In This Issue . . .
NEEDHA to meet in San Diego
Mark Your Calendar and Make Your Reservations
ABET Engineering Criteria 2000
NEEDHA'95 . . . The Meeting in Nashville
Nashville '95 Workshops
Appointments and Awards
Scenes from Nashville
Future NEEDHA Annual Meeting Sites
NEEDHA Web Page
Message from the Editor
San Diego will be the site of NEEDHA's twelfth annual meeting to be held Friday, March 22, through Tuesday, March 26, 1996. The San Diego Hilton Beach and Tennis Resort will house the meeting. NEEDHA's annual meeting was last in San Diego in 1989; this will be a homecoming of sorts to long-serving department heads!
The themes for this year's meeting, which is being organized by NEEDHA's Vice President Paul Penfield of MIT, include the continuing globalization of EE education and the EE profession and the burgeoning impact of information networks. The meeting will begin on Friday with an all-day ABET accreditation workshop (designed for new ABET visitors but open to everyone). In the late afternoon a workshop for new EE chairs is planned.
Saturday will be devoted to two areas: Curriculum issues and the World Wide Web. Tim Trick is organizing a session that will present bold experiments in EE curricular innovations, and Roger Webb will present a session highlighting new courses and student experiences in the first year. The second half of the day will be devoted to the wide range of impacts of information networks, and the World Wide Web in particular. Saturday will conclude with a reception and dinner dance.
Sunday will be reserved for sightseeing, with the awards dinner Sunday evening. On Monday we will hear about and discuss the major changes which ABET is undergoing. We expect that the current chair of the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, Ed Parrish (a NEEDHA alum), will update us on the changes in ABET, and on the revolutionary new criteria. We will also receive an update on NSF activities, both in engineering education and in engineering research in general. Monday afternoon will be devoted to sessions on global trends in engineering education, and to some live demonstrations on the World Wide Web.
Tuesday brings the ever-popular open forum, and NEEDHA business meeting. After a noontime adjournment, box lunches will be available for the trip home.
NEEDHA Annual Meeting -- March 22-26, 1996
San Diego Hilton - San Diego, California
To register call (312) 938-3500
or contact NEEDHA@iec.org
San Diego Hilton
(619) 276-4010
Identify yourself as a NEEDHA attendee to receive discounted room rate.
Hotel accomodations fill up weeks in advance
Make your arrangements today!
Sunny is the forecast for San Diego,
site of the 1996 NEEDHA Annual Meeting.
By the time this is printed, the proposed changes to the familiar ABET program criteria will probably have been adopted by the ABET Board of Directors, and will be in the two-year comment phase, to become effective for all programs in the year 2000. In the intervening three years, a period of radical program re-development is predicted, as engineering schools take advantage of the removal of specificity to create innovative curricula, matching each school's own vision, mission, and constraints.
Removal of specificity should eliminate the universally disliked "bean-counting," but a number of EE chairs at the Nashville ABET evaluator training session expressed concern at the potential for even greater disagreement in interpretation of the new, less specific criteria. If this problem is to be resolved by the publication of extensive guidelines, then we may not have moved forward at all, since the "guidelines" would in fact be part of the working criteria. This gets to the nub of the issue here: are the criteria before us full and complete, or will additional metrics be added? Dissemination of any evaluator training material is essential.
The opening up of the "general education component" is the one single change that may yield the greatest diversification. In comparison with the traditional one semester of Humanities and Social Science, (1) the quantity requirement is gone, and (2) the "non-skill" limitation on the H&SS selection (and the H&SS requirement itself) is gone. With the caveat again that the 3-page criteria are the full story, I would predict the immediate appearance of programs with a strong component in engineering management. Such programs would be responsive to a clear and substantial consumer demand. But of greater personal satisfaction to me is the apparent opportunity for engineering students to pursue the active development of demonstrable talents and interests in the arts, particularly the performing arts.
