basically, that’s still what we do We’ve got infrastructure that’s worth tens of millions of Halls. Opened in 1986, the atrium, laboratories, today,” Robertson said. dollars, paid for by taxpayers. We have intellectual classrooms and office space started as a senior Associate Vice President Jerry Robertson (right) is executive cap ital here that’s tremendous,” Robertson said. “But we de sign project by a student working under Edgar also had to be able to tell them their ‘baby’ wasn’t as director of what is now known as the ODU Business Kovner, professor of engineering technology. Gateway. cute as they thought it was.”

52 53 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING for Old Dominion’s Career Management Center, Mielke played a key role in the University’s move into modeling and is liaison to the Frank Batten College of and simulation in the mid 1990s, a bold step considering the College of In the 40 years since the department of Engi neering and Technology. Engineering and Technology had little in the way of background in the emerging field. “I knew what it was, and I had experience in electrical engineering was created in the School “When we evolved from electrical engineering nar row pieces of it. But the stuX that began to happen here in the of Engineering, perhaps no other department has to electrical and computer engineering, we really early ’90s really opened the door to getting involved in modeling and been responsible for more far-reaching innovations. had to change rapidly. Suddenly, it looked like this simulation,” he said. The Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation thing was coming and we needed to jump on Center, the Frank Reidy Center for Bio - board,” said Forbes, explaining that the Another electrical engineering field that Old Dominion researchers Opposite top: The logo for Old electrics, and the Applied Research computer engineering program stepped into around that time was pulsed power – the use of extremely Dominion’s world-leading Frank Center were all started by re ally was made up as faculty short, extremely high-voltage pulses of electricity to accomplish various Reidy Center for Bioelectrics. the present-day department went along. tasks. Opposite bottom: Old Dominion of electrical and computer Roland Mielke, who would University’s dynamic department of engineering. Karl Schoenbach came to Norfolk in 1985 from Texas Tech. serve as chair of the electrical While earning his doctorate in physics in Germany, Schoenbach, electrical and computer engineering has produced innovative, collaborative Electrical engineering has and computer engineering now professor emeritus in electrical and computer engineering, had breakthroughs in many fields. been transformed through the department for a dozen become fascinated with plasma physics, the high-voltage system that use of computers, which makes years, also noticed the modest creates X-rays. Below: The lobby of the Engineering Old Dominion’s successes in the sur roundings when he relocated and Computational Sciences Building. “It was not even considered a field on its own,” Schoenbach said. field notable and curious. Thirty to Norfolk from the University of “It was considered high-voltage engineering. But in the United States years ago, the Old Dominion campus Wisconsin in 1976. “I never felt like it was and Russia, in these two countries, they were involved in this field, wasn’t exactly wired. an underdog program. It was much smaller, but driven to a large extent by military applications.” “The lack of computer system sticks out,” said that has both positive and negative facets to it,” former business administration student Bev Mielke said. “I have been able to influence In the early 1990s, faced with decreasing military expenditures, a Forbes, who started as a student worker in the programs here because we weren’t so large, handful of researchers around the world started to look for other de partment of electrical engineering in 1978. and we were growing and we weren’t so well ap plications for the still-experimental technology. Forbes is now director of experiential programs established.”

54 55 “We had all this expertise, all the systems, and we needed to test More than any other thing, the partnership with NASA Langley new concepts. I decided to try it. I wondered if we could affect the was responsible for the growth of Old Dominion’s engineering profile. growth of certain biological species,” Schoenbach said. “[NASA Langley] benefited from our engineers constantly being there, but at the same time, we were building engineering at ODU,” Working with a colleague in the College of Sciences, Schoenbach said Oktay Baysal, now professor and dean of the Batten College of started to use pulsed power to prevent biofouling – the transmission Engineering and Technology. of harmful biological pollutants, particularly through ship ballast water. Encouraged by that success, Schoenbach sought out colleagues Aerospace engineering professor Bob Ash said the talent that at Eastern Virginia Medical School, including Stephen Beebe, now at NASA Langley allowed the school to assemble in one department was Old Dominion, to see if pulsed power could kill other cells of living far beyond what a small, new engineering school could normally things. ex pect. “It’s why we have a research school of substance,” he said. “There was no funding at that time, but you needed to start The relationship was formed in the late 1960s, starting with a some where. And we found out that pulsed power can kill cancer cells. friendship between Old Dominion faculty member Gene Goglia and So this was the beginning,” Schoenbach said. Old Dominion University John Duberg of the NASA Langley Research Center. Starting with a is now one of the world’s leading institutions in the field of bioelectrics. single grant for a summer research institute, the connection grew to a multimillion-dollar annual research allotment for NASA Langley research center faculty members. Below: Rick Mckenzie (left), MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING professor of modeling, simulation Jim Cross, himself an aerospace engineer, felt that NASA Langley and visualization engineering, and Twenty-two miles: of all the numerical calculations involved in was the ace in his hand. Old Dominion was already part of the Virginia Jiang Li, professor of electrical and engineering, that very rudimentary figure is as important as any in the Associated Research Campus in Hampton, a graduate program in computer engineering. growth of the College of Engineering and Technology. That’s the distance en gineering that sought to provide a trained workforce for NASA Opposite: Karl Schoenbach with an between the Old Dominion campus in Norfolk and the NASA Langley Langley and other workplaces that needed engineers. engineering student. Research Center, far closer than any other engineering school.

56 57 Cross wanted an ODU-specific presence on graduate level – in how to manage projects and what he felt was the school’s “territory.” Through other engineers. seed funding from Old Dominion’s Office of Linda Vahala Engineering management focuses on the Re search, a permanent presence on the peninsula inter section of engineering, technology and First Female Tenured Faculty Member was founded, originally called the Graduate management in high-technology environments. Engi neering Center. It has evolved into what is At the time the concept was explored, it was a There’s an analogy that Linda Vahala likes to repeat in plasma physics and electromagnetics. Through Karl now known as the Old Dominion University very new discipline. about Old Dominion University’s College of Engineering, Schoenbach, professor of electrical engineering, Vahala Peninsula Higher Education Center. where she has worked since 1987. was exposed to plasma physics applications such as Larry Richards, an Old Dominion professor pulsed power and wireless communications on aircraft. Hanging over the partnership was an implicit Without an overabundance of resources, the College has charged with starting the program, hired Resit had to be nimble and flexible, said Vahala, now associate Her real passion, however, has been in working with understanding that the funding could one day slow Unal in 1987 from the University of Missouri- dean of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology. Old Dominion engineering students, especially non- to a trickle. At the peak, NASA Langley supplied tra ditional ones like herself. Rolla, now the Missouri University of Science and “Someone once described ODU as a lengthy basketball 80 percent of the grant funding received by the Technology, one of the only schools in the country player, who you knew was going to be successful when “We have a wide distribution of students. Some have College of Engineering and Technology, a total of then oXering engineering management. he grew into his body. I think that’s been very true of gone on to do incredible things,” Vahala said. “I think more than $3 million per year. In the late 1980s, our college and our university,” Vahala said. our current dean, Oktay Baysal, has done an excellent “I came for an interview and they hired me job of increasing our female faculty and supporting added competition was seeking those dollars, and The analogy is a little humorous coming from Vahala, them here.” the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union im mediately, and Larry Richards and I started the who doesn’t reach five feet of stature herself. But the shrunk military budgets and brought a more program,” Unal said. “Industry recognized the first female tenured faculty member in the College of Vahala especially likes watching students perform, in cum bersome grant application process. need for someone who was more multidisciplinary, Engineering has been a larger-than-life presence for and out of the classroom. hundreds of students over her 25 years in the Old to relate to the diXerent disciplines of engineering, “I think all along they’ve been Old Dominion engineering had to make some Do minion faculty. to come up with the requirements and the overall very innovative. They shoot for the other bets. system to run the operations.” “So many students have kept in touch over the years. I moon. I think that’s what I like run across students a lot who have graduated, and their about the students here. They’re The department, initially a partnership with children go here now,” said Vahala, who has responsibility very creative and they think out side ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT the College of Business and Public Administration, for student success in her role with the College. the box.” grew to 250 graduate students within five years. It’s a different university than the one at which where Engineering management was one of those Old Dominion started an on-site master’s degree Vahala earned her Ph.D. in physics in 1983, specializing wagers, and it has paid off handsomely. In the program for the U.S. Army at Fort Monroe. mid 1980s, the school began exploring the idea of creating a department of engineering management, “Our graduates started getting hired, and soon to train engineering students – largely at the the word got out, and some schools started their

Old Dominion University was one of own separate engineering management programs,” courses. And it was engineering programs that led the first universities in the country to Unal said. That led to another innovation by Old the way for the University. invest heavily in televised distance Dominion engineering: the introduction of video learning instruction. The college of “We started so slow with two video rooms in instruction. engineering was among the first to the College of Education building,” said Gary participate. ODU is now one of the The idea was first publicized in 1984. The plan, Crossman, who taught engineering technology nation's largest providers of online according to The Virginian-Pilot newspaper, was courses via video learning. “We went over there distance-learning courses. to offer televised instruction of select graduate and taught our courses. And we were only teaching engineering classes from public universities to Roanoke and Richmond.” around the state, including Old Dominion, so But Crossman said Old Dominion did it right stu dents could mix and match courses to make as well, investing in building satellite technology, their own degree. and sites across the state and the country, so With this multi-university initiative moving stu dents could earn Old Dominion degrees from forward, Old Dominion forged ahead on its own many locations. “ODU created a whole system,” plans for distance learning education for a more Crossman said. “It made it easy on the faculty to complete curriculum, including undergraduate teach a distance-learning program.”

58 59 Changes in the technology have gradually pushed Old Dominion Cross said in the almost 30 years he’s been in Enroll ment had grown dramatically, and state University away from televised distance learning, and into on-line Hampton Roads he’s seen more and more local funding was again threatened by budget cuts in classes. There remains a large engineering presence in Old Dominion’s companies hiring Old Dominion engineering the late 1980s. Worse, the specter of NASA grants distance-learning oXerings. grad uates. “When I first came here, every place dropping sharply threatened to severely limit what you went into [had] engineers from Virginia Tech. the school could do, both academically and Unal taught engineering management through distance learning But I think over the last 25 years we’ve become at through its research. as a way to increase exposure to the program. “It was just a big least equal.” suc cess all over Virginia. We had big enrollments,” he said. In 2001, The threatened cuts merely caused ODU Old Dominion pioneered a program with the U.S. Navy nuclear In fact, at the two largest employers of engineers engineering’s ingenuity to accelerate. Jim submarine fleet, providing officers with an opportunity to earn a in the area, Newport News Shipbuilding and Cross found a willing partner in Old Dominion mas ter’s degree in engineering management, via CD-ROM. NASA Langley, ODU engineers comprise the Uni versity’s new president, James V. Koch. The largest alumni group. two men with their strong personalities didn’t “The submarine officers were going out to sea and staying there al ways see eye-to-eye. But together, they helped for months. You can’t link to anything,” Unal said. “When we started Ash said the “blue-collar” composition of Old the College of Engineering and Technology grow in the nuclear submarine program we had an expectation of 75 oWcers Dominion engineering students means that they ways no one could have anticipated. enrolling in this. In three years, we had more than 250.” have a reputation for one thing in the workplace: “They roll up their sleeves and go to work.” Admiral Robert F. Willard USN-Ret., former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, is a graduate of the CD-ROM-based master’s Despite the successes, challenges remained pro gram in engineering management. for engineering at Old Dominion University. David Basco was another of the early adopters of the technology as a teaching tool. He currently teaches graduate-level coastal engineering programs to dozens of students from 28 of 30 coastal states and 12 foreign countries. Old Dominion has also created a certificate program in coastal engineering, offered entirely online. The 12-credit, non-degree Gene Hou program lets engineering students earn a certificate in coastal engi neering, which can be turned into a master’s degree through From Taiwan to Norfolk, With Two Names credit transfers and the addition of a thesis. During his thirty years of teaching mechanical engineer ing salaries between male and female professors. “The student can work full time wherever they live, can take these in the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology, “Unfortu nately, our female faculty members were paid a classes on line, in real time or asynchronous,” Basco said. “And the Gene Hou has seen hundreds of students go through his lot less. I worried that was happening to my salary, too,” companies love it because it’s such an economical way to train their classes, and they’re his inspiration. Hou laughed. workforce, and the supervisors get immediate feedback about how “I learn from students every day, even now. Not neces sarily The following fall, students were greeted by a “new” their employees are doing. But it turns out these are some of the best the knowledge from the book. But they ask me questions, professor named Gene, and Hou hasn’t regretted a students in the classes.” they force me to think about why,” said Hou, who arrived moment of his time at Old in Norfolk from the University of Iowa in 1983, with a Domin ion University. In general, Basco said he has enjoyed the students who have been less-than-perfect understanding of English. “When I “We’re a small school with a small started teaching here, there was a language barrier. in his classes at Old Dominion. “When I got here, I noticed right away faculty, but there are a lot of English wasn’t my first language. But the students were that the students were quite diXerent than the typical 17- or 18-year- stu dents I’m proud of,” he said. very good to me. They put up with me and they were “[I] still teach undergraduate old undergraduates that you’d get at other schools. Many of them patient with me.” were older; they were frequently working.” classes every semester. Those Many of those first students might not be able to find students, they want to get better. Old Dominion engineering students carry a reputation locally of Hou now if they tried to look him up in the Batten Col lege And if I can do a little bit to help being capable, and willing to work. “Consulting engineers tell me that directory. That’s for a somewhat amusing reason. them, that’s what I want to do.” all the time,” Basco said. “Because they’re willing to come up with “I am from Taiwan; my name there was Jean-Win Hou,” some practical experience by working part time, when [they] hire he said. Hou didn’t realize that the traditional male spelling of his name in English was G-E-N-E. One day them [they] already expect them to do more than a graduate from early in his career at Old Dominion, he was comparing Virginia Tech, with no experience.”

