After serving as interim associate chair for the 2025-26 academic year, Dr. Yongjia Song is continuing his leadership as the next associate chair in Clemson University’s Department of Industrial Engineering.
by Kathy Snipes August 15, 2026
The past year gave Song a broader view of the systems, people and decisions that keep the department moving. It also reinforced something familiar to him as an industrial engineer: even routine operations involve interconnected processes, competing needs and opportunities for better decision-making.
For Song, that perspective is shaping how he approaches the role. From course scheduling and instructional planning to anticipating student needs and allocating resources, he sees many of the department’s day-to-day challenges as systems that can benefit from a human-centered, data-driven approach.
Learning the role from the inside
Serving as interim associate chair gave Song a deeper understanding of how much coordination is required to keep a department running effectively. Decisions that may appear straightforward often depend on many people, processes and pieces of information working together.
“One thing I learned is that clear expectations and timely communication are important, particularly when a decision affects students, faculty, staff and multiple administrative processes,” Song said. “Even when everyone is working toward the same goal, people may be operating with different information and understanding.”
For Song, that experience reinforces the importance of making expectations explicit, confirming shared understanding and following through on communication. It also gave him a greater appreciation for the many people involved in supporting the department’s academic mission.
“Seeing those connections firsthand has made me even more appreciative of the time, care and effort that people contribute to keep the department functioning and to support our students,” he said.
“Dr. Song brought a thoughtful and analytical approach to the associate chair role during his year in the interim position,” said Dr. Kevin Taaffe, chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering. “He has developed a strong understanding of the many factors that go into supporting our students and academic programs, and I appreciate the way he looks for opportunities to use data and IE principles to improve how we plan and make decision.”
Applying industrial engineering to departmental operations
As Song became more familiar with the associate chair role, he began to see opportunities to apply the same kinds of thinking used in industrial engineering research and practice to the department’s own operations.
“Course scheduling and instructional planning are engineered systems involving people and data,” Song said. “A human-centered, data driven approach can help us understand those interactions, evaluate alternatives and make better decisions.”
That perspective is shaping one of his primary priorities as associate chair: developing a data-informed decision-support platform for instructional resource planning.
The platform would bring together information about student needs and course plans with faculty expertise and workload, teaching assistant availability, classroom capacity, scheduling constraints and funding considerations.
Over time, Song envisions the work supporting a departmental dashboard that could help identify emerging bottlenecks, areas of risk and opportunities to use resources more effectively. It could also help the department anticipate course-demand issues earlier, identify where instructional support may be insufficient and reduce the need for last-minute scheduling changes.
“Ultimately, the goal is to create a more proactive planning process, one that is responsive to students, transparent to faculty and staff, and resilient when unexpected changes occur,” Song said
Building on Clemson IE’s strengths
As Song looks ahead, he sees the department’s people and culture as an important foundation for that work.
“Clemson IE’s greatest strength is the combination of excellence and community,” Song said. “We have friendly, energetic and highly committed faculty and staff members who care deeply about our students, our research and the success of the department.”
He also pointed to the department’s intellectual and methodological diversity, with faculty bringing different perspectives, research areas and teaching approaches to their work.
“What makes these strengths especially valuable is our collaborative culture,” Song said. “People are willing to share ideas, support one another and work through differences with mutual understanding. This culture gives Clemson IE a strong foundation for continued growth.”
Giving back to the Clemson IE community
For Song, stepping into the associate chair role is also an opportunity to contribute to a department that has shaped his own career.
“What I value most if the trust and commitment within the Clemson IE community,” Song said. Throughout my career here, I have benefited from the mentorship, collaboration, encouragement and opportunities provided by Clemson IE.”
That sense of connection is part of what make the leadership role meaningful to him.
“Becoming the associate chair provides me an opportunity to give back to the community that has supported me,” he said.
