Congratulations on the upcoming Olympics in Beijing.Chicago hopes to host the Olympics in 2016.

This has been an exciting fall for your alma mater. On October 30, we will inaugurate IIT's eighth president, Dr. John L. Anderson, who is a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering. Our enrollment is growing. A new University Technology Park and business incubator at the south end of the Main Campus is providing jobs for students as well as helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Three new cohorts of Chinese MPA students have arrived: Officials from Liaoning Province, from Dalian City, and from Zhejiang Province.

I'm happy to report that the number of degree-seeking students from Mainland China has grown dramatically from 332 in 2006 fall to 505 in 2007 fall. This year we were delighted to welcome, in addition to our own students, many pre-doctoral scholars from Chinese universities who are sponsored by the Chinese government to do some of their dissertation research on our campus.

An important area of research for IIT is energy and environmental sustainability. Several IIT research centers focus on it, including the Energy and Sustainability Institute, the business school's Center for Sustainable Enterprise, and the College of Architecture 's International Center for Sustainable New Cities, which has just sent a team of students to China to work with students at Tongji to develop a design for a sustainable new city on Chongming Island . Other researchers are working on hybrid and solar powered vehicles.

Our faculty and new president send to you their warmest greetings and invite you to keep in touch with each other and with IIT.

With best regards,

Darsh T. Wasan

Vice President – International Affairs

And Motorola Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering