It is once again that time of year. The halls of all the buildings are filled with excited voices. The space outside my office is a hub of activity as students stop by to get advice on courses, to check on scholarships, and to talk about their futures. In the same way, Pullman's streets are full, we must actually wait in lines at the grocery store and we must wait to be seated at restaurants.

In the laboratories, students are becoming engaged in research projects that help them synthesize knowledge and develop new technologies that will advance the economy of the state and nation. This is the time of year, before students get embroiled in all the details of their classes, when professors and students alike are excited about knowledge that will be acquired and when the university is the most vibrant, exciting place one can be! So, this is not only an exciting time because all the students are back to Pullman, this is an exciting time because we can envision the impact that the students educated in the Voiland School will have on society.  While  we are excited about this coming year and all that it will hold, we are also humbled to realize that we are privileged to participate in the education of these future leaders!

Here are some tidbits about the Voiland School. Although our numbers are not yet official, we anticipate that this year we'll have 39 students enrolled in our junior level chemical engineering courses. This is the largest chemical engineering class in a very long time (back to when I had hair!). Moreover, future classes promise to be as large! At this point in time, 34 freshmen who are interested in chemical engineering have enrolled at WSU, and this fall 16 students transferred to WSU to study chemical engineering. Bioengineering is likewise growing. 29 freshmen have indicated an interest in studying bioengineering, and 2 students transferred to WSU to study bioengineering. Moreover, we have more than 30 chemical engineering graduate students, of whom 23 are seeking a PhD degree. This is a dramatic change from the past and reflects changes in the School that will add value to our graduates' degrees.

Below, I've included a few photos from an ice cream social held in the ETRL courtyard this fall. We served Ferdinands ice cream with "tar sand" topping.  In the comment section, please feel free to describe a memory about an experience you had when you came to WSU at the start of a fall semester. Thank you for your interest in the Voiland School.

--Jim