Trustees approve named department head position, academic department name change

Tom Shih
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (Dec. 16) approved the head of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics to a named department head position and new fees for Digital Education programs.

The board also approved changing an academic department name and granted two posthumous degrees at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and approved resolutions of appreciation to donors.

Tom Shih, professor and head of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, was ratified as the J. William Uhrig and Anastasia Vournas Head and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Shih has been a Purdue faculty member since 2009. Previously, he held faculty positions at Iowa State University, Michigan State University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Florida. His teaching and research interests are in fluid mechanics, heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, aerodynamics and propulsion.

Shih started his bachelor’s degree work at West Virginia University and completed it at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. His master’s and doctoral degrees are from the University of Michigan.

The board approved new Digital Education fees for online degree programs. The fees are $50 per credit hour for graduate-level online degree programs, and a $15 per credit hour proctoring fee for all graduate and undergraduate online courses. The fees will begin in the fall 2017.

IPFW’s Department of Organizational Leadership and Supervision will be renamed the Department of Organizational Leadership. The change came at the request of IPFW faculty and is now consistent with the department name on the West Lafayette campus.

Posthumous bachelor’s degrees were awarded to Chelsea B. Couch and Paula R. Owens. Deceased students who have earned at least 85 percent of their credit-hour requirements and satisfied most of the requirements for their major may be nominated for the posthumous degree.

The board approved a resolution of appreciation for friends of the university who have contributed $1 million or more to Purdue. Those honored are Bill Uhrig Jr. and Anastasia Vournas (School of Aeronautics and Astronautics), Marcy and Bob Ziek (to support the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Center for Cancer Research and Purdue Musical Organizations), and an anonymous donor (College of Engineering). 

Writer: Howard Hewitt, 765-494-9541, hhewitt@purdue.edu 

Source: Tom Shih, tomshih@purdue.edu