J. Murray Gibson, dean of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering since July 2016, is stepping down in December.
In moving up 51 points, US News and World Report ranked it No. 69 among all doctoral granting undergraduate engineering schools in the U.S. It is ranked No. 40 among public universities, up 37 spots since 2019.`
Gibson, a tenured FAMU faculty member in mechanical engineering, will go on sabbatical during the spring 2022 semester and return to the college that fall where he will teach and conduct research.
He called department chairs Tuesday afternoon to notify them of his decision and engineering faculty, staff and students were told by email. Alumni were being notified Wednesday morning.
Prior to coming to Tallahassee, Gibson, 67, served as the founding dean of Northeastern University’s College of Science, where he was credited with raising millions of dollars in education funding.
Before that, he was a professor in one of the nation’s top 10 engineering schools, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he trained 15 doctoral students.