60 61 Jimmy Black ODU Grads Make Mark Locally

Jimmy Black isn’t shy about admitting that his favorite Black said the company they cofounded has been course at Old Dominion University was SCUBA. in volved in some exciting projects in the past couple of decades, including a video receiver for a spacecraft The northern Virginia native fell in love with the beach built to fly to Mars, and a battery-powered GPS emitter when he came to Old Dominion in that helps police officers do an 1977, and made life-long friends in stant trace on a vehicle traveling on the second floor of Rogers Hall. at high speed. “We’ve had some He still has reunions with those Black said the fantastic opportunities, and we get friends every year, more than 30 company they to build things, something every years after graduating. engineer wants to do,” Black said. The 1980 electrical engineering cofounded has been The company has also deepened graduate is proud of his school, involved in some exciting its connection to Old Dominion and that pride has only grown University, hiring interns and full- in the years since he’s left Old projects in the past time employees from the Frank Dominion and founded BBG Batten College of Engineering and Incorporated, an electronic couple of decades, Technology. Black is a member of engi neering design firm based in including a video receiver the Batten College Engineering Suffolk. “It’s been amazing watching Advisory Board, and he and that school transform,” Black said. for a spacecraft Gander endow a scholarship in He’s president and senior engineer built to fly to Mars, the College. They support the at BBG, and his friend and fellow environmentally themed engineering Old Dominion graduate Joe and a battery-powered ECOnference every year. Gander is vice president and “I’ve always been proud of ODU, it sen ior engineer. Gander was on GPS emitter that helps helped me for life,” Black said. the ODU varsity sailing team, and police officers do an “But I feel even prouder as time though he was a few years behind goes by.” Black, they were acquaintances at instant trace school. They didn’t hatch their plan to go into business together until on a vehicle they met working for Unidyne, traveling at high speed. Gander’s first job after graduation, Black’s second.

Jimmy Black, left, with fellow Old Dominion graduate and business colleague, Joe Gander.

62 63 CHAPTER 4 MAKING AN IMPACT The facility is now under the control of the state-led Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority; Old Dominion University still has a seat on the Authority’s board of directors. Billie Reed, an engineering management professor who was executive director of the Authority As the 1990s began, Old Dominion University was feeling the since its formation in 1995, retired in November 2012. Dale K. Nash, a ef fects of an economy in recession. State support had dropped for 29-year veteran of the aerospace industry, was appointed to serve as higher education at the same time that enrollment had shot skyward. the Authority’s new executive director, beginning July 31, 2012. In regard to engineering at Old Dominion, it was a time when necessity became the mother of invention. Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean T. Connaughton said Nash’s “years of experience in the aerospace industry will be a The working relationship between Jim Cross, dean of the Old tremendous boost to the Authority as it works to become the number Do minion University College of Engineering and Technology, and new one commercial space port in the U.S. With his leadership, the ODU President James V. Koch was helped by the fact that they saw Com monwealth can seize upon the tremendous advantages we have in the university in the same terms. the aerospace industry to grow the VCSFA and create much needed Koch arrived from the University of Montana in 1990. Koch economic development and jobs.” quickly deduced that a university of more than 15,000 students – with None of these advantages that Secretary Connaughton speaks the least per-student funding of any public doctoral university in the about would even exist were it not for a timely partnership with Old state – couldn’t be all things to all people. Dominion University. “I was very much an advocate of what I would call selective The College of Engineering and Technology also partnered with excel lence,” said Koch. “I thought the university should concentrate NASA in another unique way – taking over operation of the giant, its resources in fewer areas, and in five or six programs try to become historic Full-Scale Wind Tunnel on the NASA Langley campus. The national, or even international, leaders. I argued that would result in a tunnel had allowed researchers to gain a comprehensive understand ing halo eXect, and through those programs, grow the entire university.” In 1984, Cross had recognized that Old Dominion’s engineering college needed to emphasize its strengths, and poured much of his en ergy into building up areas where he felt that the University could make a difference, in terms of national research and community engagement. And he wasn’t shy about articulating where the university should place its emphasis. It involved risks like the audacious plan for the College of Engineering and Technology to take over the historic NASA launch facility on Wallops Island, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, which has evolved into the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The unusual marriage between public university and NASA facility came at a time when the federal agency was facing reduced budgets. A launch facility that had done pioneering work in the space program, NASA Wallops was deemed surplus at a time when the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was handling Space Shuttle launches – Above: A wind turbine at the Full- NASA’s primary emphasis at the time. Scale Tunnel at NASA Langley. Old Dominion’s College of Engineering Engineering Management Professor Larry Richards suggested that and Technology managed this facility Old Dominion University oXer to take over the facility. There were for a decade. challenges, not the least of which was the typical shortage of money. Opposite: The Virginia Commercial “But we pressed on, and developed a commercial spaceport on the Spaceflight Authority Wallops Island south part of Wallops Island,” Cross said. “At one point it became too launch facility on Virginia’s Eastern big for ODU, and the state took it over.” Shore.

66 67 of aerodynamics, testing everything from air - Mission to MARS planes, to space capsules, to a nuclear submarine. With Old Dominion’s College of Engineering Taking over operation of the facility in 1996, On Virginia’s Eastern Shore and Technology underwriting the salaries, Old Dominion researchers tested everything from Reed and Woodhams built a customer base, starting with a 1996 agreement with the race cars, to stop signs, to a replica of the In retrospect, it still seems like a pipe dream. “During the course of the discussions, the possibility United States Air Force. A year later, NASA Wright brothers’ plane, before the facility was of a commercial spaceport surfaced. So we started began to provide financial support again in decommissioned in 2009. In the early 1990s, Old Dominion University had more re ally hammering on that. Larry Richards and I spent a what was now known as the Mid-Atlantic than 20 years of a research partnership with NASA. lot of time trying to develop the idea.” Regional Spaceport. “I thought we had significant opportunities in But a mid-sized public university leading a multimillion- aeronautics and aerospace with these facilities so dollar effort to blast things into space? Impossible. After the idea was more complete, Richards and Cross The location of Wallops Island, 1,000 miles brought it to then-Old Dominion President James V. Koch. north of the Kennedy Space Center in close by. We had a track record with NASA Langley Yet in the early 1990s, that’s exactly what Old Dominion “He thought, ‘My God, that might Florida, has proven to be crucial for the U.S. as well,” Koch said. University did. work,’” Cross said. Space Program. Its different launch orbit At a time when NASA was looking to provides easier access to the International There were challenges in taking over the facility, Koch agreed it was an unusual shed costs, engineering management In 1992, Space Station. not the least of which was resistance from some venture for a public university. professor Larry Richards heard Old Dominion “It’s different, for sure. But lots of The Commonwealth of Virginia soon recognized NASA oWcials, but Cross said the opportunity was about plans to mothball the historic universities have research parks. We the value of a commercial spaceport inside worth the risk. “We proved them wrong, is what Wallops Island launch facility on set up its Center for simply created a research facility for its borders. It became a partner in the space- we did,” he said. Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Created our aerospace engineering program,” port, creating the Virginia Commercial Space by NASA’s predecessor agency, the Commercial Space he said. “It was a great opportunity to Flight Authority (VCSFA). The emergence of Old Dominion University – National Advisory Committee for do research, and also make an impact and Hampton Roads – as a modeling and Aeronautics, the facility had been Infrastructure Today, the VCFSA is a state facility, rolled in terms of economic development.” pivotal in the U.S. effort in the to apply for under the Secretary of Transportation. Reed simulation hub was another example of the Space Race in the 1950s and ’60s. In 1992, Old Dominion set up its retired in November 2012 as the Authority’s College of Engineering and Technology striding Project Mercury capsules had been dual-use grants, Center for Commercial Space executive director. Baysal said it was never confidently into the unknown. The story of the Old Dominion’s intention to operate a tested at the site in support of NASA’s Infra structure to apply for dual-use creation of the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and manned space flight program. allowing both military grants, allowing both military and com mercial spaceport in perpetuity. government, as well as commercial, Simulation Center – and Old Dominion’s modeling Jim Cross, then-dean of the Old and government, as “Before, the state was looking at this as launch capabilities. The challenge and simulation engineering education from Dominion University College of experimental knowledge that’s being developed. well as commercial, for Old Dominion was that the En gineering and Technology, said Now that it’s working as a commercial undergraduate through post-doctoral – is as mar ket for commercial spaceflight Richards thought Old Dominion spaceport, this is just like the port, rail, and un likely as the creation of the Spaceport. launch capabilities. had to be built from scratch. University could take it over. roads,” Baysal said. “We conceived it, we Historically, blasting objects, air craft developed it, we did the hard work behind However, the Spaceport came about when “They were interested in ODU and rockets into space had been it, sustaining it while resources were extremely NASA was looking to shed costs. The foray into coming up there and providing graduate courses, and done only by NASA and the military. rare. We showed that it was successful, but modeling and simulation began when the U.S. providing other assistance in the operation,” Cross said. Oktay Baysal, current dean of the Batten College of now we gave it back.” Department of Defense was investing in modeling Engineering and Technology, said the first opportunity Baysal continued: “Universities don’t run and simulation as a training tool, and needed explored was the Iridium Project, an effort to offer cheaper ports; they don’t run spaceports. But we an academic partner. A personal relationship, satellite telephone technology to compete with cellular demonstrated that it is doable. We said, phones by launching a network of lower-altitude satellites. ‘Hey, we’re a state institution, whatever we combined with bold investment in the mid 1990s, “But then, [advancements in] cell phones killed them. do for our own state, this is a payback.’” allowed Old Dominion to emerge as a leader in Iridium went belly-up. The customer we were counting higher education modeling and simulation on disappeared,” Baysal said. research. Still believing in the value of the commercial spaceport, “We had no background in what was being the Old Do minion College of Engineering dispatched two faculty members from its engineering management called modeling and simulation. Actually the department, Billie Reed and Wayne Woodhams, to Opposite: A wide-angle view of an inert com putational things we did were in fact modeling generate other commercial opportunities. “We put them Minotaur V launch vehicle is erected on the and simulation, aerodynamics modeling. But it on Colley Avenue in some shack, and we said, ‘This is Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad 0B at be came much more than that,” Cross said. your office.’ That’s all we could afford,” Baysal said. Old NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Dominion would pay the salaries of the two Spaceport Since the 1980s, the U.S. military had been directors for several years, investing belief in the initiative. Photo courtesy of NASA Wallops/Jackie Adkins be ginning to substitute simulations for live-action military training exercises, as a cost savings.