The more I re-read the new criteria, the more broad seem the possible interpretations. For example, if "an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams" could be demonstrated with a mechanical engineering partner, why not by a joint project in Studio Art? The main realization, however, is that engineering faculty (and particularly department chairs) have more work (and opportunities) ahead of them in meeting the requirements than is immediately obvious. The criteria are essentially outcomes based; a key point is that the criteria will no longer be satisfied by documentation of program content. However, it is not obvious what evaluators will expect as demonstrations of the specified ability outcomes.
The NEEDHA meeting is always the year's best get-together for congeniality, for the renewed realization that others share our problems, and for thought-provoking presentations that are taken away as inspiration to match others' innovations. Nashville proved to be up to the challenge. The meeting kicked off on Friday, March 24 with two workshops. The materials from Bruce Eisenstein's (Drexel) and Ken Galloway's (Arizona) workshop for new chairs can stir the consciences of old chairs, and even if we're not sure about the chieftain role, we probably have no difficulty identifying Attila the Hun; obviously a memorable experience. The workshop for prospective ABET program evaluators (and chairs) was run by Bill Sayle (Georgia Tech) and Dan Hodge (NSF); its attendance exceeded capacity, demonstrating the high level of awareness of the significance of the new criteria. On Friday evening, participants moved over to the Grand Old Opry for a slice of American music history, with a line-up which ranged from Bill Monroe, Grandpa Jones, Porter Wagoner and Stonewall Jackson to Holly Dunn, Ricky Skaggs and Alison Krauss. Most moved on to the reception in the Opry Museum after little more than an hour, but others stayed on for more, with eight or so diehards walking back to the hotel after midnight.
Saturday's program was this first held jointly with our colleagues in mechanical engineering. The theme for the day was Interpersonal Effectiveness, with a keynote address and wrap-up session from Peter DeLisle (Illinois). Leadership issues came under this umbrella, with presentations from Howard Prince (Richmond) and Frank Lutz (WPI). DeLisle established the significance of inter-personal skills to the engineer with the aid of some effective diagrams, (as a practical demonstration), and defined them in terms of three competencies: communication, leadership, and organizational. The results of the "Best Practices" survey were distributed as a resource for programs seeking models for improvements in these areas. Lutz asserted the pivotal role of humanities and social sciences in leadership development, and presented the WPI program as a model for the vision of engineering as "the new liberal arts" leading on to other professions and leadership roles. Prince described the results of research into the nature of leadership, with practical conclusions on the nature of effective leadership "training," or "enhancement" of those attributes that tend to identify the "best specialist" as the traditional leader. DeLisle tied the day's program back to the classroom with a question of how often students talk to practicing engineers, and an admonition to include them throughout the curriculum. Saturday ended with a disgraceful display of the decadent effects of line-dancing in the engendering of good humor and fellowship.
Sunday provided the traditional opportunity for sight-seeing, visiting with friends, or just plain recuperating from line-dancing. The highlights of Sunday's dinner were Dave Conner's recognition for long and faithful service, and Ken Laker's address (as IEEE VP for Education) on Life-Long Learning.
On Monday morning the theme was the Ph.D. with Jim Honan (Harvard), Paul Penfield (MIT), John Armstrong (IBM), and Arden Bement (Purdue) doing the honors. Honan identified the need for a "strategic change" in higher education, and discussed the management steps (questions) required to establish new directions; he especially stressed the importance of disconnecting the question of "What needs to be done?" from "Where are the resources?" if progress is to be expected. Penfield demonstrated the mismatch between the number of Ph.D. students in the pipeline and the number of academic or "traditional" research positions (Bell Labs, Yorktown, etc.) waiting for them; clearly most will go into other (quasi-research?) fields in industry, and the point that Ph.D. skills are eminently transferable to other endeavors needs to be made more effectively. Armstrong followed up on these points to argue that the Ph.D. should be re-tooled to match better the more diverse career paths of the future, e.g., with industrial co-ops, (particularly in entrepreneurial start-ups). Bement reinforced the previous points, but put them in a historical context and focused on the particular needs of the Ph.D. industry: back to Saturday's focus on leadership and communication!
