SELF STUDY REPORT
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0425
Submitted to the
Program Review Panel
Monday, November 6, 1995
Self-Study Committee
Lloyd J. Griffiths, Professor and Chair of the Department
James P. Avery, Associate Professor and Associate Department Chair
Susan K. Avery, Professor
Sally B. Blackman, Undergraduate Advisor
Russell E. Hayes, Professor and Graduate Advisor
Edward F. Kuester, Professor and Chair, Undergraduate Studies Committee
Dragan Maksimovic, Assistant Professor
William C. Miller, Lecturer and Industry Relations Coordinator
William M. Waite, Professor
Lisa J. Borcherdt, Undergraduate Student
Linden H. McClure, Graduate Student
I.
Overview of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The department has 49 full-time faculty, 19 adjunct and adjoint faculty, and a clerical and
technical staff of approximately 20. Our faculty are highly honored and have achieved both
national and international recognition. More than 25 faculty have now achieved the grade of
Fellow in their respective professional societies. We have a strong complement of young faculty
members that have also received extensive external recognition. Four of these hold NSF
Presidential Young Investigator awards, three have been designated as National Science
Foundation Young Investigators, and one has received the prestigious Presidential Faculty
Fellow designation. We are a vigorous, healthy department with excellent communication
among faculty and staff. Faculty and staff meet at regular intervals through their work on
organized committees and study groups and through frequent social events. We are proud of the
high level of energy and enthusiasm that is exhibited throughout the Department. The quality of
the Department is reflected in the quality of its students who are among the very best at CU.
The Department has a strong commitment to its undergraduate program and both junior
and senior faculty are expected to teach undergraduate courses on a regular basis. Several
individual faculty are actively involved with innovative teaching methodologies that utilize
concepts such as team teaching and learning in combination with extensive hands-on laboratory
experience. In this role, we view ourselves as being in a College-wide leadership position with
respect to the Integrated Teaching and Learning (ITL) initiative. In early 1994, we were
informed by the national Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) that we
have been granted a full six year, unconditional accreditation for both the Electrical Engineering
BS Degree and the Electrical and Computer Engineering BS Degree. The Department has
recently completed an extensive overhaul and restructuring of the fundamental electrical
engineering courses that define our undergraduate program. Seven courses have been identified
as essential to defining the fundamentals necessary for our profession in the areas of digital
systems, electronics, electromagnetics, and linear systems. Each course carries five credit hours
consisting of three hours of classroom lecturing, two hours of recitation and team problem
solving, and two hours of hands-on laboratory contact. This mixture represents a new approach
for the Department to undergraduate instruction in the core knowledge areas and requires twice
as much laboratory contact as our previous approach. The innovation is indicative of the
commitment of our faculty to maintaining the strength of our undergraduate programs.
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However, increased instructional laboratory contact by students requires increases in the
numbers of technicians and teaching assistants to support these laboratories. Present allocations
to the College for such support are inadequate and identification of increased resources to
support these necessary functions remains a critical challenge to the Department.
At the present time, the number of undergraduate students in the Department is about
475, a level that has remained approximately constant during the past five years. Enrollment
trends and projections indicate that we can anticipate a growth in the number of undergraduates
during the next five years and the strong entering freshman class of 72 for the current year
supports this projection. Additional increases are expected from transfer students and from those
who convert from open option in their freshman year. The net effect will be an increase in the
overall number of our undergraduate students.
The graduate research program is large with annual outside contract and grant
expenditures averaging $225,000 per faculty member for a total of $9M in 1995. Our Ph.D.
program is strong and populated by excellent students. Overall contract and grant support within
the Department has continued its strong growth pattern during the past seven years. Although
more contract money is now available for the support of graduate students, the total graduate
enrollment in our Department has declined from 285 in 1988 to a present level of 263. During
this time period, Masters enrollment has decreased by 60 while the number of Ph.D. students has
grown by 22. During the past year, decreases have been observed in both programs. These
enrollment declines reflect both a national trend and the increasing competition for incoming
students in terms of the financial support packages which are offered. In order to remain
competitive, we must identify resources to supplement our existing teaching and research
assistantships for these incoming students. Our out-of-state tuition is among the highest in the
nation for public institutions. Since many of our best graduate students are not from Colorado,
the issue of providing tuition waivers for out-of-state students is critical if we are to continue to
attract first-rate graduate students.
II.
Review Criteria
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A.