68 69 Langley Full-Scale Tunnel “The first year, we set about trying to make the thing Batten College Shapes a Piece of History run, just physically run the plant and try to get it cali brated. We had to see exactly what it was we had, and develop all of the instrumentation,” Cross said. It was like a baseball player getting the keys to Wrigley by NASA in October 1995. Old Dominion University Another obstacle that the Old Dominion team faced was Field, or an opera singer getting a job at La Scala. re searchers had been doing work on the NASA Langley the rule (eventually rescinded) that researchers couldn’t campus for almost 30 years. Suddenly, this giant facility, Mankind recently began its second century of flight. For test anything involving airplanes, out of fear the competition a National Park Service National Historic Landmark, much of its first century, there were few facilities more would hurt NASA’s existing wind tunnel facilities. “They lit erally dropped out of the sky for their use. important to the development of flight than the massive, thought they were going to kill us with that,” Cross said. full-scale wind tunnel at NASA Langley. And for more Jim Cross, former dean of the College of Engineering “So we tested garden sheds, we did traffic signs, you than a decade, that tunnel was operated by aerospace and Technology, said the opportunity arose in a peculiar name it.” If there was a potential client interested in wind-testing a product, the Old Dominion team made engineers from Old Dominion University. fashion. Negotiations for Old Dominion to take over with researchers from Florida State, putting many NASA op eration of the much smaller (but also mothballed) certain to close the deal. “That was a very fun experience,” said Drew Landman, researchers through training on how to conduct experiments. Transonic Wind Tunnel at NASA Langley had fallen Facing a budget crunch, Cross went further afield. professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Old Dominion’s plans for the wind tunnel were brought through. He took a trip to Charlotte, North with the Batten College of Engineering and Technology, to a halt in September of 2003 Carollina and knocked on the one of several faculty members who worked at the Disappointed with the news, Old Dominion officials with Hurricane Isabel, which doors of NASCAR race teams. his toric facility while Old Dominion managed it. “You’re were stunned with the offer that came next from then- brought four feet of water into the “I convinced one team, Penske awe-struck by how big it is. It was just huge.” NASA Langley Director Paul Holloway. For the first half of flight’s facility and shut it down for six Rac ing, to come up to the tunnel, months. It opened again, and test - Construction of the Full-Scale Tunnel by the National “We went to the director to discuss the situation with and see what we had. They spent a first century, there were ing resumed, but its days were Advisory Committee for Aeronautics began in February him. He said, ‘Well, we’re about to shut down the Full- day and a half with us. At the end numbered. 1930, in a swampy corner of Langley Field. The entire Scale Tunnel, what would you think of that one?’” Cross of the day, they contracted with us few facilities more complex cost almost $1 million at the time. When it said. They didn’t have to think twice. for $250,000,” he said. Eventually, The nationwide trend away from formally opened in late May 1931, its test section important than the After somewhat acrimonious negotiations over the 33 of the 40 NASCAR teams came physical prototype testing in wind meas uring 30 feet high, 60 feet wide and 56 feet long handover, as many NASA employees were uncomfortable to do testing at the tunnel. massive, full-scale wind tunnels also shone a spotlight on made it the largest wind tunnel in the United States. the timeworn facility. With empty with their historic wind tunnel being operated by NASA, in due course, realized the tunnel at NASA Langley. wind tunnels being closed by For almost 65 years, NASA Langley’s Full-Scale Tunnel someone else, an interim operating agreement was value of the LFST as an aeronautical NASA across the country, an aging (LFST) allowed researchers of aerodynamics to gain a signed on August 1, 1996. A year later, Old Dominion facility, opening it up once again And for more than a structure on flood-prone land was comprehensive understanding of the effects of air flow researchers took control of the facility, and realized just to airplane testing. That led to more decade, that tunnel was an easy target, no matter how and air resistance on objects ranging from World War II how much work needed to be done to make the LFST history visiting the tunnel in 2003. fighters, to the Mercury space capsule, to the fastest able to do aerodynamics testing again. operated by aerospace historic. Still, the planned closure sub marine in the world. The LFST helped generations of On the hundredth anniversary of was met with dismay from its “The deck was stacked very heavily against us. They aircraft fly more efficiently. the Wright brothers’ December 17, engineers from Old former clients, including Ken Hyde stripped the place, took everything out of it. Even things 1903 inaugural flight, Ken Hyde, of the Wright Experience, who But the end of the Cold War, followed by deep cuts to like wall outlets for power. They did everything they who spent more than a decade Dominion University. wrote state legislators asking that NASA’s budget, caused the aging facility to be shuttered could to dissuade us from doing it,” Cross said. trying to understand the secrets the historic facility be preserved. behind their pioneering flight Once work began in earnest, Old Dominion The facility was decommissioned success, brought a reproduction of the Wright Flyer to aerospace engineers rebuilt the testing permanently in the fall of 2009, and demolition started test in the LFST as part of the Wright Experience, a fa cility. Cross said without the work of the following January. Landman and Colin Britcher, Old Dominion re- enactment of the life-changing event sanctioned by professor of mechanical and aerospace the descendants of the Wright brothers. Oktay Baysal, now dean of engineering at ODU, said each center or institute or research project is founded for a engineering, the LFST would never have “We met historians, the re-enactment team, pilots,” certain mission. “When that mission is accomplished, we operated again. Landman said. “That was a really fun period. We roll it off and give a chance to new enterprises,” he said. pub lished a lot of stuff, which was of great interest, in Left: The chamber of the Langley Full-Scale part because the Wrights were a little bit closed in what The Langley Full-Scale Tunnel was one such mission for Tunnel was used by Old Dominion University they would allow people to see. There were never full Old Dominion, and when NASA Langley informed the performance tests done in the aircraft because there was engineers to test everything from garden school it was proceeding with a previously scheduled no opportunity.” demolition, its time was up. sheds to NASCAR racecars. As tests continued, and the Old Dominion team “Here was another successful chapter added by Opposite: When it opened in 1931, the demonstrated its ability, NASA began to rely on the ODU engineering to the proud history of a national Langley Full-Scale Tunnel was the largest LFST once again. A Center for Experimental Aeronautics landmark,” Baysal said. test facility of its kind in the United States. was created, and Old Dominion researchers partnered

70 71 In October 1994, the Department of Defense set up a war-gaming the borders of the University’s campus for opportunities to do en terprise center in nearby SuXolk, known as the Joint Training, re search and help spur economic development in the region. Analysis and Simulation Center (JTASC). An oWcial for JTASC, a There were accomplishments on campus. A civil engineering civil servant named Gene Newman, made a presentation that fall to student, Samantha Salvia, became Old Dominion University’s first – senior administration oWcials at Old Dominion University. Through and still only – Rhodes Scholar in 1996. an existing professional relationship with Roland Mielke, then-chair of the department of electrical engineering at Old Dominion, Salvia, a native of Norristown, Pennsylvania, was a heavily re - Newman proposed that Old Dominion take the lead in providing cruited field hockey star who said she picked Old Dominion because the academic support to JTASC as they developed new simulation oWcials at the university promoted their engineering department as train ing technology. much as they sold their team. She helped the team win a national championship in 1992 and also played on the U.S. National Team. Mielke and Newman had an ally in Cross, and another one in Salvia earned a master in science from Stanford after returning Koch. The president actually funded the first year of the nascent from Oxford, and today is an environmental engineer in California. research project – which would become the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center – with $500,000 of university money that In 1997, new Dean Bill Swart came to Old Dominion University was n’t readily available. from the Newark College of Engineering-New Jersey Institute of Technology. “It really wouldn’t have happened without us, as a university, mak ing it a priority,” Koch said. The university’s investment “came at Swart was impressed with the diXerent forays into research and a time of really tight budgets. But it’s been substantially successful – partnerships that Old Dominion had undertaken, but as an indus - successful in the creation of lots of jobs, and in the growth of this trial engineer who had made a career of helping things work better, uni versity. We took a risk and it paid oX.” felt like operations of the College of Engineering and Technology needed to be more eWcient. “There were some pieces in place, but Other oX-campus alliances were formed in these years with the they had to be better utilized,” Swart said. Thomas JeXerson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, and with the Virginia International Raceway in Danville. It continued the In addition to growing the program – student credit hours in pattern of the College of Engineering and Technology looking beyond the college grew by 23 percent in his four years as dean, and annual

Right and opposite: Old Dominion has become one of the leading re search universities in the modeling and simulation discipline, moving boldly to meet research needs of the Department of Defense, and branching into other fields of modeling and simulation research, from transportation to health care.”

