CEEVC meeting minutes September 18, 2015
Attendees:
Glenn Bottomley, Jessica M. W. Hou, Bruce W. Husselbee, Mark Scholefield, David Pezza; Alan Gonyo,
James Ewing, Kristen Lentz, James Donahue, Jan Harris, Bob Burkholder, Tim Sivertson, Bud Morgan,
Heather Ham, John Stronach, ; Ben Stuart and Mujde Erten-Unal
CEEVC Meeting September 18, 2015
Introduction of members and approval of meeting minutes. Minutes were approved
DEPARTMENT CHAIRS REPORT
Greeting front the new Chair – Dr. Ben Stuart
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B.S., M.S., and Ph.D., Rutgers University Biochemical Engineering.
P.E. State of Ohio (1999) Environmental Engineering
20 years as professor of Civil Engineering at Ohio University
Director of 1SEE and BRL - $12 Million in external research awards
Multiple teaching-advising and mentoring awards
ABET PEV, President-elect IBE, and Ohio University Faculty senate.
Administrative Philosophies
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Prioritize core values and mission
o Primary constituency: students
o Meet students where they are; take them where they need to go
Require FE prior to graduation: encourage and ask students to take the FE before they
graduate. They don’t have to pass it but take it. The council discussed reimbursement, for
the FE exam.
o Glenn made a motion that the Council supports Dr. Stuart’s 16/25 Quorum Initiative
to require taking the FE Exam as a requirement of the curriculum for new students.
The administrative ability to make the curriculum required should be investigated.
The motion was second and accepted by the Council. The Council approved that the
students are required to take the FE before graduation. In order to make it as a
requirement, Dr. Stuart will ask the university.
o The Council approved that all the fees for the FE exam will be reimbursed by the
council as long as the person is a student of ODU CEE department.
Strengths-based leadership
Heads vs Chair: Most often it is both. The chair is the liaison between the two.
Upside down organizational charts: Lead and support simultaneously the leader’s job is to
support those who work hard.
Workload Policy:
o Department versus individual accomplishments
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o Different loads for Assistant vs. Associate vs Full Professors
o Research vs. scholarly activities
o Service to institution/profession/community
Mentoring junior faculty for future support and advocate for continuous development
opportunities
Clifton (Gallup) Strengthfinder: is an evaluation tool that considers decision making
tendencies to identify an individual’s top five leadership themes. There are 34 possible
themes that naturally cluster into four domains:
o Executing; Influencing; Relationship Building; Strategic Thinking
o Dr. Stuart has the themes including learner, arranger, connectedness, harmony, and
relator.
Based on this assessment, Dr. Stuart’s strongest skills lie in:
o establishing and building healthy relationships,
o uncovering continuous improvement pathways, and
o organizing an optimal process to realize that vision which are all in relationship
builder themes
Priorities:
o get to know all current and potential future constituents.
o develop a 5-year strategic plan for CEE
o engage the constituency to bring the vision to fruition
Structures lab visioning task force (SLVTF) develop a vision and set goals
o There was a generous gift from industrial partner which asked the Dean of BCET to
contribute matching funds.
o Department to allocate ETF funds
Model for all subsequent infrastructure investments
ETF awards for 2015-16: $118K ($53K for T&L + $65K for research)
Faculty driven in areas of department strengths such as transportation, environmental,
water resources, coastal, and geotechnical
Next steps:
o Currently drafting strategic and metrics w/ SLVTF
o Develop teams for each of the identified areas
Faculty expectations:
o Professional licensure-how to encourage this?
o Teaching loads and the use of Adjunct Faculty. Each faculty needs to have 12
workloads per semester and 24 credits workload per year.
o Research expectations : Proposed departmental metrics:
 $ 1.5 M annual research expenditures ($863k in 2014-15)
 30 refereed journal publications per year (23 in 20014-15)
 External funding for 2 Ph.D. and/or 2 M.S. students
 2 proposals > $100k per faculty member per year
 5% Paid release time (PRT) from each faculty member
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Fall enrollments:
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Undergraduate enrollments: Fall 15 has 166 students who are actually in civil
engineering students and 168 are identified as civil engineering students which add up
to 334 students which is a pretty steady enrollment for the last 3 years.
Graduate enrollment is relatively good compared to other departments as there is a
general decline in graduate enrollments for the university. Graduate enrollments
include: 29 PhDs, 3 DENGs, 66 Masters students.
CEE Department summer enrollments: As a total from summer 2012 to summer 2015,
we are holding pretty much steady.
Update on Solar Decathlon House: The Solar Decathlon house has been moved to the Moore’s Bridges
Water Treatment Plant. It is still in modules and waiting for a foundation to be built.
Personnel changes
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The CEE Department has been given another faculty position (#16) in the area of
coastal-geotechnical engineering
Provost is Dr. Chandra DaSilva as an interim and the search is still going on.
Dean Oktay Baysal will be stepping down at the end of the 2015-16 academic years and
the new dean will be hired after the new Provost is hired.
Research committee by Margaret Kubilins: Bud Morgan will communicate with Margaret and discuss
the research committee issues.
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Earlier this year at VICTOR, the members Margaret, Tim, Mecit, and Jose Gomez met. The
meeting was very successful. Tim will ask Mecit to update about latest developments. Tim is
pushing VDOT to get more meetings set up.
He will have Dr. Stuart meet with Margaret together
MARI may be collaboration potential. There was a workshop in summer but none of the CEE
faculty could attend as they were out of town.
Biofuels is another area. The council wants to help the department in different research areas.
EDUCATION COMMITTEE:
September18, 2015
Draft CEEVC Education Committee Meeting Minutes by David Pezza
Attendants: Allan Gonyo, Jan Harris, Kristen Lentz, Ben Stuart, Jessica Hou, Navid Tahvildari, and Dave
Pezza chair and recorder
1. What can CEEVC do to improve the number of students taking the FE?
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Typically, there are about 45 BS graduates each year. In 2015 to date, 13 students have taken the exam
and 7 have passed. Of these, there are 2 who took and passed the exam during CEEVC’s 2015-2016
budget year. About 10 students plan to take the exam this Fall Term, and perhaps as many as 20 in the
Spring Term.
However, the current CEEVC policy is based on students who take the exam while undergraduates. This
was based on a time when the $150 fee was for only one chance to take the exam. Today the fee is $225
and includes three chances to take the exam. So it is possible for students to take the exam while
matriculating, fail and then take the exam again after graduation. Also, they get the results back in 9
days. After some discussion, to encourage students to take the exam while matriculating, CEEVC should
only reimburse those students who take the exam before graduating and pass the exam. If they have to
retake the exam after graduation, they are no longer eligible for the reimbursement.
Given this recommendation, CEEVC needs to review the current Application for Reimbursement. (See
Caleb Holland for record copy and ask Terry Legg to review and revise as needed.)
Stuart wants to get all of the students to take the exam while still undergraduates. He is making efforts
to set this expectation. The committee supports this initiative and reviewed the current CEEVC 20152016 budget. It includes funds to reimburse 35 students @$225 who pass the FE. Given current pass
rates of 60+ %, the committee agreed it was still a good estimate and will review it again in January.
Also, Stuart’s proposes to require taking the FE exam as a graduation requirement starting with the Class
of 2020. The committee supports this initiative.
2. What can CEEVC do to encourage young professors to pursue their PE license?
Currently, 5 of 15 CEE full time faculty have their PE license, and 5 of 6 adjuncts have a license. Per
Stuart, in advance of the upcoming ABET review, the ABET team has advised the department that they
find the number of registered professionals “disturbing”. ABET encourages a majority of the (full time)
faculty to have a license and Stuart’s goal is 70+ %.
The committee offered the following suggestions and that Stuart would need to discuss with the Dean.
CEEVC would consider financial support for items “c” and “e”.
a. Make it a search requirement or at a minimum, make it a requirement for tenure.
b. Allow use of tenured track time to prepare and take the exam by reducing course load.
c. Reimburse the exam fee for those who pass, and if appropriate, exam preparation.
d. Provide a pay raise.
e. Reimburse costs to for continuing education requirements to maintain the license.
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Lentz volunteered to draft a letter from the Council to the Dean in support of professors’ having PE
licenses and suggesting actions the college could take to encourage professors to obtain licensure. The
Education Committee and Stuart would review and revise the draft prior to it being presented to the
Council with a recommendation that it be sent by the Council Chair on behalf of the Council.