Quality
The quality of an academic unit is judged by its overall excellence in its curricular and
research programs. Excellence in teaching must include content as well as quality of the
lectures. Class size is also an important factor. Excellence in research encompasses program
visibility and reputation as well as the level of funding support. Excellence in faculty is
measured by their accomplishments and recognition. Excellence in students is determined by the
success of the Department in attracting top students and by their accomplishments once they
leave the Department. In these respects, and others, the Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department must be deemed to be of high quality.
Undergraduate Program
With respect to overall quality of the undergraduate program, the Department continues
its commitment to providing a high-quality undergraduate program for its students. The
curriculum is chosen to provide students with a thorough knowledge of the fundamental concepts
of electrical engineering science, and then to furnish them with in-depth study of technical areas
that are important in their intended profession. The Department maintains a set of linked Internet
World Wide Web pages that contain full information regarding the Department. Prospective
students can obtain information about our degree programs, course listings and schedules,
individual faculty and staff, job openings for full-time and part-time positions, and a wealth of
other topics. Several faculty in the Department use these pages to upload specific information
for courses that they are teaching. Both homework assignments and solutions have been posted,
for example. Students can also use the Web to submit course materials to the instructor.
The Department received full six-year ABET accreditation for both of its undergraduate
degrees in August 1994. In this report, the faculty were characterized as being “very competent
and active in their scholarly pursuits.” The report states that they “take the undergraduate
program seriously” and that “their morale and dedication to undergraduate education is very
high.”
Graduate Program and Research
The ECE faculty is one of the most outstanding at any state university, with almost half
of the faculty honored as fellows of professional societies. Their accomplishments have been
4
recognized through several awards, as documented elsewhere in the appendix. Faculty are
actively involved in research and have been very successful in generating external financial
support for their work. A major NSF Engineering Research Center, the Optical Computing
Systems Center (OCSC) is contained within the Department and approximately 40% of the
Department faculty have research interests which overlap with those of the Center. Research
activities are divided into the following major areas: atmospheric remote sensing; biomedical
engineering; communication engineering; computer engineering; control and robotics;
electromagnetics and microwaves; microwave optics; optoelectronics materials, devices and
systems; power and power electronics; signal processing; systems theory; and VLSI design
automation.
A primary measure of program excellence is the quality of the students. The current
graduate student enrollment is 126 Ph.D. students and 137 M.S. and M.E. students. More than
71% are U.S. citizens, a figure that compares to approximately 40% U.S. citizens at our cohort
schools across the country. The quality of entering graduate students is uniformly high with an
average undergraduate GPA of 3.6. Recent graduates of our program have been placed in
prestigious universities and companies. Many of these graduates have been promoted to senior
management levels in the companies and are in an excellent position to assist the Department
with its programs and goals.
This fall, the National Research Council released a study of 3,634 nation-wide doctoral
programs in 41 fields for the 1992-93 academic year. The information was derived from a
survey of nearly 8,000 faculty members conducted in spring 1993. Each person received a
survey form with up to 50 programs in his or her field selected at random from a list of
participating programs. In this peer study, the respondents were asked to rate the programs on
two “reputational” criteria: the “scholarly quality of program faculty” and “effectiveness of
program in educating research scholars/scientists.” Rankings were numerical from 0 to 5
(highest). Details of the study for electrical engineering programs are contained in the appendix
to this report. The results show that our Department was ranked 36th out of 126 institutions.
While this ranking is lower than we would have expected, it is worth noting that the numerical
quality rating of 3.17 received by the Department places it in the “strong” category, second
highest in the rankings. Similarly, the effectiveness ranking of 3.14 is equivalent to “extremely
5
effective,” again the second highest rating. The study results confirm the overall characterization
of our graduate program as being of “high quality.”
B.
Centrality
The mission and goals of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are
clearly central with respect to the long-range plans expressed by the Dean of the College of
Engineering and Applied Science. The Dean has outlined four areas of strategic importance to
the College: Smart Materials, Environmental Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and
Information-Communications Technology. Our Department has technical expertise that overlaps
all four of these areas. Materials faculty in ECE have concentrated their activities on electronic
semiconductor materials and much of this work has direct application to the broader area of
smart materials defined by the Dean. In these applications, structural materials are designed to
adapt to changes in the environment. Adaptation typically involves feedback controls that are
generated from embedded devices such as semiconductor strain gauges. The control systems
faculty and the device faculty in ECE have expertise that is applicable to problems in this area.