72 73 Modeling and Simulation In the fall of 1996, Old Dominion University modeling and With the creation of an undergraduate program in An Opportunity Seized simulation operations began in the Tidewater Community modeling, simulation and visualization engineering in College building in Portsmouth. “It was Tom Mastaglio 2010, ODU engineering also became the first engineering as director, he brought me on as a technical director, and college in the country to offer a complete advanced With the conference room at the Virginia Modeling, senior Old Dominion administration about what training we had a secretary. That was VMASC,” Mielke said. education in modeling and simulation, from undergraduate Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) filled to ca pacity, requirements the new center would have. through post-doctoral. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell stood and marveled VMASC formally opened in July 1997, and began to fulfill Jim Cross, then-dean of the College of Engineering and before crowd full of industry leaders from across the its mission of training modeling and simulation professionals, At the VMASC campus in Suffolk, researchers from Technology, attended the presentation. United States about how far modeling and simulation and providing the academic support for the emerging dis ciplines ranging from transportation, to health care, had come. Cross said the engineering field was already using discipline. VMASC also emerged quickly as a favorite of to the social sciences, work collaboratively to solve problems mod eling as part of many of its experiments, but what grant-funding agencies, and not just military ones. and add to an ever-expanding body of knowledge. “I remember not so long ago when you talked about Sokolowski said there are as many as 40,000 modeling the military was looking for was something different. “I “We had a ball. We recruited over 100 corporate members modeling, it was [about] a person in tight clothes walk ing and simulation jobs available worldwide right now. He thought to myself, ‘What the hell is modeling and in the time I was there. By the end of the third year, we down a runway,” McDonnell said wryly. said Old Dominion has developed a reputation of simulation? What does the military think that was?’ were generating more contract dollars than any center pro viding skilled professionals to fill those positions. The governor had been invited to the VMASC campus in Be cause we were going to do it,” Cross said. or department at Old Dominion,” Mastaglio said. Suffolk as the keynote speaker at the annual National “Our graduates are going all over the place. Clearly, Roland Mielke, chair of the electrical and computer Just as important as the client service work, Old Dominion Modeling and Simulation Coalition business meeting. there are many that are staying in Hampton Roads. But en gineering department, was charged with seeing what also invested heavily in modeling and simulation education. He told the audience that the general assembly is keenly we’ve got people that have taken positions around the opportunities could be created between the College of By the fall semester of 1998, the academic program was aware of how modeling and simulation has grown as a country. We have one graduate who actually went to the Engineering and Technology and the military. under way, with nine students admitted into a newly discipline, and as an economic engine, in the region. Hanes underwear company to start up a modeling and Mielke had the advantage of having known Newman in stituted master’s program in modeling and simulation. “It’s a real source of pride to have [VMASC] in Hampton simulation group,” he said. for a number of years. That fall semester, Mielke and Soon after, a doctoral program was created, and the Roads, and really in Virginia, because it’s a statewide This multi-disciplinary approach also served Old Dominion New man worked on a proposal inviting the University to first recipient of a Ph.D. in modeling and simulation from and regional asset,” McDonnell said. well when Joint Forces Command had its budget cut in a take the lead in providing academic training to military Old Dominion, in fact from any university in the world, Department of Defense reorganization. VMASC got its Almost 20 years ago, a combination of luck, boldness personnel. was a retired submarine captain named John Sokolowski. and determination began the process of turning Old start from Department of Defense funding, but has offset “[Newman] was clever enough to realize that if he was Sokolowski is now executive director of VMASC. Dominion University, and particularly VMASC, into cuts to defense grants through new investments in fields going to build a modeling and simulation enterprise in one of the nation’s leading university modeling and Sokolowski’s entire academic career has been at Old like homeland security the area, he was going to need academic support,” Dominion University, so he has seen how modeling and simula tion research centers. VMASC remains the place a sitting governor can come Mielke said. “The other schools didn’t pay attention, simulation has evolved from straight subcontract work to offer praise, and speak about modeling and simulation It started with a strategic shift by the United States military be cause they were further away, and it wasn’t clear it for the military to a far-reaching discipline, useful across as an asset to the entire state of Virginia. in the 1980s. Because of cost considerations, all was going to amount to all that much. But we did pay myriad fields. branches of the military moved away from live-action attention.” “Here’s how I see it: When you see computers, I see “It certainly had its roots in the military side of things, military exercises into practice drills done with virtual jobs. When you see solutions, I see tax revenue. So, Mielke said President Koch was extremely important in but clearly it has applications in just about any area you ships, planes and soldiers. that’s a good partnership that we’ve got to keep going,” the formation of what would become VMASC. The state can think of. When we started to explore those different McDonnell said. At the same time, Old Dominion Director of Military hadn’t yet caught onto the potential of modeling and areas, the field became completely wide open,” he said. Ac tivities Captain Dick Whalen, USN-Ret. and President simulation, so Koch underwrote the initial funding from James V. Koch were eager, in a time of tight budgets the university’s budget. Modeling and simulation spans the campus as well. While for higher education, to seek opportunities for mili tary VMASC grew, ODU engineering’s Center for Ad vanced “He front-ended the first $300,000 or $400,000 when partnerships. Engineering Environments (CAEE), founded in 2001, the University didn’t have a lot of money. That was a was building its own international reputation developing Retired submarine captain In response to the military’s increased need for modeling tremendous risk that he took,” Mielke said. By the next innovative technologies, strategies and approaches for John Sokolowski was the and simulation, a war-gaming enterprise center, staffed year, the state had begun to invest in modeling and advanced learning environments and networks. first recipient of a Ph.D. in with 100 military and government contractors, was set sim ulation at Old Dominion University, and McDonnell, modeling and simulation up in Suffolk in October 1994, across the Elizabeth on his visit, pointed out that the state government is the “Its director, Ahmed K. Noor, Lobeck Chair and Eminent River from Old Dominion University. second-largest funder of VMASC. Scholar of Modeling, Simulation and Visualization, from Old Dominion, and has written frequently about his visionary research into from any university in the The Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation Center As a modest operation, the first point of order was to collaborative distributed engineering knowledge, and world. Sokolowski is now (JTASC) was charged with developing the processes and hire a director. For that job, Mielke and Newman chose advanced learning technologies,” said Oktay Baysal, executive director of procedures, workforce and facility to conduct joint Tom Mastaglio, a retired artillery officer who was working current dean of engineering at ODU. simu lation training exercises. But there wasn’t the local in the then-hub of modeling and simulation, Orlando, VMASC. workforce, or any institution of higher learning in the Florida. “We stole a guy from industry down there. They Baysal said Noor’s writing has made the cover of 16 country equipped to train them and satisfy JTASC’s were 15 years ahead of us, and they had the funding is sues of Aerospace America magazine and Mechanical academic needs. Whalen invited Gene Newman, a agencies from the army down there,” Mielke said. Engineering magazine, “which are circulated to hun dreds sen ior civil servant from the Suffolk facility, to address of thousands of engineers all over the world.”

74 75 research expenditures more than doubled to $11.4 million – Swart also attempted to improve the working climate for faculty and staX in the College. Johnny Garcia He initiated regular college-wide faculty and staX meetings, and The Best Mistake He’s Ever Made started morale-boosting events like the college-wide cook-out to kick oX the year, and the international potluck dinner just before the Who are the people becoming industry leaders through theoretical thinking and put it in context. How was it Christmas holidays. “I really wanted to change the culture of the modeling and simulation education at Old Dominion going to be used outside of academia? place, because there was so much potential there,” Swart said. University? They’re people like Johnny Garcia. “It’s great to show that what you’re doing is valid or not Under Swart, ODU engineering began the process of launching An affable Navy veteran from Texas, Garcia said it was valid, but show me an example. Build me something pure chance – a “mistake” – that brought him into the that’s going to leverage that.” en terprise centers, facilities created by Old Dominion University, but modeling and simulation field, and into Old Dominion Now, Garcia presents his work at conferences around leveraging partnerships with local government and industry. University’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation the world. “One of my opening lines is [a quote from Center (VMASC). Some mistake. Seventeen years later, George Box] that ‘all models are wrong, some are useful.’ One such initiative started under Swart was the Applied Research Garcia is founder of SimIs, Inc., an information technology This is true,” he said. “You can’t expect a model or a Center (ARC), a facility constructed by the city of Newport News to services corporation headquartered in Portsmouth, and Old Dominion University’s Rhodes simulator to give you an answer. It helps you make better amplify the research being done at the Thomas Jefferson National just 10 minutes away from his alma mater. Scholar, Samantha Salvia. decisions with quantitative and qualitative data.” Ac celerator Facility. “It’s been sometimes magical making this happen,” The expertise he gained also helped Garcia take the big Gar cia said. Old Dominion researchers such as Karl Schoenbach, professor and step and launch SimIS in 2007. The company has grown eminent scholar of electrical engineering, had been doing research Brought to Hampton Roads by the Navy, Garcia was to more than 40 employees, and the Hampton Roads collaborations involving the national test facility for atmospheric se lected to the prestigious Seaman-to-Admiral program Chamber of Commerce named SimIS as its 2012 in 1994, around the time the Navy was downsizing. Portsmouth Small Business of the Year. Garcia could take pres sure plasma, the high-tech particle accelerator and free electron Simultaneously, Garcia heard that Joint Warfare this business anywhere, but he said he wants to stay laser. In May of 2001, the high-tech ARC opened its doors, housing Simu lation and Training, part of what would become right here. scientists and inventors from Old Dominion University, Christopher Joint Forces Command, was hiring. The key is education. He said the region needs to train Newport University, the College of William and Mary, Norfolk State Offered a job as a computer operator by the company modeling and simulation professionals to fill those highly University and JeXerson Lab. now known as General Dynamics, Garcia was dis charged skilled jobs. Garcia makes a point of hiring computer from active duty. “I had never been exposed to simulations. science and modeling and simulation engineering Created as an “enterprise center” of the College of Engineering That started my simulation career,” Garcia said. stu dents, to give them hands-on experience while they and Technology, much like the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and get their degree, like he received back in the 1990s. Showing real aptitude for his new vocation, Garcia was Simu lation Center, ARC provides university resources, such as faculty promoted from computer operator to computer engineer, “When they graduate with their bachelor’s degree, I and student expertise, to meet industry and government needs. developing the models himself. In those five years, Garcia want them to have experience. And it all has to do with became passionate about the science behind modeling the classes that our schools are providing,” Garcia said. At the dedication ceremony for ARC, Swart said it “makes it and simulation. pos sible for Old Dominion to begin collaborative eXorts with industry In 2003, that interest and his job much sooner than would have been otherwise possible. The equipment brought Garcia in contact with will greatly facilitate the preparation of research proposals and the Andreas Tolk, professor of engineering training of graduate students.” management and systems engineering at Old Dominion’s Batten College of Now 11 years old, ARC is home to an interdisciplinary team of Engineering and Technology. While researchers working in materials science and laser technology, on he continued to work professionally, sci entific and technological problems in the areas of thin films, laser Garcia began his doctorate through Old Dominion’s VMASC while also and plasma, and the newer fields of micro technology, nanotechnology working closely with Executive Director and biomedical engineering. John Sokolowski. ARC Director Hani Elsayed-Ali, professor and eminent scholar of The fit was perfect between Garcia, electrical engineering at Old Dominion University, said after a little a roll-up-his-sleeves problem-solver more than a decade, the span of research ranges from micro electronics his whole career, and Old Dominion University. “ODU is different,” he and nanoelectronics, to solar cells, to laser and plasma technology. said. “A Ph.D. in modeling and Johnny Garcia and the staff of SimIS, Inc. simulation, any Ph.D., is about theory. “Our funding is very diverse, also, from NASA, from the National What ODU did is take me out of that Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and several industries,”

76 77 Elsayed-Ali said. “In the area of thin film from the Massachusetts company MagneMotion, into a new field of research or enterprise brought fabrication and characterization, the expertise Inc. in testing efforts of maglev technologies on its own expertise to a growing college. that we have puts us among some of the best the guideway. Far from being the unwelcome intruder in uni versities.” In 2010, MagneMotion engineering higher education in Virginia, Old Also in 2001, Old Dominion In 2010, MagneMotion re ceived a $7.9 million grant Do minion University was demonstrating that it University launched its foray from the Federal Transit belonged, and in some disciplines, that it was into magnetic levitation received a $7.9 million Ad ministration to test its lead ing the way. (ma glev) technology, seeking patented maglev technology grant from the Federal “I’m as proud of my time at Old Dominion as I to do research to help turn at Old Dominion. University am of anything I’ve done in my career,” said Swart, maglev technology into a viable researchers, along with Transit Administration who left Old Dominion in 2002 to become provost option for mass transit. In Mag neMotion, installed new and vice chancellor for academic aXairs at East partnership with a private to test its patented track on a 150-foot portion of Carolina University. company, Old Dominion maglev technology at the guideway near the Folkes- Uni versity erected a white Stevens Tennis Center at The past decade has seen the fruits of these test-track “guideway” on Old Dominion. Powhatan Avenue. labors – of many talented and visionary contributors campus, which runs behind – blossom into what the College has become today. The retrofitted track Kaufman Hall. will allow MagneMotion to conduct a more The initial partnership dissolved, but ODU comprehensive t est of its maglev vehicle with engineering now leads research efforts on help from Old Dominion researchers. Opposite: ODU was one of several universities who formed a campus into maglev technology. Old Dominion research partnership in creating the Applied Research Center Not all the initiatives launched by the College in Newport News in 2001. re searchers led by Thomas Alberts, professor of in the 1990s and early in the 21st century have mechanical and aerospace engineering, reached Below and right: Research into magnetic levitation technology been as successful as the Virginia Modeling, an agreement to collaborate with researchers (maglev) continues, on an elevated guideway that has become Analysis and Simulation Center, but each foray a campus landmark.

