Hofstra to launch engineering school

Hofstra University plans to establish an engineering school to meet the expected demand for engineers and computer specialists, officials said Tuesday.

The board of trustees approved plans earlier this month to expand Hofstra's existing engineering and computer science departments to create the School of Engineering and Applied Science, which officials said would incorporate on-the-job training at regional companies.

Like Hofstra's new medical school, set to begin classes in August, the engineering and applied sciences school can help build a Long Island economy based more on technology jobs, officials said.

"We firmly believe the economic future of the region is ideas, high tech, science turning into commercial ventures in the future," said Hofstra president Stuart Rabinowitz. "Part of the goal is not just to build the sciences but also . . . putting together scientific discoveries with the knowledge and help of the business school and law school, and turning this into start-ups and commercialized ventures just as Stony Brook and Cold Spring Harbor see themselves in that role on the eastern end [of Long Island]."

The Hempstead university will launch a search for a founding dean in the fall, hoping to fill that position by June 2012 and to offer classes and programs soon afterward, said Hofstra provost Herman A. Berliner.

The university expects to add faculty and more than double the number of students in these fields. The university also anticipates renovating or adding facilities on campus for the new school. Officials said the cost of the school will be determined after the dean is hired but is expected "to be a substantial, multimillion-dollar investment."

Statewide demand in several science-based job markets is expected to increase in the coming decade. The number of biomedical engineers is projected to jump 57.1 percent, and the anticipated number of civil engineers to grow 9.8 percent between 2008 and 2018, said the state Department of Labor.

But industry leaders are not just looking for technical skills.

They want graduates "to have an understanding of the business environment," said Bernard J. Firestone, dean of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The lack of business experience and training has long been a hole in science education, and melding the two is crucial for the area's future economy, said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association.

Earlier this year, Hofstra joined other research institutions, including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory, in an initiative designed to help commercialize innovations emerging from these institutions. This new school is another step toward the goal of replacing the high-paying defense industry jobs Long Island lost in the 1980s and the 1990s, Kamer noted.