David Ford, who has been the dean of Central Michigan University's College of Science and Engineering since 2021, announced his resignation in early January, effective March 31.

While he's currently preparing to become the dean of the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering at Mississippi State University, Ford said he's also reflecting on his experiences at CMU and his lasting legacy on students.

“It’s the power of a place like CMU, right?" Ford said. "You don’t have to be a superstar, you don’t have to have a ton of money. You can come here, and you can go find a way to either make your dream come true or find that dream that maybe you didn’t know you had.”

Legacy of InSciTE

Ford said in his work at CMU, he is most proud of establishing Integration of Science, Technology and Engineering program, also called InSciTe.

InSciTE is a 15-credit course that takes first-year students and assigns them to a group of other students in the program meant to take them through their entire college experience. He said the goal is for students to learn how to synergize and collaborate in different areas such as chemistry, math, science and engineering with more focus on student involvement and direction than the traditional classroom.

Ford said three years after the project was started, with the essential help of Dr. Wiline Pangle who became director of InSciTe, the program has a 90% retention rate and 65 students enrolled for 2025.

He said he was proud of the program that has given students experience and skills to operate in an interdisciplinary environment that has also gave strong-peer relations between students in the program. It has not only established itself at CMU but also wider in the country.

“That is the idea ... that has exceeded my wildest dreams of accomplishment," he said. "I’m just really proud of it."

Ford said he got this idea from his time at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Integrated Concentration Science or ICONS.

“I said 'If I ever get the opportunity to be a dean, this is an idea that I have to revisit,'” he said.

Ford's career in education

A long line of institutions in his career gave Ford a wealth of ideas on how and what policies and programs to introduce to support students in CSE, he said.

Ford has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Buffalo, a master's of Science and a doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been in the business of chemical engineering for over 30 years.

He compared the process of figuring out one's purpose to combining different compounds in chemistry.

“Everybody’s in some type of process," Ford said. "You want to design your own process and how to figure out to get there. To me, that's at the heart of chemical engineering."

Ford became the dean of the College of Science and Engineering at CMU during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in June of 2021, coming from the University of Arkansas as a professor and the chair of their science and engineering department.

Ford said he always wanted to be a dean and so he “casted a pretty wide” geographic net while he was looking for the best opportunity that aligned with him and his skillset. He said that it wasn’t such a drastic leap for him as he has worked in different parts across the country in various institutions and positions.

Serving as a dean of Science and Engineering

Ford said he had two typical days as the dean of CSE.

One day was being the face of the college, going out and building relationships with companies and industrial leaders for more opportunities for students to gain skills and experience as well as engaging with alumni to arrange scholarships.

His other type of day was meeting with “internal partners” such as the provost, checking in with other departments, doing some “firefighting” when issues pop up and investing in the right ideas and people when needed.

In fact, Ford said one of the highlights of his experience at CMU was his participation in the annual cardboard boat race for a fundraiser for the InSciTe program.

Ford reflected on the story of him, former president Bob Davies and Pangle riding on a boat made by InSciTe program students across the Rose Ponds in October 2024, describing it as the biggest turnout in all three times of going there.

“So we got in that boat, and we started paddling, and there are people like screaming for us for about five minutes," he said. "I got to experience what it must be like for an athlete in a game (with) people cheering for you.”

Ford said the boat nearly collapsed, and that the group drifted to the finish line as Davies barely held it together with his hands. He said they somehow did not get wet in the process, but the former president pulled him and Pangle right back in just so they would get wet.

“That's something I will always remember, because it just brought together a lot of things," Ford said. "It was the InSciTe program, it was the president, it was Dr. Pangle who’s a good friend, and it was doing something.”

The event raised $3,000 dollars for InSciTe, through a series of bets that could be made on how far (or not far at all,) the boats would travel across the ponds. The bets ranged from $10 to $200.

Reflecting on his days at CMU

After his exit from CMU, Ford said he hopes that InSciTe continues to grow and becomes a model for the university that affects every other class in how its coaching and mechanics of how the course works.

He also said he hopes that his contacts with the Department of Defense, among others, will continue to allow students to gain experience and jobs after they graduate. He said he wants outreach to recruit potential (students) who are interested in STEM, such as summer programs and one-day events that will continue to “plant seeds” to grow into thriving programs that attract students from all over Michigan to come to CMU.

Ford said he will take everything that he learned at CMU with him to his new role at Mississippi State University, where he plans to become Dean of the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering. He said CMU was his first experience being a college dean, and it's where he learned how to be a leader of an entire college.

“Some things were rough, some things were easy, and all of it was interesting and all of it was educational,” Ford said.

Ford said he will miss the students, staff and faculty at Central dearly.

“I really enjoy seeing the people that I see every day when I come to work,” Ford said. “There’s great people everywhere, I know, but I think there is something special about the people at CMU. Maybe it’s a Midwest thing, I don’t know what it is, but they’re genuinely nice people who want to do good for people.

"There’s a lot of people I like and love (here). A lot of (people) ... I will miss having day to day experiences with."