Instrumentation and sensing are also important topics in the field of environmental engineering.
Many of the specific subdisciplines within ECE are central to the instrumentation problem.
Three faculty in the ECE Department define biomedical engineering as their area of expertise.
Finally, in the area of communications and signal processing, the Department has one of the
strongest groups of faculty in the country. Our faculty will play a key role in the increasingly
important area of telecommunications, both at the research and applications levels.
With respect to the campus, the new Communications Initiative will draw heavily upon
the technology base that is resident in our Department. This initiative provides an excellent
opportunity for the campus to define entirely new methodologies for outreach, education, and
collaborative research. Effective utilization of these “information highways” will require
significant technical development of both software and hardware. Much of the requisite
expertise is resident within the ECE Department and relates directly to our ongoing research
programs. Campus successes in the Initiative will be highly dependent upon full integration of
our faculty.
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C.
Student Demand
Undergraduate student enrollment in the ECE Department declined sharply for the three
years following the last Program Review, as shown in Figure 1. Since that time, however, it has
remained essentially constant, in spite of national trends showing a continued general decline in
electrical engineering freshman enrollments. Our ability to counter this national trend reflects
the quality of our program.
Total
Freshman
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1998
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
Figure 1. ECE Undergraduate Enrollments
There are encouraging signs that this trend may be reversing. Freshman enrollments are
up 22% this fall which is the largest increase since 1983. This year the College career fair
attracted 61 companies, an increase of 16 over the previous year. During discussions held by the
Chair with several of these organizations, including GTE and US West, the companies indicated
that their studies project a significant national shortage of electrical engineering undergraduates
for the next five years. US West, for example, has plans to hire 130 electrical engineering
undergraduates during this time period. Given the attractiveness of our program and the
concentration of telecommunications-based industry in Colorado, we can anticipate significant
increases in our undergraduate student population once the national trend is reversed. The
Departmental-growing list of unfilled intern positions also supports this conjecture.
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Interest in our graduate program remains strong, as reflected by the continued large
number of graduate applications that we receive. Our ability to attract high-quality Masters-level
students to our program, however, is limited by our financial resources. The national pool of
available graduate students has been declining during the past five years. Over the same period,
there has been a net growth in research funding to graduate faculty. Figure 2 (on the next page)
illustrates the total research funding generated by ECE faculty during the 1988-1995 time period.
At the present time, there is strong competition among graduate schools for the available student
pool. First-rate students can expect to be offered a TA or RA appointment that carries full tuition
waiver plus supplemental funding as an “incentive” to enroll in graduate school. Supplements in
the range of $4,000 to $5,000 annually are not uncommon at our cohort schools. At the present
time, our access to supplemental funding is limited to fellowships and scholarships. Existing
undergraduate national population statistics guarantee that increases in the graduate student pool
(in this country) cannot occur for at least five years. It is therefore imperative that additional
sources of supplemental revenue be identified.
$9.0
$8.5
$8.0
$7.5
$7.0
$6.5
$6.0
$5.5
$5.0
$4.5
$4.0
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
Figure 2. ECE Contract Expenditures
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D.
Uniqueness
Its outstanding faculty and the academic and research programs that they have assembled
define the uniqueness offered by the ECE Department to the University. Of particular import in
this regard is the very strong support for the broad area of communications and
telecommunications. We are also a major center for optoelectronics work due to the presence of
the NSF Engineering Research Center. Recent technological innovations in fiber optic
communication, computing, and high-speed data switches have enabled a dramatic increase in
the use of electronic communications throughout a wide segment of society. Virtually all
research activities within the Department have application to this technology-based area. In
addition, the Boulder/Denver metropolitan region has attracted a large, diverse and very strong
telecommunications-based industry. Companies such as US West, TCI, CableLabs, Jones
Intercable, and many others have their corporate headquarters and/or major research facilities
located within a short distance of the Boulder campus. Opportunities abound for the Department
to play a significant role in helping the State capitalize on opportunities within the
telecommunications industry. We will be advantaged in this pursuit through our proven ability
to form interdisciplinary research teams.
State interest and investment in this field has expanded dramatically during the past
decade. For example, in 1991, the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute (CATI) was tasked
by the Colorado General Assembly with “the development of advanced technology industries in
locations severely depressed as a result of the decline in traditional agricultural and natural
resource industries.” In response to this mandate, CATI inaugurated the Colorado Rural
Telecommunications Program in July 1992. The goal of this program is to increase economic
activity in rural Colorado through the use and application of existing and planned
telecommunications infrastructure. Colorado is viewed nationally as a pioneer in developing a
formal state-level approach to the development of a strong telecommunications infrastructure.
E.
Cost
Engineering is a relatively expensive discipline in comparison with other academic
programs due, in part, to the requisite investment in expensive laboratory equipment. In
addition, the fields of electrical and computer engineering are generally the more costly than
other engineering disciplines because of the dramatic changes which have occurred in the
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technology base. These changes require replacement of instructional and research laboratory
equipment long before the end of its useable lifetime. Typically, new equipment must be
installed every three to four years. The ECE Department teaches 40% of the laboratories offered
within the College of Engineering and the costs associated with the equipment in these
laboratories is significant. In the past, the Department has benefited from generous corporate
equipment donations and the net costs to the College and University have not been burdensome.
However, for the past three years, computing resource support previously supplied to the
Department by Hewlett Packard has been redirected to the ITLL. We are hopeful that this
support will be restored to the Department in the near future.
While the costs of education are relatively high, graduates from the ECE Department
command some of the highest starting salaries in engineering and are employed by companies
which are critical to the future development of the State’s economy. Past ECE graduates have
gone on to assume positions of leadership in these companies and we fully expect this pattern to
continue.
III.
Teaching Programs and Student Concerns
A.
Undergraduate Curriculum
The Department continues its commitment to a high-quality undergraduate program. The
curriculum is chosen to provide students with a thorough knowledge of the fundamental concepts
of electrical engineering science, and then to furnish them with in-depth study of technical areas
that are important in their intended profession. It is currently in the process of a substantial
revision of the curricula for its two accredited undergraduate degree programs. Many of the labs
that are being developed utilize team teaching and learning methods that are well suited to the
College’s Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory (ITLL) Program. The first of these
courses, Digital I (Microprocessors), is being taught for the first time during the fall semester of
1995, and preliminary evaluations have indicated that it is well thought of by the students.
The Department is in the process of implementing a new undergraduate degree program
in ECE. The new degree, termed the Electrical and Interdisciplinary Sciences (EIS) degree, is
designed to provide students with basic electrical engineering skills and to allow them to
augment this technology base with studies in other disciplines such as business, social sciences,
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economics, etc. This program is patterned after those offered by the departments of Chemistry,
Mathematics, and Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences and will provide students with
more than just a “literacy” in electrical engineering. The ECE required courses in this degree
will impart a fundamental understanding of the tools and strategies used in solving engineering
problems.
One new approach taken by the Department to enable student access to our information
through the Internet has been the development of a home page on the World Wide Web
(WWW). From this page, students can access lists of faculty, their interests, teaching schedules
and office hours, as well as departmental course lists, individual course materials for many
courses, and a listing of job opportunities in electrical and computer engineering. During the
month of October 1995, there were more than 3,000 external (outside the University) accesses to
the Department’s home page.
The Department strives to make research activities not only a focus of graduate degree
programs but also an exciting part of the undergraduate educational experience. The OCSC
operates an Undergraduate Research Program for juniors and seniors. Students accepted into the
program conduct research during the academic year or over the summer, for which the student
may receive either academic credit or an hourly wage. On a Department-wide basis, many of our
undergraduate students sign up for independent study credit hours to work with faculty on
research projects.
The Department views effective advising as one of the most important services that it can
provide to its students. We have developed a three-tiered approach that uses expert tactical
advising, specialist advisors, and faculty for strategic advising on curriculum and career issues.
The expert tactical advisor is Sally Blackman, a full-time staff member who coordinates the
undergraduate program. She is responsible for degree certification and maintains up-to-date
information on all the rules and regulations pertaining to student affairs. She is widely
recognized by our students as an invaluable resource, and her work has been recognized through
a number of awards for excellence in advising. Specialist faculty advisors are appointed to
handle advising of freshmen and transfer students. The Department has four freshman advisors,
selected for their willingness to serve and their understanding of freshman concerns. One faculty
member, Professor Clifford T. Mullis, has been designated as the transfer credit evaluator, and he
is responsible for matching courses from other institutions to ours. Career advising is the
11
responsibility of Bill Miller who maintains extensive lists of job opportunities and provides
much needed assistance in resume creation and interviewing skills for the graduating seniors.
