It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC).

A critical component of any enterprise is communication. It is incumbent upon a global entity such as the GEDC to find effective venues for dialoguing internationally with and amongst its members. One such vehicle is this GEDC website which was developed by Michigan State University (MSU) and the Secretariat of the GEDC. Another forum is GEDC meetings. The Council holds regular meetings surrounding four “tracks” identified as critical competencies for the GEDC to focus upon to advance its’ Global agenda. These tracks are: How to be a successful Dean/Professor, What is a “Global Engineer”, Technology Innovation in Engineering Education, and Partnerships. Accommodating for its diverse membership, the GEDC has met in Brazil, France, the U.S., Hungary, and my home – Turkey. I invite you to attend this year’s October meeting which will be held in Singapore.

As the current GEDC Chair, I will use a collaborative approach to develop a strategic plan in support of the main goals of the Council which are to provide engineering deans and rectors with ideas, tools, and “best” practices necessary to become innovative leaders of engineering education. The plan will include a strategy for communication, collaboration, networking and growth that will be implemented over a five year time period.

There are 4,000 Engineering Colleges in the world, producing one million engineers annually. It is the intent of the GEDC to grow its membership and capacity to support and promote engineering internationally. To that end, I encourage you to use the resources provided through the website, share the web address with colleagues, and “Contact Us” with your comments. I am very excited about chairing the GEDC this year and the collective progress we will make as a global community of engineering educators.