Colorado State University’s College of Engineering Ranked One of the Nation’s Best by U.S. News & World Report

Colorado State University’s College of Engineering ranks among the best graduate programs in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report’s "America’s Best Graduate Schools 2005" released today (April 2). The Colorado State graduate engineering program is ranked 53rd in the nation for 2005, up three places from 56th in 2004. The school’s undergraduate program was ranked 57th best engineering program in the country for 2003.

"The College of Engineering at Colorado State University is consistently rated one of the nation’s top programs, at the graduate and undergraduate levels, because we recruit excellent students and are committed to hiring only the best faculty who place a top priority on teaching while also aggressively pursuing cutting-edge research," said Peter Nicholls, provost at Colorado State.

Among other accolades, within the last year Colorado State’s engineering college was awarded two National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers. Technology developed through research conducted at the new NSF Engineering Research Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Science and Technology, headquartered at Colorado State and a joint collaboration among Colorado State, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of California at Berkeley, will study extreme ultraviolet science and laser technology that can create atom-sized computer circuitry, technology that promises economic gains for industry in the region and nation.

Colorado State is also teaming with the University of Massachusetts in the new NSF Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, or CASA, that will revolutionize weather sensing technology and ensure earlier and more accurate forecasts of hazardous weather events. In addition, the engineering college directs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funded Rocky Mountain Regional Hazardous Substance Research Center for remediation of mine waste sites.

In total, the college generated $40 million in sponsored research in fiscal year 2003-04, a 30 percent increase over the last five years.

Colorado State’s College of Engineering, the first engineering program in the state, offers a wide variety of graduate programs in its departments of atmospheric science, chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering. There are approximately 604 graduate students among the 2074 total students in the college.

"We are pleased to again be ranked among the top programs in the nation, and will continue to move the College of Engineering toward new levels of excellence," said Steven Abt, interim dean of the College of Engineering. "However, the knowledge our graduates obtain and the valuable skills they take into the workforce remain our primary measures of success."

For information about Colorado State’s College of Engineering, or specific degree programs, go to the college’s Web site at www.engr.colostate.edu.