Minutes for CEE faculty meeting May 4, 2009
Attending: Palmer (leading), Gao (minutes), Lutenegger, Ni, Ahlfeld, Ostendorf, Arwade, Brown, Chang, Collura, Civjan, Knodler, Ergas, Highter, M. Park, Reckhow.
1)Review of Agenda, Additional Items
2)Recent events
- Advising night April 2nd – great success
- History and Heritage Lecture April 29 – large turnout, inspiring talk
- Concrete canoe competition April 27
- EWB auction May 2 – over 100 attendees, over $7,000 raised
- Class of 2009 picture taken in front of Marston Hall
3)Upcoming important dates
- Advisory committee meeting May 8th - Don DeGroot going to talk about research
- CEE Spring picnic May 13th – annual awards, recognition of Alex Chajes, teaching awards
- Senior recognition May 21
- Commencement May 23
4)Transitions
- Sarina Ergas will be moving to the University of South Florida, Tampa – a farewell party is being planned
5)ABET survey
(David Ahlfeld)
-ABET will review the evaluation of program outcomes (adopted Dec 2007) in 2010, and report the review in June 2010. We were given a 2-year extension from the last ABET review on this specific aspect. We need to provide evidence of attaining program outcomes.
-Senior surveys and alumni surveys have been conducted and the curriculum committee sent out a memo in March regarding the positive results from the surveys.
-Instructors are asked to specify course outcomes in the syllabus and this is done. A memo will come out soon for the mapping from course outcomes to program outcomes.
-Two surveys at the end of semester. The instructor fills out a survey on how well s/he thinks the students do on average in terms of achieving the course outcomes. The students are also asked about how well the course outcomes are achieved (added to the conventional course evaluation form). The instructor and department head will review the survey results and make necessary improvements.
(Discussion: Civjan, Palmer, Lutenegger)
-The rating in the instructor’s survey is not related to the students’ grades.
-The question is whether a student achieved the outcome or not, not the level.
-If a student graduates, s/he achieves enough outcomes.
-The program outcomes probably should be cumulative over a number of courses.
6)Curriculum votes
- CEE will require CEE290T (permanently CEE250) to replace MIE230 in the current curriculum. MIE230 or equivalent can be used as a substitute for this requirement.
Vote: unanimously approved
- The Economics course for the CEE curriculum can be either Econ103 (Microeconomics) or Econ104 (Macroeconomics).
Vote: unanimously approved
7)Implications of budget news
- 2.9% budget cut
- No loss of staff due to requirements of taking stimulus money
- Chancellor has indicated we can apply for “new positions” (due June 1)
- “Refill” positions
- Should not be justified based on teaching needs
- Can be leverage to argue for new position
- Recall we have two positions (structures and Ergas)
- We have four areas in the hiring plan (send out a while ago):
- Sustainable structures
- Engineering geophysics
- Transportation engineering
- Computational mechanics
(Discussion: Palmer, Arwade, Ostendorf, Lutenegger, Ergas)
-How to replace Ergas? No meeting within the Environmental Engineering group yet.
-We should identify critical areas and do strategic hire instead of based on traditional areas. Chancellor’s new hires are all cross-disciplinary.
-How about joint hire with other department, say, Chemical Engineering? The new Dean of Public Health might also be interested.
-It seems that not many changes can be made to our existing hiring plan since the proposal is due in less than 30 days.
8)BS/MS dinner
Sanjay and Rick will accompany 13 students to dinner tonight (May 4). This is a large portion of the junior students.
9)Design course 486
In last meeting, the issue was raised: should 486 be offered as one course or multiple courses?
(Discussion: Lutenegger, Collura, Palmer, Highter)
-Currently one course is fine. Team teaching is tough. At least 2-year commitment is needed from the instructor.
-ABET has no preference over one or the other.
-Who’s next? It might be assigned to those who are not active in research.