MTSU’s Concrete Industry Management Program officially will move from program status to become its own MTSU department starting July 1. On March 31, industry partners, alumni and friends joined MTSU students, faculty, staff and administrators in making the formal announcement.

Displaying the department’s new sign during the announcement event in the photo above are, from left, University Provost Brad Bartel; Dr. Heather Brown, CIM department chair; Dr. Tom Cheatham, dean of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences; and Dr. Walter Boles, chair of the Department of Engineering Technology.

CIM is leaving its parent department, engineering technology, to become the 10th department in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences. It was the first program of its kind in the country when students first took classes in fall 1996 and saw its first graduates in 2000. Brown and her staff are anticipating construction to begin in late 2012 on a new $8.5 million building on the east side of campus to house CIM. CIM has 315 majors and more than 500 alumni, and at least four other colleges and universities have had CIM program spinoffs from MTSU.