78 79 Bill Swart: The Efficiency Expert Swart’s Industry Background Helped a Growing College Run More Effectively When you go through a fast-food drive-through, at some opportunity for us, but even though we had VMASC, newer locations, you pay at the first window, and receive we didn’t have the academic program.” At the time your food at the second window. Swart was dean, Old Dominion added graduate engi neering programs in modeling and simulation. It’s an innovative efficiency idea, and it was the brain - child of Bill Swart, former dean of the Batten College of Old Dominion University also brought its engineering Engineering and Technology. management education to the United States Navy, providing a CD-ROM- “I was an industrial engineer at Burger “This region and based master’s degree in engineering King Corporation, and part of my charge management to senior officers, including was to increase productivity of Burger this university are most of the submarine fleet. “Admiral King restaurants,” said Swart, who was at full of opportunities [Michael] Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Old Dominion from 1997 to 2002. if in fact you take Staff was one of our graduates,” Swart Among the innovations that were brought advantage of said. to the fast-food industry by Burger King Swart said he’s also proud of the creation during his time with the company were them.” of the “Womengineers” program at Old the two-window drive-through, and the Dominion University, to create a college- re-location of the drink bar from behind wide supportive environment for women to succeed in the counter to where customers could ac cess it. “These engineering. Today, Old Dominion has the largest were changes designed to re-engineer the fast-food percentage of female engineering students of any university restaurant, and they made us more efficient,” Swart said. in the state. When he arrived at Old Dominion University in 1997 Swart is currently a professor in the department of from the Newark College of Engineering-New Jersey marketing & supply chain management in East In stitute of Technology, where he was dean, Swart said Car olina’s College of Business. A decade after he left he needed to do some of the same “re-engineering” of Norfolk, he takes great pride in helping position Old Batten College. There had been tremendous growth in Dominion’s engineering college for greater success in the previous decade, forays into areas where the College the years ahead. had never been before. But Swart said his charge was to make the whole thing run a little better. “It was an exciting time at Old Dominion,” he said. “It was wonderful to be part of helping create such a dy namic, “There were some good things being done at Old strong engineering program. It’s not your run-of-the-mill Do minion, but it basically needed someone to provide program. It’s got a proud past and an exciting future.” a vision and a purpose,” Swart said. His initial analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats showed Swart that the College of Engineering was underplaying its hand, not emphasizing the things it was doing better than anyone else. His action plan included continuing the strategic investments in the centers that had been launched in the previous few years, such as the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center in Suffolk. “This region and this university are full of opportunities if in fact you take advantage of them,” Swart said. “The modeling and simulation area was a very strong

81 CHAPTER 5 POSITIONED FOR THE FUTURE exploratory projects, and connecting the acquired knowledge with the capstone projects at the end,” said Oktay Baysal, who was then serving as the associate dean for academics and research.

As a metropolitan doctoral research university, Old Dominion “It’s project-based learning – project-focused, team-conducted, University has tried to serve its community in many ways – through leading to learning inside and outside the classroom. The new world class faculty research, through innovative and engaging Engineering Systems Building is designed to support these new teaching, and through partnerships with business, government and cur ricular approaches with its project studios.” its community. Baysal became interim dean of the College after Bill Swart’s One of six colleges comprising the 25,000-student university, the departure in 2002. A professor and eminent scholar in aerospace engineering school envisioned by Lewis Webb – now known as the en gineering, and an Old Dominion faculty member since 1982, Baysal Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology – is playing sought to build on the professional relationships he’d formed with his an important role as the university grows in reputation and colleagues to clear the way for them and empower them to continue to accomplishments. advance Old Dominion University through research. “I had been in the trenches with them,” Baysal said. After 50 years, engineering at Old Dominion is worlds removed Above: Oktay Baysal, dean of from the instruction given to returning war veterans in tar-paper “We created a goal-oriented research infrastructure with defined the college of engineering and shacks on the field adjacent to Hampton Boulevard. And the future thresholds to spiral up the ladder of recognition,” Baysal said. When a technology. research breakthrough shows promise, or an area of regional need is looks brighter still. Below: A student at the Applied identified – such as sea level rise or renewable energy – a cluster is Research Center. The naming of the College after Frank Batten, the first rector formed, open to interested researchers to access in an unstructured of the Old Dominion University Board of Visitors, was seen by many fashion. veteran faculty members as long overdue. Batten, who created the media company that introduced The Weather Channel to the world, “The clusters then provide ideas and recommendations for new had guided the Norfolk Division’s break from the College of William people to recruit, new programs, research labs, or even institutes,” and Mary, and through its first eight years, during which it achieved university status. Webb was the public face of the campaign to found an engineering school in Norfolk, but Batten played a vital role behind the scenes, in fluencing his friends in government and industry to support this young college’s plan for a top-notch engineering school. In 2003, he also gave the largest single gift in campus history, $32 million, and continued to raise money for the school until his death in September 2009. In Batten’s obituary in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper, former Old Dominion President James L. Bugg said nobody has meant more to Old Dominion than Frank Batten: “In terms of time and talent and money and everything else, Old Dominion owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.” By the start of the 21st century, the Engineering College Frank Batten had a hand in creating was taking giant steps. In 2001, the engineering fundamentals division was created, setting up a curriculum of general courses to help new engineering students learn through projects and “by doing,” a hands-on application of engineering principles, rather than just theory. “It inverts the classical approach – starting the engineering education with

84 85 Bioelectrics we had a case where a bright and successful scholar Old Dominion a World Leader was reaching a time limit. I suggested establishing an enterprise center for bioelectrics,” Baysal said.

Could a cure for cancer be hidden somewhere in the the Cold War, however, meant that bright research At first, Schoenbach was hesitant. But Baysal said the laboratories of Old Dominion University’s Frank Reidy minds like Schoenbach needed to find other applications creation of the enterprise center allowed him to put more Center for Bioelectrics? for the technology. grant revenue into administrative and support staff. “That very quickly led to more recognition, more people The world-renowned research center “It was in the early 1990s that there and more solutions,” Baysal said. has assembled talent from all over the With little funding, was a time when new ideas popped Prominent local businessman and benefactor Frank globe inside Innovation Research Park the researchers up,” Schoenbach said. “We wondered @ ODU, applying applications of if it was possible to escape from a Reidy was one of those who became very interested in short-duration, high-voltage electricity applied the millionth- relatively narrow range of pulsed the work being done at Old Dominion. His support of to biological cells, a procedure power applications, into commercial the initiative helped shape what is ultimately known as of-a-second pulses of the Frank Reidy Center for Bioelectrics. known as bioelectrics. applications, into medical applications. Above: Innovation Research Park @ ODU, home of the We had at that time all the expertise, Reidy Center Director Richard Heller, Old Dominion researchers were gaining prominence Frank Reidy Center for Bioelectrics. high-power electricity all the systems we needed to test new who came to Old Dominion in 2009 for their work combining high-voltage electricity and concepts. I said, ‘Let’s try it.’” from the University of South Florida, to mammalian cells, bi ology, something Schoenbach, a physicist, couldn’t Loughborough University in England. To Heller, each characterizes the work in this emerging Schoenbach’s first project was done have imagined doing. “Not in my lifetime,” he said. and found some new researcher adds a dimension to what the Reidy field as a race. “And there are a lot in collaboration with the College of “I thought it was an exciting field, and a good field, Center and Old Dominion can do. of people chasing us now, from all startling effects. Sciences, using pulsed power to prevent be cause it uses technology to help society in positive ways. But any research area where two disciplines meet over the world,” he added. biological pollutants from spreading “The potential for this technology is endless,” Heller said. is typically where the new inventions are made, where “We found out we from the ballast water of container “I’ve said this before and I do believe it: we haven’t even Old Dominion emeritus engineering new things can be created.” ships. That led to further experiments got into the meat of it yet. There are just so many different professor Karl Schoenbach was one can kill cancer cells. involving water treatment and the things that can be done. This is why the expansion is so of the first researchers in the world to Schoenbach and Laroussi were both identified in 2001 suppression of certain bacteria. critical, to bring in some additional people, just to have realize this. But the applications for So this was by BusinessWeek magazine as experts in the emerging good brains to be a part of the conversation. Because so-called pulsed power technology go But it was Schoenbach’s partnership fields of bioelectrics and cold plasma. In 2006, Laroussi the beginning,” every time we talk about something, we come up with far beyond even what he envisioned with researchers from Eastern Virginia unveiled his plasma “pencil,” a hand-held device that another concept we can do.” when he became interested in the field Schoenbach said. Medical School, including Stephen emits a colored stream of plasma gel shown to kill germs more than 40 years ago in Germany. Beebe and Michael Stacey, who are without harming human tissue. Laroussi, director of Old both now at the Reidy Center, that Dominion University’s Laser and Plasma Engineering Schoenbach came to Old Dominion University in 1985, demonstrated for the first time the incredible potential of In stitute, is now researching the use of cold plasma to when the military was still the primary user of pulsed the technology for human health. kill human leukemia cells. power applications, also known as plasma physics. The decline of military research expenditures with the end of With little funding, the researchers applied the millionth- The Reidy Center has exploded in size, having grown to of-a-second pulses of high-power electricity to mammalian more than 50 employees, and is one of the most prolific cells, and found some startling effects. “We found out we centers on the entire Old Dominion campus in securing can kill cancer cells. So this was the beginning,” he said. grant funding. A grant from the U.S. Air Force helped Old Dominion Schoenbach said that wouldn’t have been possible expand the field and bring other researchers to with out the support of the university, and people in the Norfolk, including Mounir Laroussi from the University community like Frank Reidy. “It’s much easier to stay in of Tennessee. It also helped Old Dominion host the first the community where you have a name. So you need worldwide bioelectrics conference in 1999. More than people who believe in you, and we’ve had that, both at 100 researchers attended. the university and in the community,” he said. Then, in 2002, Old Dominion was named the lead In 2009, Reidy Center Director Heller, who [while at university on a $5 million Multi-University Research South Florida] was a pioneer in the field of electrogene Ini tiative Grant, which allowed for collaborations with therapy, reported safe and effective treatment of skin other institutions in Germany, Japan and across the cancer in the first-ever human trial of a gene-transfer United States. process assisted by short pulses of electricity. ODU engineering Dean Oktay Baysal said Schoenbach Michael Kong, one of the world’s leading researchers Above: Mounir Laroussi, with his plasma pencil. mentioned at a meeting he was having trouble keeping in the biomedical applications of cold atmospheric up with the demand of his many research grants. “Here plas mas, joined the Reidy Center in fall 2012 from Opposite: Karl Schoenbach.

86 87 Baysal said. “We seek to leverage opportunities, or seek the shoulders engineering’s annual expenses comes from tuition and the state of the giants that we can rise above.” ap propriation,” Baysal said. Some institutes can grow to become a center of the Batten That has proved to be a formula for success. Col lege. When a center is deemed to benefit the disciplines outside Karl Schoenbach, professor and eminent scholar of electrical engineering, it “graduates,” Baysal said, becoming a university-wide engineering, received a $5 million Multi-University Research center, or even a state-wide entity. Initia tive Grant in 2002, which allowed for collaborations with other “We provide more revenue-sharing opportunities to empower universities in the new research field of bioelectrics. the directors,” Baysal said. “This is the model we have employed for Local businessman Frank Reidy was so impressed with the potential successes for the ODU Business Gateway, Virginia Modeling, Analysis of the research in many fields that he donated the money to start what and Simulation Center, and the now-state-run Mid-Atlantic Regional has become the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics. Ten Spaceport, overseen by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.” years after its formation, the Reidy Center is a world leader. Old Dominion University continued to experience a difficult Having started one of the first engineering management programs financial climate. Baysal said the College was asked several years in in the country in 1987, the Batten College quickly forged strong links a row to cut its already slim operating budget. “It was time to think with all the military branches, whose local commanders quickly saw of diXerent and bolder models to replace the disappearing state dollars,” value in the graduate engineering courses oXered by Old Dominion, he said. “The solution was clear: more sponsored programs through and the innovative ways they could be delivered. competitively earned external funds, contract education through asynchronous distance learning, and development through philanthropy.” A program to provide an engineering management master’s degree via CD-ROM to officers in the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet The College endowment is 13 times larger than it was in 2002, now was an instant, runaway success, enrolling more than 250 submarine around $30 million. That has allowed nine internationally recognized oWcers within a few years. scholars to be recruited into newly established endowed professorships, and means a larger percentage of recruitment costs and salary of Chuck Keating, an engineering management professor at Old Below: Lee Belfore leads a tour of permanent faculty and staff comes from non-state and non-tuition Do minion, had made his own connections with military operations, the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and funds. “In fact, less than one-half of the funds supporting ODU doing grant-funded research in the emerging field of system of Simulation Center sys tems engineering. In 2001, after the attacks of September 11 made evident the need for greater understanding of the complex workings of interconnected engineering networks, Old Dominion University created the National Centers for System of Systems Engineering (NCSoSE). With Keat ing as director of NCSoSE since its inception, Old Dominion faculty researchers have provided vital research in complex system governance to military and government operations, and have helped train the next generation of system of systems engineers. In the realm of keeping America safe, ODU engineering has also invested in complex vision and video research. Vijay Asari, who came to Old Dominion in 2000 as an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering, spent the next three years developing a computer-based facial image detection and recognition system. Asari’s research, funded by the Department of Defense and De partment of Homeland Security, helped lead to the creation of the Computational Intelligence and Machine Vision Laboratory (Vision Lab). Now under the direction of Professor Khan Iftekharuddin, who came to Old Dominion in 2011, the Vision Lab focuses on developing new algorithms for real-time applications of machine vision technology,

88 89 The Turks Baysal said the College’s reputation has helped attract Through academic and family links in his native Turkey – An “Accidental” Pipeline scholars from all over the world to Old Dominion Baysal’s father was an industrialist and forged strong University. “Our faculty hails from 18 different countries,” connections to government, military and industry – he said. “Our already diverse body of Baysal helped set up a program to After three days on the road, the very day that Okta col leagues. Another Turkish faculty member, Resit Unal, students is exposed every day to offer advanced engi neering degrees Baysal drove into Norfolk in 1982 to start his job as an was hired in 1987 when Old Dominion launched an global engineering perspectives.” ODU engineering’s from Old Dominion to members of the Turkish Air Force. assistant professor at Old Dominion University, his car en gineering management program. Unal’s wife, Mujde All of the Turkish faculty members connection to Turkey was totaled on Military Highway. “That was the welcome Erten-Unal, a faculty member in civil and environmental mention, though, that it’s nice to The program has resulted in 50 ac tive to Norfolk,” he said. engineering, joined him a few years later. have colleagues who share common has proved to be duty members of the Turkish Air With his belongings strewn all over the road, Baysal Now 30 years after Akan and Baysal started, the Frank experiences. “Sometimes we speak beneficial, and that’s Force earning master’s and doctoral called the two telephone numbers he had – one for Batten College of Engineering and Technology has seven in our own language. We share a engineering degrees from ODU over me chanical engineering professor Sid Roberts, and the Turkish faculty members. In addition to Akan, Baysal, Unal culture. It’s fun to catch up on something Baysal the past seven years. other for a young civil engineering professor named and Erten-Unal are Ali Beskok, professor and endowed things,” Beskok said. is proud of. “Why should they be talking to us as Osman Akan. chair in mechanical and aerospace engineering; Mecit “It really is unique that there are so opposed to another university? Well, Cetin, associate professor in transportation engineering; “They both came and helped me,” he said. “I ended up many of us. It’s a shared bond, and “As the dean, I share culture, I share heritage with and Onur Bilgen, assistant professor in mechanical and forming a great family relationship with Sid Roberts. My helps connect us personally, as well these places. If I do that right, hope - aerospace engineering. wife is in his wife’s book club. Osman has become one as professionally,” ResitUnal added. one of the jobs that fully everyone comes out a winner,” Baysal said. “ODU gets many bright, of my best friends. He’s a man of huge integrity, and The unique aspect to the critical mass of Turks is that A soccer fanatic, Akan keeps his I have is to build motivated students paying out-of- one of the smartest men I’ve ever met.” it’s happenstance that they ended up at Old Dominion col leagues up to date on the goings- state tuition. The Turkish Air Force together. “It’s a total coincidence,” said Baysal, who hired on in Turkish soccer. When Istanbul- collaborations, build He’s also a fellow Turk. got a very good deal because of the the three most recent arrivals. “They were all, whenever based team Galatasaray marched to relationships. collaborative nature of the program, Akan and Baysal started at Old Dominion University we did the searches, the top choices. We made the right the UEFA Cup championship in 2000, offered through the Turkish Air Force eight months apart, meeting when they became decisions. They happened to be Turkish.” the atmosphere in a small corner of I do that. I love doing Academy. the ODU engineering college was downright festive, Baysal said. that,” Baysal said. “It’s my job to build relationships. I do that with NASA, I do that with ODU engineering’s connection to Newport News Shipbuilding, I do Turkey has proved to be beneficial, and that’s something that with other universities. But I also build relationships Baysal is proud of. “As the dean, one of the jobs that I in Turkey because I have an advantage. For one thing, I have is to build collaborations, build relationships. I do speak the language.” that. I love doing that,” Baysal said. “You always look at the possi bilities where you would have an advantage.”

Opposite: Seven engineering faculty members from Turkey call Old Dominion University their academic home.

Right: The Turkish faculty (from left) Osman Akan, Mecit Cetin, Resit Unal, Mujde Erten-Unal, Oktay Baysal, Ali Beskok and Onur Bilgen.

90 91 to use in things like surveillance cameras, night-vision technology and and professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Professor motion sensing. Helmut Baumgart and Assistant Professor Gon Namkoong, have also achieved attention for their micro technology and nanotechnology Ali Beskok, now Batten Endowed Chair in Computational research. Engi neering and professor of aerospace engineering, met Baysal as a student at a fluid dynamics conference in 1991. “He gave a very nice Soon after arriving at Old Dominion University in late 2010, speech on his research, and we met and we started talking,” Beskok Sylvain Marsillac, associate professor in electrical and computer said. “Throughout the years, I would see him at conferences; he would engi neering and a leading researcher in solar (or photovoltaic) energy, tell me about his experiences as faculty at ODU.” began collaborating with Elsayed-Ali, Baumgart and Namkoong. In just over two years, Marsillac and his colleagues have earned nearly Beskok came to Old Dominion from Texas A&M University in $3 million in grant funding from government sources from the U.S. 2007, and has done award-winning research into microfluidics – the Department of Energy and other sources. nature of how fluid flows through extremely confined spaces. He was one of five young researchers who received a $310,000 grant in 2010 In the Photovoltaic Laboratory in Kaufman Hall, Marsillac and from the National Science Foundation to purchase a state-of-the-art his team fabricate solar cells and then test the diXerent material scanning probe microscope to boost the University’s burgeoning compositions for energy eWciency. Marsillac and other photovoltaic re search into micro technology and nanotechnology. energy researchers around the world are seeking to make the ideal solar cell – one that’s eWcient, lightweight and aXordable. “But it Along with Beskok, Shizhi Qian, associate professor of aerospace doesn’t exist yet,” Marsillac said. His research seeks to help move the engineering; Roland Cooper and David Gauthier, assistant professors eWciency and lightweight aspects of solar cells as far along as possible. of biological sciences; and Julie Hao, associate professor of mechanical engineering, were listed on the grant. “Our goal is to find new materials that can develop higher effi ciency by themselves – or new designs, new architecture – that Hao is one of several Old Dominion engineering researchers who will result in higher eWciency,” Marsillac said. have made a very large impact doing research on a very small scale. In 2009, she received $500,000 in two grants from the National Science Baysal views the recruitment of Old Dominion engineering faculty Foundation to continue her groundbreaking work with Micro-Electrical by larger institutions as an indicator of success. But the school has -Mechanical Systems (MEMS), tiny mechanical systems used in also worked hard to keep its faculty by providing opportunities that de vices from telephones to medical equipment. the founders of engineering at Old Dominion could scarcely have be lieved were possible. Old Dominion Engineers at the Applied Research Center in New port News, including Director Hani Elsayed-Ali, eminent scholar “Today, we have a much stronger College than only a few years ago,”

Above: Sylvain Marsillac, associate Left: The Vision Lab does grant- professor in electrical and computer funded research for the Department engineering. of Defense, Department of Home - land Security, NASA and other Right: Khan Iftekharuddin and the agencies. staff at the ODU Vision Lab.

92 93 Baysal said. “Just in this decade, we established seven more institutes that seek solutions to the problems relevant to our region. In fact, the research and education in the College addresses problems in 10 of the From Zambia to ODU and Back 14 Grand Challenges stated by the National Academy of Engineering.” Now She’s the Boss The proof is all over the College and the region, from the Applied Research Center in Newport News, to VMASC in SuXolk, to a new Many graduates of the Batten College of Engineering Makayi was born in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, biomedical engineering program, a new marine engineering program, and Technology make their marks within a few miles of growing up in a household with her parents and three and a new practice-oriented professional degree, Doctor of Engineering campus. The Hampton Roads region is chock-full of brothers. Her family instilled a work ethic that she needed en gineers – at tiny companies or Fortune 500 firms – when she came to the United States, simultaneously The engineering student body, which numbers more than 3,200, proudly hanging their Old Dominion diplomas on the dealing with challenging engineering studies at Old is more diverse than ever, and more talented than ever. Female walls of their offices. Do minion and adjusting to life in a new country. en rollment nears 15 percent, and minority enrollment is more than Mfikeyi Makayi is also proud of her Old Dominion Makayi graduated in 2007 with a bachelor of science in double that figure. That makes the Frank Batten College of Engineering education. She’s using hers a little further from the civil engineering. She remained in the U.S. for another and Technology the most diverse, most gender-balanced engineering Nor folk campus, however. year, holding two different jobs in Virginia Beach, including her first school in the state. Mfikeyi is a trailblazer in her hands-on introduction to what home country of Zambia, battling she would do in her career. “I Old Dominion also has the largest percentage of in-state students against stereotypes as an engi neer ventured into the geotechnical of any Virginia university, Students like Calvin Whealton, who at the Kansanshi Copper & Gold branch of civil engineering, and Mine. Since 2010 she has worked gradu ated with a bachelor of science in civil engineering in 2011 and is that is a very important branch as a mining engineer in the town now working on his doctorate in environmental and water resources in mining,” she said. “I didn’t Below: Team Tidewater, a group of of Solwezi, in the northwestern systems at Cornell University, are reflective of ODU engineering’s know I’d end up in mining, but Old Dominion University/Hampton re gion of Zambia. talented graduates. Whealton didn’t realize everything that Old in retrospect, that one year was University students who participated Her duties over the course of a backbone to my step into the in the 2011 Solar Decathlon. Do minion oXered until he attended school here. two years with the company have mining field.” included supervising construction That step was delayed when projects and maintenance upgrades the world economy sagged in in the plant, operating production 2008, prompting Makayi to and support machinery in the return to Old Dominion to mine’s open pit, managing and pursue a mas ter’s degree in coordinating mining operations, environmental engineering, which and mastering production drills she received in December 2009. and blasting techniques. One of her academic mentors at Makayi is the first female engineer the university was Saikou Diallo, in the history of the giant Zambian mining company then a doctoral student and now a research assistant Kansanshi Mining PLC, and as such, faces daily professor at Old Dominion’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis challenges. and Simulation Center. But Makayi learned determination and a skill set that Diallo, also from the African served her well in her ca reer continent, was impressed with when she came to study his young colleague. engi neering at Old Dominion Makayi is the first female University in 2002, after being engineer in the history of the “Mfikeyi is a very bright awarded an International young lady whom I met dur ing Stu dent and Scholar Services giant Zambian her undergraduate studies at scholarship out of high school. ODU,” he said. “She has a mining company great personality to boot. “My time at ODU forced me We became fast friends and I to be truly independent, Kansanshi Mining PLC. always enjoyed her sense of determined and a go-getter,” humor and commitment to she said. “I had great professors helping others. She is an asset to her family and and met my best friends at ODU, so the envi ronment I com munity and has a great future in this world.” found and developed in around Norfolk prepared me adequately to deal with such a demanding job.”

94 95 Solar Decathlon the structure and moving it back and forth from prototype net-zero energy unit fits the local Norfolk ODU Engineering Students Step Onto Washington, D.C. for competition on a tight schedule. architecture, performs well, and could be imitated at a relatively low cost in the area. “It showed that the “We built a core team of really dedicated and hard- concept of multi-family, net-zero housing could be working students and community volunteers who were International Stage ap plied both practically and elegantly in Hampton able to accomplish these objectives in addition to their Roads,” Whitelaw said. academic and work responsibilities,” Whitelaw It started with a chance meeting at an environmental – an innovative, affordable, urban infill apartment unit – said. “This kind of project-based Since finishing his first Solar conference. saw visitors from around the world. In fact, the team’s learning was a great introduction Decathlon, Whitelaw has continued to next-door neighbor on the Solar Decathlon site was a Almost two years later, a team of engineering students to the challenges of real-world work toward his Ph.D. in environmental team from New Zealand. from Old Dominion University stood shoulder to shoulder engi neering work, teaching us about engineering, with a focus on tech - with architecture students from Hampton University in a The competition was based on 10 tests of energy professional collaboration, client nologies that facilitate sustainable worldwide competition, showing off their environmental per formance in the homes, and judged by Department relations, budgeting and resource design. engineering and design skills in building a home for the of Energy-selected jurors. Jurors chose the University of al location, the rigors of a design- The collaboration between Old U.S. Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathlon. Maryland’s innovative WaterShed design as the winner. build schedule, cost-benefit analysis Do minion and Hampton University Team Tidewater finished a credible 14th in the global and more.” The ODU/HU team, known as Team Tidewater, was continues, as the two schools competition. se lected as one of 20 finalists for Solar Decathlon, Old Dominion’s Mujde Erten-Unal, will partner for the 2013 Solar along with college and university teams from Belgium, Some team members moved on during the two years the project’s principal investigator Decathlon in Irvine, California with an China and across North America. It was a whirlwind that the Solar Decathlon team worked together, or joined and associate professor of civil and entry for vision-impaired residents experience for the team of 90 architecture and engineering the effort late in the process. But project engineer and environmental engineering, and known as The Canopy House. And students from the two schools. project manager, John Whitelaw, a doctoral environmental Stella Bondi, assistant professor of Solar Decathlon faculty advisors Erten- engineering student during that time, was a constant engineering technology, along with Unal and Andrews are continuing to The home design, Unit 6 Unplugged, was conceived in a presence. Hampton University architecture lead an effort to get the Unit 6 design studio just south of the ODU campus. It was built pro fessors Mason Andrews and Unplugged “six-pack” design through the spring and summer of 2011 on a patch of In addition to understanding the technical side of the David Peronnet, were the faculty apart ment buildings constructed in land across the street from the Old Dominion University house’s systems, Whitelaw had to facilitate cooperation ad visors for the project. Norfolk. Student Recreation Center. between the student team and faculty members at two universities, along with business development, building Key Old Dominion student workers for Team Tidewater “The six-pack project is very dear to my heart, as the A few weeks before the competition, the home was broken code considerations, sub-contractor relations and even included Jodi Knorowski, Holly-Ann Hillard, Joshua logical culmination of the 2011 Solar Decathlon, where we down, loaded onto flatbed trucks, shipped to Washington, how to secure the home as Hurricane Irene took aim at Davis, Ann Hageman, Christopher May, John Purdue, showed how net-zero energy, multi-family housing might be D.C. and then reassembled at West Potomac Park, a the Old Dominion campus. Wayne Laustsen, Hamami Youssef and Kevin Brinker. done in Hampton Roads at an affordable cost,” Whitelaw short walk from the White House. said. “I see it as a great way for the two universities to On top of the design and construction, the team had to More important than the ranking in the Solar Decathlon, For the 12 days of the Solar Decathlon, Unit 6 Un plugged have a positive impact on their local communities.” work out the logistics of disassembling and reassembling the Unit 6 Unplugged design and engineering of their

Left and opposite: The solar-powered home, designed and built by Team Tidewater, was assembled on the ODU campus, then taken down and trucked to Washington, D.C., where it was reassembled in a week for the Solar Decathlon finals.

96 97 “Most people I meet only know ODU through the basketball or architect claimed in USA Today that Unit 6 Unplugged was “by far football teams, if at all. I try to communicate the excellent education my favorite design.” ODU provided by the quality of my work,” Whealton said. “The Team Tidewater finished a credible 14th place in the global prin ciples ODU taught me are the foundation to my current success, competition ranking in the top 10 in seven of the categories. The two and if I had to make the choice again, I would not change to any more schools have qualified for the 2013 Solar Decathlon finals in Irvine, ‘prestigious’ institution.” California, with a new design entitled Canopy House. Old Dominion students can compete. Old Dominion engineering Resit Unal, chair of Old Dominion’s engineering management and students have participated in national and international competitions. systems engineering department, said the engineering students who Students have designed dune buggies for the Society of Automotive took part in the Solar Decathlon were “a credit to the entire university.” Engineers “Baja” racer competition, and remote-controlled helicopters Unal personally contributed to the effort – he barely saw his wife, for the International Aerial Robotics Competition. Old Dominion Mujde Erten-Unal, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering students have participated in more lighthearted and en gineering and faculty leader for Solar Decathlon, in the months phil anthropic competitions as well, including the annual Duct Tape leading up to the competition. Regatta to benefit the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, the CanStruction Competition to benefit the Foodbank of Southeastern Campus life has changed for faculty and students in many ways in Above: A dune buggy designed for Virginia, and Red Bull Flugtag 2011, a contest for which mechanical the past 50 years, and perhaps through no greater way than in the the Society of Automotive Engineers engineering students constructed an aerodynamic oWce desk. creation of an on-campus population of students. Thirty years ago, “Baja” racer competition. Old Dominion University had fewer than 1,000 residence beds. Now, Competing in the 2011 Solar Decathlon presented Old Dominion there are almost 5,000, and another 2,000 students live within a mile Below and opposite: Work being engineering students a new platform on which to bolster their bona of campus. conducted at Sylvain Marsillac's fides. A dedicated group of civil and environmental engineering students Photovoltaic Laboratory. teamed up with a group of architecture students from Hampton “I used to come here Saturdays to work, because the campus was Uni versity in the Department of Energy-sponsored competition which deserted,” said Bob Ash, professor and eminent scholar of mechanical asks collegiate teams to design and build net-zero energy homes. and aerospace engineering and a veteran of the Batten College. “Now, during football season, I can’t even ride my bike because the campus is Team Tidewater, as the collective became known, worked for nearly just filled.” two years on Unit 6 Unplugged, an urban infill housing apartment block as aesthetically pleasing as it was energy eWcient. At the 2011 The 2009 re-launch of Old Dominion’s football team has grown the Solar Decathlon finals in Washington, D.C., a writer and professional profile of the entire university, and further boosted the sense of campus

98 99 community. Even skeptics once concerned about the cost of starting a Oktay Baysal: The Steady Hand football program now rave about the exposure the football Monarchs Offering Leadership to Old Dominion University have brought Old Dominion University. Engineering faculty members note with pride that star quarterback Taylor Heinicke is a student in Old Dominion University was supposed to be a short career “The concept of not only departments, but also centers for the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology. detour. Oktay Baysal planned to use his doctoral degree for a re search and economic development, was really important,” few years at Old Dominion, then go back to the Gulf Coast to Baysal said. “Those were very entrepreneurial, and very much Football has become such a boon to the University, that at the fall join the family steel trading business. engaging with your own community and your own research. 2012 Homecoming game, ODU engineering sponsored a tailgate party That was the beginning of what today, the entire university “I wanted to come and stay maybe a couple on Kaufman Mall in front of the engineering building. The graduates has realized. Now, it is becoming a lot more of years, do some research with NASA. than just offering degrees.” returning to campus scarcely recognized the place. That’s every Ph.D. engineer’s dream. The plan “When you’re was not to stay in academia,” Baysal said. Baysal became acting dean in 2002, when “This is just phenomenal,” said Oscar Gomiez, as he looked around The dream of working at NASA turned out to working on things Bill Swart left for East Carolina University. Kaufman Mall with his wife and two of his five children. The 1997 be simply too good to leave for Baysal, now Jim Cross, who was dean himself from me chanical engineering graduate, who earned his master of science in in his 30th year at Old Dominion, and in his that you could only 1984 to 1997 and an aerospace engineering aerospace engineering from Old Dominion in 1999, said the diXerence eighth year as dean of the Frank Batten Col - dream about, colleague, said Baysal has done a very good lege of Engineering and Technology. job connecting with his faculty, particularly in a decade in his alma mater was hard to fathom. “The dorms look designing things fellow foreigners. Baysal moved to the United diXerent. The grounds look diXerent. There are more buildings. The “NASA made the difference,” he said. “It’s States in 1978 after studying in England, just an unbelievable place. When you’re like rockets, when buzz is there,” he said. and is originally from Turkey. working on things that you could only dream John Temple, a 1981 mechanical engineering graduate who has about, designing things like rockets, when you see that you The benefit he had in taking the dean’s job you see that you are working on hypersonic are working on is that Baysal “grew up with” many of his worked at Dominion Virginia Power since leaving Old Dominion, airplanes, flying many times the speed of current faculty professionally. “That gave me was attending his first football game on campus that day. “It’s just sound, these are things that you don’t do at hypersonic a huge advantage,” he said. “They were my won derful. I’m glad the school has done so well in many ways. I came any other school.” airplanes, flying colleagues; they were not my faculty as a back here three years ago and couldn’t find Kaufman Mall, the campus dean. In fact, some of them were my role Baysal could do all of that only 22 miles many times the models when I came here as an assistant had grown so much,” Temple said. from his front door. “NASA Langley was an professor at the age of 28. absolutely wonderful place to go to work speed of sound, Even more illustrative are the words of long-time faculty members. Below: Mounir Laroussi’s plasma every day,” he said. “I learned many things from them. I Iearned Each had their own story of the school’s modest beginnings, and their these are things that who they are, I learned what they like. I pencil has shown promise at using Baysal’s research helped him advance quickly own way of expressing pride in what Batten College has grown into. learned what they didn’t like.” cold plasma to kill leukemia cells. at Old Dominion, becoming a full professor you don’t do at any at age 38, and an eminent scholar at 41. other school.” By acting as a servant leader for his col leagues, Baysal said that has allowed The campus Baysal arrived to from Louisiana them to shine, and collectively bring Old State University, where he did his doctorate, Dominion engineering more and more was very small. It was also modestly equipped. “There were ac complishments. “Your duty in my position is have the vision just ridiculously small computers. I was doing computational to point them in the right direction, then get out of the way design, and needed massive parallel computers. There was no when they are progressing to great things.” such thing here,” Baysal said. “But I did see the desire of the university to excel, to get better. That was obvious.” And the burgeoning partnership with NASA, started more than a decade earlier, was an obvious strength of the young engineering school. “It not only transformed me, it transformed the university,” Baysal said. “I would say half of the faculty, we were at NASA. The reason that we came here was for NASA. It really brought and kept good faculty. We could see the opportunity that we had here. This is like the Mecca, the Who’s Who in aerospace research; they come to spend some time here.” By the late 1980s, when he was considering academic offers from other universities, Baysal felt the momentum spreading across the entire engineering college. The departments of the college were not only growing their own research, they were seeking out partnerships across and outside the university.

101 “This is truly a national-caliber research engineering college,” Ash said. “It’s been a fun 30-plus years at ODU,” said Alok Verma, Ray Ferrari Professor of engineering technology, and director of Old Dominion’s Lean Institute. “I’ve seen this university grow from a small institution to a well-known university. I think we can really build this pipeline for a skilled workforce, and improve the productivity of the United States economy.” Where does the school go from here? A growth spurt is possible, as Batten College moves into its 50,000- square-foot Engineering Systems Building, which will feature a state-of-the-art clean room, a lasers lab, a plasma science lab and studio space where students can collaborate on research projects. Baysal said that will help accelerate ODU engineering’s learn by dis covery motto even more. Gary Schafran, chair of civil and environmental engineering, hopes that Batten College doubles in size. “I mean, it certainly is justifiable by the region that we’re in. We’re in a major metropolitan area. Engi neering is important for economic development,” he said. Growth, change and new advances are something Baysal guarantees will happen with the Batten College. “We’re builders,” Baysal said. “We’re not about just sustaining something. We have a very proud past, but I believe we also have a very bright future.”

