Central Michigan Life

Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: News

David Shen, former associate dean of engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University, speaks as a candidate for the Dean of the College of Science and Technology to forum members in Brooks Hall on Thursday. The members of the forum then fill out evaluation forms for comments on the candidate. [Click to enlarge]

David Shen believes a university is dying if it is not growing - and that Central Michigan University has a great potential to grow.

However, Shen, founder and director of the Lehman Center for Transportation Research at Florida International University, said he believes a medical school is not the right thing for CMU right now.

"As a candidate for the dean of College of Science and Technology, I would much prefer to see biology get its first Ph.D. program," Shen said. "The reason I'm making this is because biology covers a lot of basic continentals for medical school."

Shen said he would love a medical school, but every university that has a medical school always has a biology department with a Ph.D. program. CMU has expressed interest in the idea of creating a medical school, and already has a committee exploring the idea.

Shen said he looks forward to getting to chance to work with faculty and help CMU grow.

"What attracted me to Central Michigan University for this position is because of the opportunity to work with faculty from biology, from chemistry, from physics, from geology, and from geography, engineering and mathematics," he said.

At FIU, Shen's engineering college had five traditional engineering departments, a construction management department and a computing and information department.

Shen is the second of four finalists to visit CMU for an open forum to answer questions and meet faculty to replace Robert Kohrman, who retired from CMU's College of Science and Technology dean after serving for 10 years.

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