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July 17, 2007

Engineering

Senior lecturer in new role

The college’s student affairs assistant dean will take on many student-relation tasks.

Story by: Ray Edward Buffington IV

The Shorthorn staff

The creation of a new student-friendly dean position in the College of Engineering has led to the appointment of a current faculty member and alumna.

Senior lecturer J. Carter Tiernan, the computer science and engineering outreach program director, was selected by administration to step up as the College of Engineering student affairs assistant dean.

Lynn Peterson, academic affairs associate dean, said she and Engineering Dean Bill Carroll noticed a need to increase “emphasis on student affairs within the College of Engineering.”

“We’ve had suggestion boxes for forever, and it works pretty well because people can be anonymous,” she said. “On the other hand, having someone serving as [a student] advocate is what we had in mind for this role.”

She said that after planning and organizing for about a year, they presented the idea of the new position to college administration and received the OK to find someone to fill it.

Peterson said she and Carroll already had the perfect faculty member in mind.

“Rather than saying we opened up a job and interviewed for it, it is more like we knew [Tiernan’s] skill set and we made the appointment agree with what she could do,” Peterson said. “It was a match for the job.”

Tiernan, an alumna who has taught at the university since 2001, said she was happy to take the position.

“I know that I don’t know a lot of things, and I don’t want to make any mistakes,” she said. “This is a big area of trust, a big responsibility. I’ve always tried very hard to work well with students, to make sure that I was doing whatever they needed and to do more if I could by being an open door.”

The job will include handling engineering student activities, outreach activities, recruiting, working with freshman interest groups, directing engineering summer camps, acting as ombudsman for engineering students and serving as faculty adviser for the Joint Council for Engineering Organizations and the Society of Women Engineers.

Tiernan will continue teaching a computer science course.

“I think it is important for me to keep teaching,” she said. “If I am going to be a student affairs person, I think being in the classroom is the best way for me to keep part of that connection. Students in your class are oftentimes the first way you hear things.”

As for right now, Tiernan is in the middle of changing offices while trying to ease into her new title.

“I’m just getting up to speed right now. It is looking like a very interesting, fun thing to do, but I’m still trying to learn,” she said. “I want to make sure that I am doing everything right so that I can do everything right for the students.”