Jeff Ray Dean of College of Engineering and Technology Dies

Sent from the office of the chancellor to student email accounts on Monday at noon:

The Western Carolina University community is deeply saddened by the news of Dr. Jeff Ray’s passing. Dr. Ray served as the dean of the College of Engineering and Technology and tenured professor at WCU since 2014.

“We are all shocked and saddened by this tragic news,” said Richard Starnes, WCU Provost. “Jeff was a strong advocate for the College, our students, and for WCU. We will miss him dearly.”

Known for his sense of community and relentless optimism, Dr. Ray never failed to acknowledge and give kudos to his colleagues and others. He enjoyed celebrating holidays, colleagues’ birthdays, and his team’s achievements, and he was passionate about students and their success. He led the College through unprecedented growth in programs and student enrollment for the past seven years.

Eager to bring WCU students and science, technology, engineering and math (or STEM) subjects together, Dr. Ray, and his wife Tina, established the Hopkins and Ray Engineering and Technology Endowed Scholarship in June 2018. It was an amended version of their initial Hopkins and Ray FIRST Robotics Endowed Scholarship originally established in 2015 and named to honor their families, including Tina’s father, Thomas Edwin Hopkins. The expanded scholarship, made through a planned estate gift, is open to any WCU engineering or engineering technology student.

Prior to joining WCU, Dr. Ray served as the dean of the School of Engineering Technology and Management at Southern Polytechnic State University in Atlanta. Before then, Dr. Ray served as director and professor in the School of Engineering at Grand Valley State University from 2004 until 2007, and as associate professor and chair of the mechanical engineering program there from 1997 until 2004. He also previously was an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Youngstown State University and a biomedical research engineer at Vanderbilt University.

Dean Ray was a member of the American Society for Engineering Education, serving as chair of the organization’s engineering technology council and vice president of its institutional councils. He earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Tennessee Technological University.

Though the entire WCU community mourns his passing, WCU can take comfort in enduring Dr. Ray’s legacy to Catamount Nation. Information on arrangements will be shared in the coming days.