The search for the next dean of Iowa State’s College of Engineering continued with Erick Jones, associate dean in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas in Arlington, who hosted his open forum Wednesday at Iowa State.

Jones started his presentation by saying that students, faculty and staff should realize that academics should be a priority. He presented ideas such as expanding land grants, reforming teaching methods and preparing students from Iowa State to be ready in the workforce.

Jones said that land grants allow more opportunities for faculty to expand their research outside of the College of Engineering. He said that research could be taken to the next step if faculty and staff members are involved with a variety of other topics than just engineering related projects.

“The idea that [the] future for science and education alignment, is by…‘convergence,’ [which] is getting outside the engineering department,” Jones said.

Jones also introduced the idea of reforming the way students learn in a classroom setting and how he wants to educate the future generation. Jones said there is a difference between actively teaching, rather than passively only using research. He said it is the role of researchers, who also serve as professors, to explain their study in a way that others can understand.

“It’s one thing to have these great researchers, but if they can’t translate that to the classroom, then we’re missing something,” Jones said.

Jones said the last method he would use in the College of Engineering would be to expand “soft skills,” such as communication and time management, for the students entering into the workforce to have a competitive edge when it comes to looking for jobs. These skills would allow students to present different ideas and gain multiple abilities to contribute to the workforce.

With this set of ideas, Jones concluded that the next level for Iowa State is to push the boundaries for the future.

“This is the framework that federal agencies are looking at to try out the next ideas not only for research, but for education and also how we would impact our community today [and] tomorrow,” Jones said.