Monday afternoon's program continued with presentations from Dan Hodge (NSF) on federal undergraduate support and the development of K-12 engineering activities, from Lawrence Goldberg (NSF) with a more general program review, and from Arati Prabhakar (NIST) emphasizing the accelerating pace of engineering with radically shortened product lifetimes and development cycles. Prabhakar called for a NEEDHA "Baldridge" award to have the same impact in engineering educational quality as the original has had in industry. Before the adjournment for the demonstrations of software modules, etc., Roger Doering and Dick White (Berkeley) presented a truly inspirational hour on their freshman EE course. The lab component seems to be dedicated to the reverse-engineering of Radio Shack's entire product line, and must have a similar freshman impact to that of Stanford's well-publicized ME course in reverse-engineering the bicycle.
The Annual Meeting provides great networking opportunities.
Following Tuesday's business meeting, the conference closed with the traditional Open Forum. As usual, this was a highlight of the entire meeting. This is where you discover that others have the same problems as you, and (sometimes) a solution. Also, this is the place to get early warning of future trends.
A feature of the Nashville meeting was a program of three workshops using audience participation and case studies to highlight aspects of engineering education beyond the traditional "engineering science and design."
The workshop focused on the specifics of the three-year-old, 6-day inter-session course at the University of Michigan, and of the new 18 credit hour minor in Engineering Leadership Development at Penn State. The Penn State program will select 30 EE students from the applicant pool and contains a strong management component. The Michigan program goals are leadership development, empowerment, and networking; the cost runs about $600 per student, but the course is free, with a significant proportion of the costs covered by corporate sponsorship.
Team Building: John Novak, Noshir Contractor & Elizabeth Faye (Illinois), Paul Shaddock & Chuck Gregory (United Technologies) The presentation was a practical example of team-work in action in the description of university-industrial cooperation in general, and with United Technologies in particular. In Part 1, Shaddock and Gregory set the stage with a survey of organizational (team based) and product development ("stage-gate" model) changes in industry. In Part 2, Nowak presented a model of multi-faceted industrial outreach and student support for projects (inter-personal / intra-department / inter-department / inter-institution / inter-state), with specific examples of students finding solutions by posting questions on the Internet. Faye concentrated on the facilitation of student interaction on teams, and on constructive faculty feedback on oral and written reporting. In Part 3, Contractor expanded upon student project productivity issues, discussing the management benefits of teaming with industry, etc. Nowak concluded the session identifying useful sources of real-world projects (e.g., graduates in industry, smaller companies via their links with community colleges, etc.), and a discussion of the project roles and relationships of research, education, and technology transfer centers.
Peter DeLisle gives an outstanding presentation.
This session dealt with techniques to recognize, understand, and deal with risk and conflict. The four stages of adult learning are summarized as unconscious-incompetent ("Don't know shoelaces exist"), conscious-incompetent ("Aware they exist but can't tie them"), unconscious-competent ("Doing it well and not thinking about it"), and conscious-competent ("Have to concentrate and practice to do it"). The Johari window is a method for understanding certain traits, with components "open self" (known to me and others), "hidden self" (known to me but not to others), "blind self" (known to others but not to me), and "unknown self" (not known to me or to others). Participants also engaged in an exercise to demonstrate the advantages of openness and cooperation.
Moreno began with a description of the "Learning Factory," a new joint program with Pratt & Whitney as the industrial base, WPI as the lead university on a tooling fixture project, MIT examining process efficiency, and Harvard concerned with business issues. Johnson then provided an overview of the Lemelson Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, combining technical problem solving, interpersonal relationships, management, report writing, and presentation skills at Reno. He also described two courses that comprise the capstone experience, with a substantial component in project management.
