To:Mechanical Engineering Industrial Advisory Board and Department Faculty

Date:Monday, November 24, 2003

To:Mechanical Engineering Industrial Advisory Board and Department Faculty

From:Larry Caretto

Subject:Draft minutes of November 18, 2003 Advisory Board meeting

Engineering Building Room 2413Mail CodePhone: 818.677.6448

E-mail: 8348Fax: 818.677.7062

Draft Advisory Board minutesNovember 18, 2003Page 1

Board members attending: Tom Brown, Jack Carroll, Terry Jester, Tom Oatway, Dimitri _____

Faculty attending: Larry Caretto, Shoeleh DiJulio, Tim Fox, Aram Khachatourians, Stewart Prince, Sid Schwartz

Sid opened the meeting by giving the background for seeking a charter for the Advisory Board and discussed the materials that were circulated to the Board members. These included a proposed charter drafted by Tony Rubino, a paper by Sid that showed elements of charters from other advisory boards, and a memo by Larry Caretto suggesting a mission and a statement of purpose. Sid suggested that Board members discuss their thoughts on these items and see how far we could come towards agreement on a charter.

During the ensuing discussion Board members expressed several ideas. Tom Brown noted that the proposed mission statement in Tony Rubino’s draft spoke of an “application oriented and contemporary understanding of mechanical engineering…” Tom said that he felt better able to comment on the “application oriented” part than the “contemporary” part and that perhaps a tiered board with members who were knowledgeable of one part of the other would be appropriate.

Terry Jester commented on her appreciation of the quality of the presentations by senior design students. She suggested that the Board members bring in other employees from their companies to witness the presentations and add their expertise to the Board discussion of the student presentations.

Jack noted that Tony Rubino’s draft mentioned assessment methods. He said that he did not want to get involved in the design and discussion of metrics used for assessment. Several individuals commented that the Board members could provide valuable feedback on the quality of our graduates who were working for their companies, but it was not necessary for them to be involved in design of assessment (unless they were interested in doing so.)

Dimitri suggested that Larry Caretto’s memo was appropriate, but the Board would have to fill in some details of how they actually would implement the charges there. He suggested that the item on curriculum review suggested that the Board should have specific regular meetings in which they discussed curriculum issues with Department faculty. He also supported the idea of Board members providing site visits to their companies and acting as guest lecturers or helping to obtain guest lecturers from their companies.

Jack suggested that Larry Caretto’s memo would be okay, but he felt that Board members could act as mentors to students. This touched off a long discussion about the feasibility of such an effort to which Jack noted that it was worth a try, especially considering the low graduation rates at CSUN. Terry Jester suggested that what was needed was a better way for Board members to interact with students on a more regular basis. Jack suggested that the word “mentoring” be added to item three of Larry’s memo and Larry agreed to do so.

Tom Oatway suggested that Board members could provide panel discussions of various topics that would be of interest to students. Dimitri suggested that individual presentations might be a better way to go. The group generally agreed that either approach would be okay.

After this discussion there was a general agreement by Board members that the following statements should be adopted as the charter for the board.

1.Giving the department a vision of future trends in mechanical engineering and identifying ways in which education of our students need to change to meet these trends.

2.Reviewing and providing comment on the curriculum, proposed changes in the undergraduate and graduate mechanical engineering curriculum at CSUN.

3.Working with their companies to provide enhancements to the program in the form of design projects for student groups, research projects for undergraduate and graduate students, internships and co-op positions for students, mentoring, support in terms of financial or equipment donations, and any other ways that enhance the program.

4.Providing instruction or guest lectures in courses to bring the perspective of industrial practice to the classroom.

5.Providing feedback on the overall education of our students. This may be in the form of reviewing senior design presentations, discussing how well our graduates do as employees of their companies.

There was little discussion of a mission or vision statement, but the group seemed happy with the following statement.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering seeks to work with its students, alumni, and Industrial Advisory Board to improve education in mechanical engineering at CSUN.

The group then discussed how to follow up on the suggestions made for activities by Board members. After some discussion the group agreed that we should try to schedule three presentations during the spring semester. These would be in February, March and April. They would include one panel discussion with a topic like “How to be a successful engineer” or “How to get a summer job.” There would also be individual presentations on technical topics with Dimitri and Terry suggested as presenters. There was a suggestion that these presentation be scheduled in a class with all other engineering students invited to attend. Sid will take suggestions, discuss possible class times with faculty, and contact Board members to set up final speaking dates.

Sid also suggested that Board members provide leads for other possible Board members. Board members were asked to email their suggestions to Sid. Faculty were also asked to make contacts to get names of potential Board members.

Shoeleh suggested that Board members help provide internships for students and that we set a goal for ten new internships during the coming year. Sholeh also suggested that we should find some way to assess Board activities to make sure that we were using Board members’ time effectively.

Other possible topics for industry presentations that were suggested included motivational presentations to keep students in engineering and a talk on design optimization.