102 103 Look at us now. To think it all started in the old Larchmont Elementary School building on Hampton Boulevard in 1931. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology, here are 50 notable milestones in the College’s history. AUGUST 1962 l J. Harold Lampe SEPTEMBER 1969 l Old Dominion APRIL 1975 l The School of Thanks to the diligence and passion of the faculty, delays his retirement and moves to joins with other Virginia universities Engineering sponsors its first “Women staff and students of the Batten College, there are Norfolk from North Carolina State, in forming the Virginia Associated in Engineering” conference, designed be coming the first Dean of the School Re search Campus (VARC) in Hampton, to inform female high school students thousands more, and they happen every day. of Engineering. a graduate program in engineering of opportunities in engineering. created to provide skilled professionals to NASA, the Army research center at APRIL 29-30 & MAY 1, 1965 l Fort Eustis and Newport News Ship OCTOBER 1981 l ODU Kaufman Hall, the new engineering Building and Dry Dock. researchers led by G. Marshall Molen, building at Old Dominion, opens in a associate professor of electrical three-day ceremony. Governor Albertis engineering, receive a grant of SEPTEMBER 1931 l Following an FEBRUARY 1941 l The federal JANUARY 1961 l Eight years S. Harrison, who spoke on the first AUGUST 1971 l The Engineering $613,079 from the U.S. Navy, the agreement between the presidents De partment of Education selects the after the introduction of the first four- night of dedication, declared the Laboratory Building, eventually named largest non-NASA grant ever received of William and Mary and Virginia Norfolk Division of VPI as one of the year degrees offered entirely at the build ing was a tangible sign that “the Duckworth Hall, is opened, adjacent to by the School of Engineering. Poly technic Institute (now Virginia sites for its Engineering Defense Training Norfolk Division, President Lewis next century in America belongs to the Kaufman Hall on the University mall. Tech), engineering classes are offered Program. The program, conducted by Webb raised the idea of an engineering South.” in Norfolk for the first time. VPI students engineering schools throughout the school in Norfolk to the state Legislature. AUGUST 1984 l Jim Cross arrives from Hampton Roads can do their first United States, taught courses like The idea was opposed by the state’s SEPTEMBER 1971 l Twelve months in Norfolk from Texas A&M University, two years of engineering education at ex plosives production and engineering two existing engineering schools, the JULY 1966 l Ralph Rotty, of after absorbing the former Technical as the fourth dean of the College of home, before finishing their degree in principles of aircraft. University of Virginia and VPI. Tulane University, becomes the second Institute, the Old Dominion University Engineering. Blacksburg, Virginia. dean of the Old Dominion School of School of Engineering is approved by Engineering, after Lampe’s retirement. the State Council for Higher Education SPRING 1946 l The hands-on skills 1962 l Three out-of-state engineering to start the first four-year engineering NOVEMBER 1984 l Old Dominion AUGUST 1932 l Two young taught during World War II were in deans join representatives from Old technology programs in the state. University sets up its Engineering engineering master’s graduates at VPI, demand after the war’s end, leading Dominion, University of Virginia and APRIL 1968 l Gene Goglia, chair Clinic, an operation designed to match Lewis Webb and Edward White, are to the creation of the Norfolk Division VPI on the panel deciding whether of Old Dominion’s thermal engineering up companies needing help with the dispatched to their home town of of the William and Mary Technical to grant a third engineering school department, is awarded a grant of FEBRUARY 1972 l The first College’s engineering expertise. Norfolk to teach at this new engineering Institute, initially operating in makeshift for the state. The three out-of-state $213,800 to conduct summer research Engi neering Open House is held. school. Both men would stay on campus classrooms under the grandstands at representatives unanimously recommend institutes at NASA’s Langley Research The doors of Kaufman Hall and what for the next 40 years. Foreman Field. an engineering school for Hampton Center. This is the first grant in a would become Duckworth Hall are JULY 1987 l Larry Richards and Roads. The Virginia General Assembly suc cessful partnership that has lasted opened to teachers, schoolchildren, Resit Unal create one of the country’s agrees, and authorizes its creation. almost 50 years. and the community. first engineering management programs OCTOBER 1939 l A Civilian Pilot APRIL 1959 l The Technical Institute The formal relationship with VPI ends at Old Dominion University. Training (CPT) program is created at moves into new headquarters across in September 1963. the Norfolk Division in October 1939 Hampton Boulevard from the ODU JULY 1974 l John Weese, from the by the Civil Aviation Authority. Part of campus. The building was hailed by University of Denver, is hired as the third America’s national defense plan, the the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch and Star full-time dean of the Old Dominion CPT offered four full college credits in as “the finest technical school in the Uni versity School of Engineering. aeronautics and helped prepare the vicinity, tailor-made to turn out nation for eventual war. techni cians in specialized areas.”

104 105 OCTOBER 1994 l The Department SEPTEMBER 1996 l After Old JUNE 1999 l Old Dominion JULY 2001 l ODU pioneers a AUGUST 2002 l Old Dominion JUNE 2004 l Old Dominion of Defense’s Joint Training, Analysis Do minion University had underwritten University hosts the first academic pro gram with the U.S. Navy nuclear University forms its Frank Reidy Center Univer sity’s E.V. Williams Engineering and Simulation Center (JTASC) is the initial funding for the creation of a conference in the world in the emerging submarine fleet, providing officers with for Bioelectrics, after being named the and Computational Sciences Building charged with developing the capacity modeling and simulation academic field of bioelectrics. Researchers from an opportunity to earn a master’s lead institution on a $5 million Multi- opens, becoming the first LEED-certified to conduct joint simulation training program, ODU’s Virginia Modeling, around the globe come to Norfolk. de gree in engineering management University Research Initiative Grant, building on a higher education campus exercises. After meeting with senior Analysis and Simulation Center begins on CD-ROM. More than 250 naval thanks to support from Reidy, a local in Virginia. Old Dominion University officials, operating in the Tidewater Community of ficers sign up for the program in the businessman. JTASC and the College of Engineering College building in Portsmouth. JULY 2000 l With a three-year first three years. and Technology begin work on a joint grant from the Department of Defense NOVEMBER 2007 l The new proposal for ODU to be the academic and Department of Homeland Security, FEBRUARY 2003 l A replica of the headquarters of the Virginia Modeling, lead for the initiative. NOVEMBER 1996 l Environmental Vijay Asari begins work on a computer - AUGUST 2001 l Old Dominion Wright brothers’ first plane, the Wright Analysis and Simulation Center, along engineering student Samantha Salvia based facial image detection and University launches its foray into Flyer, is brought to the Langley Full- with the ODU Tri-Cities Center, opens becomes Old Dominion University’s recognition system, which will become magnetic levitation (maglev) technology, Scale Tunnel to be wind tested before in Suffolk. JULY 1995 l The Virginia first (and still only) Rhodes Scholar. the ODU Vision Lab. erecting a white test-track “guideway” re-enacting the historic first flight for Commercial Space Flight Authority is on campus, partially running behind mankind on December 17, 2003. founded to manage the Wallops Island Kaufman Hall. JANUARY 2010 l ODU begins NASA launch facility, now known as JULY 1997 l Bill Swart comes to MARCH 2001 l The Center for offering an undergraduate degree in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Old Dominion University from the Ad vanced Engineering Environments JANUARY 2004 l The Lean modeling, simulation and visualization ODU Engineering Management Newark College of Engineering – New (CAEE) is founded under the direction NOVEMBER 2001 l Following the Institute is created in 2004, as a engineering, becoming the first Professor Billie Reed is named executive Jersey Institute of Technology, as the fifth of Ahmed K. Noor, Lobeck Chair and attacks of September 11, the Batten divi sion of the College’s Department university in the United States to offer director, a position he holds until dean of the College of Engineering Eminent Scholar of Modeling, Simulation College creates the National Center of Engineering Technology, to aid a complete post-secondary education November 2012. and Technology. and Visualization. The center develops for System of Systems Engineering, to com panies in the transition to lean in modeling and simulation, from innovative technologies, strategies and help provide solutions to increasingly manufacturing techniques, and train undergraduate through post-doctoral. approaches for advanced learning complex interdisciplinary engineering educators in the discipline. AUGUST 1996 l ODU’s College of AUGUST 1998 l Nine students en vironments and networks. questions for government and military Engineering and Technology signs an begin a course of study in Old agencies. JANUARY 2010 l Magnetic agreement with NASA Langley to take Dominion University’s newly created MAY 2004 l The Frank Batten levitation technology company over operation of the Langley Full-Scale master’s program in modeling and MAY 2001 l Four universities open College of Engineering and Technology MagneMotion receives a $7.9 million Tunnel, a giant wind tunnel facility that simulation engineering. a research partnership in Newport NOVEMBER 2001 l Oktay Baysal, creates the Virginia Applied Technology grant from the Federal Transit had been shuttered by NASA a year News known as the Applied Research professor and eminent scholar of and Professional Development Center, Adminis tration to test its patented earlier. Center, housing scientists and inventors aerospace engineering, is named a further evolution of the former maglev technology at ODU. The ODU JANUARY 1999 l W. Channing from Old Dominion University, in terim dean. In 2004, he would be Engi neering Clinic, to do a full range researchers, along with MMI, begin Blackwell, a civil engineering student, Christopher Newport University, the named the sixth dean of the Batten of services, from outreach to schools, plans to install new track on a portion becomes the first undergraduate College of William and Mary, and College of Engineering and Technology. to grant procurement for military of the guideway, completing that work student in Virginia history to earn a Norfolk State University, along with the veter ans. in 2012. U.S. patent. Jefferson Lab.

106 107 MAY 2010 l The ODU Business OCTOBER 2011 l Team Tidewater, OCTOBER 2012 l At a ceremony Gateway is launched, expanding a team of engineering students from Old marking the kick-off for the College the scope of the Virginia Applied Dominion University and architecture of Engineering’s 50th anniversary Technology and Professional students from Hampton University, cele bration, ground is broken for the Development Center to encompass compete in the Department of Energy Batten College’s Engineering Systems the entirety of the University’s Solar Decathlon finals in Washington, Building , which will be the most resources, acting as a one-stop shop D.C. mod ern engineering building in the for companies, government agencies state when it opens in 2014. and military organizations seeking ODU’s research and management JULY 2012 l Sylvain Marsillac, expertise. associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, opens his Pho tovoltaics Laboratory, putting plans into action to erect solar panels on the Opposite: Engineering students Brittany roof of Kaufman Hall. Garman and Fred Hughes.

108 109 Acknowledgments

This is dedicated to every person who has had a hand in building the Batten College of Engineering and Technology from the ground up. It was created in spite of resistance, built without resources, and has grown to be a vital part of Old Dominion University and the Hampton Roads community. It’s an honor to tell this story. Thank you to a number of people who have helped in the cre ation of this book. Thank you to the three dozen current and former faculty and staX members who graciously provided their time and memories. Thank you to Sonia Yaco, Special Collections Librarian at the ODU Archives, for her eagerness to help and for her excitement about the project. Thanks to Kristyn Danson, of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology, for her expertise and support. Thank you to Dean Baysal for coming up with the idea to publish a book on the College history and for providing the funds to make it happen. Thank you as well to others who have helped the project, including but not limited to Stacey Nixon, Fred Butler, Brittany Garman, Chuck Thomas, and especially Linda Lauby of Outer Banks Press. Her optimism and energy helped make this very worthwhile project possible.

– Brendan O’Hallarn Old Dominion University is Virginia’s forward-focused metropolitan research university for students who want rigorous academics and an energetic residential community. ODU’s nationally recognized faculty use real-world expertise and award-winning teaching to challenge students to achieve their highest goals. The university’s engaging and relevant learning opportunities teach skills for personal and professional success. With a determined entrepreneurial approach that drives research and collaboration with business, the university contributes nearly $1 billion annually to the local economy.

112