3. We are to provide a representative to the newsletter.
4. Review the Education Committee Focus/Initiatives. The committee recommended deleting
“Newsletter – naming?” and referring any newsletter issues to the Ad-Hoc Newsletter committee
established at the last CEEVC meeting. No one from the Education Committee has yet volunteered for
the ad-hoc committee. Schafran has the lead on newsletter issues.
5. Review the scholarship requirements. Hou will provide digital copy. Consider adding requirements to
take the FE exam. (This maybe a problem give the applications are rising junior and seniors.) Pezza will
review and provide comments back to the committee.
ACTIONS:
1. Legg review the FE Application for Reimbursement to incorporate clarifying language.
2. Lentz to draft a letter from the Council to the Dean in support of professors’ having PE licenses and
suggesting actions the college could take to encourage professors to obtain licensure.
3. Need a volunteer to the ad-hoc newsletter committee.
4. Pezza review the scholarship requirements. Hou to forward digital copy.
Recorded by D. Pezza, 9.21.15, Updated 10.1.15
FUND RAISING COMMITTEE:
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Golf tournament: The tournament was a success with 88 golfers, 20 sponsors and total of
$7,325 proceeds. There may be some new action items such as posting photos on the website
and adding an article to the newsletter. Need to reserve Swells Point course.
Upcoming seminar: Shannon is the chair and Bud with help her.
Sprig seminar: Christina is the chair and Tim will help. They are looking for venue and one topic
may include having Senator Frank Wagner talk.
The committee decided not to focus on other fund raising activities as they are focusing on fall
spring seminars and golf outing.
TREASURER’S REPORT
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We have a new name we are now a 501 C organization (non-profit status). We opened a new
account and currently we have two accounts. We have $60,000 in the account. Scholarship
information is not included in the summary sheet.
We did not have any expenses from last meeting in June.
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Where does the money go: What we spend is listed in treasurer’s report. Over 50% of the
budget goes to the department; about 32% goes to scholarships and assistantships and 13%
goes to CEE departmental expenses.
Bruce got his name on the new account.
Two students did not cash their reimbursement checks for the FE Exam so Dr. Stuart will have
the department contact them. The checks are made out to the students’ ODU addresses. If they
are here in town, the department can find the students to reimburse. It is easier for Bruce to
send the check to ODU rather than individual addresses.
NEW BUSINESS
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ASCE Student chapter president Albert To made a presentation. They went to Miami for a
conference. They are having a barbeque with Chi Epsilon, some tailgating events, and sports
activities.
o The president Albert To received the Thompson award and Eric Crandell received
Virginia Section award.
o Had their annual cook out and it was a great success
o Chapter project: Rascal NASA project is a potential option
o Virginia’s conference had good attendance.
o Three is an interest in participating for the student chapter
o They have 150 students
o The dean has funds for the student projects so they are working on submitting a
proposal to receive some funding.
o They are organizing a career fair for Civil engineers on November 2nd and there were
questions about the need for this separate career fair. Albert clarified that the purpose
is mainly for fund raising.
Alan asked if our students are finding jobs and if we have increase in enrollments. Ben said that
graduate enrollments are low which means that the job market is well.
Jessica will submit the package for non-profit status soon. This way, the donors can claim tax
deductions. The criteria to file non-profit status are having over $50K and we reached that limit
and can file it as a 501 C organization.
Web storage: The Council discussed if we need a server other than what they have asked
Jessica. Jan pointed out that there are two subdirectories that required 2 passwords. Some
military people cannot get on the FTP site therefore suggested further discussion on the server
issue.
Department Newsletter: the Council has an ad hoc committee in which Rich and Mike are
helping with. Gary will work on it and finish the newsletter.
Planning meeting will be set by each committee separately.
Lecture series: Dave suggested if Ben wanted to bring a speaker this there is a budget now
The Council has 24 members and there is one spot to get to 25. Barry Forbes with NAVFAC is
interested in being a council member. He will be back in December as NAVFAC representative.
Dave made a motion and Glenn second it so Barry Forbes was voted to be a new member.
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Solar Decathlon: Need help with services. ASCE student chapter proposed to work on it as a
project
Next meeting will be held on either January 8th or 15th, 2016. Jessica will check with a poll and
submit the final date.
The meeting was adjourned.
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