NEEDHA's Board of Directors map out 1996 programming.
Members of the NEEDHA Board of Directors and Committee Chairs for 1995-96 are:
Tim Trick passes the gavel to NEEDHA President-elect Sherra Kerns.
Sherra Kerns takes over from Tim Trick as President of NEEDHA for 1995-96. Sherra is Professor and Chair of the Vanderbilt University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Before coming to Vanderbilt, Sherra served on the faculties of Auburn and North Carolina State Universities. She has won three Outstanding Professor awards, has authored an undergraduate textbook and is an ABET evaluator. Sherra's research specialties are in radiation effects on solid state devices. Her A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees are in Physics; Sherra notes that, "I am a reformed physicist, seeking relevance." Sherra was named a Fellow of the IEEE in 1990 for her work in reducing radiation damage in CMOS and GaAs integrated circuits. Commenting on her life outside the ECE department, Sherra states, "I'm the mother of 3, the grandmother of 2, and I used to have hobbies, which I remember enjoying."
David Conner, Chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, was recognized at the Awards Banquet in Nashville for his outstanding service to NEEDHA since its founding. The award was presented by Mario Gonzalez, chair of the awards committee. Dave was a member of the executive committee (1984-85) which created NEEDHA, and he has been continuously active since that time, moderating the Open Forum at most of the annual meetings, and serving as chair of the NEEDHA nominating committee. For many years, Dave organized and chaired the workshop for new department heads, which has been one of the annual meeting's most popular features. Dave's family was present in Nashville to share in this richly-deserved award.
William D. Brown, Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, was recently elected to the NEEDHA Board of Directors. Bill begins as Secretary/Treasurer, and (assuming something like a deanship doesn't come up) will progress to the positions of Vice President and then President in succeeding years. Bill received his BS degree from the University of Arkansas, his MS from Penn State, and his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. After eight years at Sandia Labs, Bill moved to Arkansas, where he has been department head since 1983.
Nominations are requested for two awards. The NEEDHA Distinguished Service Award recognizes outstanding service to NEEDHA by a member or former member. The NEEDHA Innovative Program Award is presented to a department or one or more individuals who have developed and demonstrated an innovative program in EE/ECE/CS education. Nominations should be accompanied by a letter describing the accomplishments on which the award would be based, and should be sent to Joanne Puskarz, NEEDHA Coordinator, IEC, 303 East Wacker Drive, Suite 740, Chicago, IL 60601-5212. Deadline for nominations for awards at the 1996 Annual Meeting is January 31, 1996.
One of the two at-large positions on NEEDHA's Board of Directors has recently been filled by Roger P. Webb, Director of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Roger received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in EE from the University of Utah, USC, and Georgia Tech, respectively. Roger was named a Fellow of the IEEE in 1986 for "Significant Contributions to electric power engineering research, practice, and education." He will serve a two-year membership on the Board.
Hootin' and hollerin.'
Kickin' up the dust at the Grand Ole Opry.
The elegant Awards Banquet was enjoyed by all.
1997
Orlando, Florida
1998
Hawaii
A thank you to Paul Penfield, NEEDHA's Vice President, for his continual outstanding efforts on the NEEDHA Home Page. Look for more details on accessing the Web page.
As I take over as editor of the NEEDHA Newsletter, I want to thank Jim Morris for his great work in the past, for putting together the review of the Nashville meeting, and in particular for the timely editorial in this issue (see below). Thanks are also due to Bill Brown, Dave Leffen, and Donald Ucci for their reporting on the annual meeting workshops.
John A. Orr
NEEDHA Newsletter Editor
WPI -- (508) 831-5273 -- orr@ece.wpi.edu
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Other newsletters: 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99, 1999-00, 2001-02|
Created: Dec 12, 1995
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Modified: Jan 27, 1996|
To NEEDHA home page
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