The Philadelphia Inquirer business people column.

Byline: Thomas J. Brady

Jul. 25--HELPING DEVELOP DREXEL: One of Stephen W. Director's priorities as the new provost and senior vice president at Drexel University is finding areas where the school can make a mark, much as Carnegie Mellon University has in robotics.

"We need to focus on a few things," he said during an interview last week. "One of those areas might be biotechnology.

"We want to have close relationships with local industry, and there are several different industries here, such as pharma and biotech," he said.

Another area could be media arts and design. "I didn't fully appreciate our strength in that area," he said.

Not to say that he isn't been impressed with the areas that Drexel has traditionally been renowned for, especially engineering, his specialty.

Director, who became provost, or chief academic officer, earlier this month, has a background in electrical engineering and was a pioneer in computer-aided design. His specialty was in yield enhancement of microchips, or making sure that more of the chips produced actually worked, thus lowering their cost for customers because there wasn't as much waste in the manufacturing process.