Seasoned administrator chosen to lead Technology

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Dr. Faris Malhas, a professor and dean of the Leonard C. Nelson College of Engineering and Sciences at West Virginia University-Institute of Technology, will be the next dean of Bowling Green State University’s College of Technology, Provost Ken Borland has announced. He will begin his position at BSGU on June 15.

The BGSU College of Technology comprises the departments of architecture and environmental design, construction management, engineering technologies, and visual communication and technology education. Malhas was chosen after a national search.

“The search committee was impressed with Dr. Malhas’s leadership and diversified academic and professional background. He shares the college’s commitment to facilitating possibilities for our students to develop as professionals, which is vital in each of the college’s disciplines,” Borland said. “Dr. Malhas is ready to lead the College of Technology toward the new horizon of integrated science, technology and engineering education, research and professions.”

Malhas has been a university administrator for the last 13 years while maintaining his professional engineering practice. He has helped establish new graduate and undergraduate programs at three institutions.

“It is a privilege to work at an institution with the reputation of BGSU,” Malhas said. “I feel that I have the skills and the background to really develop the College of Technology’s great untapped potential and be part of the team to help take it to the next level both in national reputation and as a contributor to the region’s economy. I can see many, many good things for the college and the region.”

At WVU, Malhas oversees nine academic departments with 15 bachelor’s degrees and one master’s degree. Six of the programs are in technology. As dean, he has led several successful accreditation processes for the college’s various divisions and helped promote student recruitment, which resulted in a 20 percent increase in new student enrollment last fall. He also helped to secure $2.8 million for clean energy research and establish a Center of Excellence in Energy at WVU.

Bowling Green will not be the new dean’s first experience with Ohio. From 2005-09, he was chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Dayton, where he oversaw three academic disciplines comprising undergraduate and graduate programs. While there, he led the effort to develop a graduate certificate program in construction management.

From 2000-05, he served as founding coordinator of the Civil Engineering Program at the University of North Florida, building the program from the ground up and coordinating its successful accreditation.

Malhas has 23 years’ experience and educator in engineering technology and construction education, both in the United States and the Middle East. The co-author of several books, his primary interests have been in structural behavior and design of steel and concrete structures. He was elected last fall as a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute.

“As an engineering educator, I am interested in innovative global engineering that responds to the engineering challenges of the modern world,” he said.

He has a Ph.D. in civil engineering and a master’s degree in engineering mechanics, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, and a pre-engineering degree from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

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(Posted March 28, 2011 )