The Future of the Department of Bioresources Engineering (BREG)

The Department of Bioresources Engineering (BREG) and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) Dean’s office have explored the possibility of disbanding BREG and phasing out the undergraduate academic program over a period of 4-5 years. These discussions have been based on the following guiding principles.

1.   Students in the undergraduate program would be given the option of transferring to another program (perhaps the Agriculture and Natural Resources major) or given the opportunity to finish out their degree in BREG.  Thus, the BREG undergraduate academic program would end in approximately 4-5 years. 

2.   Students in the graduate program (MS) would be given the option of transferring to the department where their major professor has elected to move or completing the MS degree requirements of BREG. 

3. All BREG faculty members will have the option of joining another department or reporting directly to the college rather than a specific department if they do not know what department would be the most appropriate to join.  As part of this process, BREG members have been encouraged to explore where they would be best positioned and most productive in the future. In either case, their workload assignment will likely change somewhat to meet the needs of their new area of responsibility.

4.  Faculty who intend to seek promotion in the near future could be evaluated based on the criteria of BREG or they could elect to use the criteria of any department that they join.  If they use the BREG P&T criteria and they are seeking promotion to full professor, the department evaluation committee would need to be largely comprised of individuals from outside the department in accordance with the department’s policy since there are no full professors in the department now except for the department chair.  The option to use the BREG P&T policy would remain available until the academic program ends.  Thus, it is expected that this option would be available for about 4-5 years.

BREG members and the Dean’s office will continue to work through any unforeseen complications that may arise from the disbanding of BREG. The goals are to strengthen the ability of the University of Delaware to provide research and outreach relative to the agricultural and natural resource engineering needs of the University’s constituents; to integrate the engineering expertise of the BREG faculty into other academic programs, scientific disciplines and departments; and to place individuals in environments where they are well positioned to be successful and productive in the future.

________ Disband BREG in accordance with the principles listed above.

________ Do not disband BREG.

[Note: On March 18^th, the faculty of the BREG Department met and voted using this ballot. Shreeram Inamdar tallied the ballots. The vote was 7 in favor of disbanding, 1 opposed, and 1 abstention. RWM]