Faculty not involved in these designated specialty advising areas are responsible for more
general advising such as suggestions for specific areas and courses of study in electrical and
computer engineering, and recommendations regarding possible career paths.
The Department maintains a large amount of undergraduate laboratory equipment for its
curriculum. Prototype ITL stations are currently in use in the circuits laboratory and the
microprocessor laboratory. Additional laboratory facilities are under development to
accommodate the seven core curriculum courses, each of which entails two full laboratory
contact hours and access by students during non-scheduled time periods. At the present time,
there is insufficient technician and computer support available for this task. Additional TA
support will also have to be identified to support this expanded activity. In addition to these
activities, the Department is extending the existing capstone design computer engineering
laboratory to enable its use with the electrical engineering curriculum. Work is also underway to
develop a senior design project course jointly with Mechanical Engineering.
B.
Graduate Curriculum
The rapid development of the uses of technology in our society ensures that there will
continue to be a need for strong graduate education programs in Electrical and Computer
Engineering. The current data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the number
of jobs for electrical engineers will grow by about 24% between 1992 and 2005, and that the
growth rate for computer engineers will be 112% [BLS Bulletin 2452, April, 1994]. This
national need is also clear at the Colorado level where the number of people employed in
advanced technology positions is already a significant fraction of the work force and will surely
increase. Much of this increased demand can be expected to be for engineers with advanced
degrees. The purpose of our graduate program is to provide students with an advanced education
that will prepare them for current engineering positions and provide them with the fundamental
knowledge and skills that enable them to adapt to rapid changes that will continue in electrical
and computer engineering.
The training system for ECE graduate students consists not only of the classroom
experience but also the small group and individual learning that goes on in the research programs
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in the Department. The Department’s goal of having an excellent graduate education program is
directly related to, and a motivation for, the goal of having an excellent research program. In
addition, an outstanding research program attracts the best graduate students and the best faculty,
the keys to excellence.
C.
Teaching Excellence
The Departmental approach to encouraging excellence in teaching is based upon the
philosophy that good teaching is an intensely personal matter that requires each teacher to work
out a style that suits his or her strengths and weaknesses. While it is often very useful to
identify, observe, and analyze the styles of successful teachers, good teaching is rarely achieved
solely through emulation. All faculty and students in the Department are encouraged to take
advantage of the University Teaching Excellence Program. This program is tailored to the
individual needs of the instructor and allows teachers to develop a teaching style that allows
him/her to express the central themes of the course in a way that engages the needs of both the
teacher and the students.
A handbook, entitled “Excellence in Teaching Electrical Engineering,” was distributed to
all faculty and teaching assistants. This document was prepared by Michele Marincovich from
the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning and Loren Rusk of the Stanford Department of
English. This handbook contains specific suggestions for faculty in the areas of course
preparation, lecturing, laboratory teaching, as well as homework, testing, and grading. One
section is devoted entirely to teaching assistants. It is widely recognized as one of the best
documents on teaching.
The Department has put in place systematic procedures for assessing whether or not it is
achieving its educational program goals from the perspective of students. During each semester,
in-class interviews are conducted with students in selected classes. At the time of these
interviews, the class is divided up into teams of 4 or 5 students. Each team is requested to
generate separate lists of the strengths and weaknesses of the course (and the instructor). The
lists are complied and written on a whiteboard at the front of the room. All students then vote on
prioritizing the items in each list. The results of this process are used to evaluate both the
instructor and the course. It has proven to be invaluable during the curriculum revision process.
A second method that is used to solicit student feedback is directed toward our alumni. The
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World Wide Web is used to solicit recommendations and comments from former students. A
letter has also been sent by the Chair to former students requesting this information. These
queries can easily be targeted to specific curricular issues. They are also an excellent method for
generating continued involvement of former students in departmental activities.
D.
Student Concerns
Graduate students have expressed a desire for the formation of some regular or formal
method of soliciting feedback from graduate students about their concerns and suggestions that
they may have for improving the ECE department. Student feedback groups are important to the
Department and although a process now exists for receiving input from undergraduate students,
there is no comparable system for graduate students. The Department agrees with this
assessment and will begin working with graduate student representatives to put together an
appropriate forum for feedback. This forum will prepare a summary of their activities once per
semester for submission to the Department Executive Committee. The Chair will then meet with
graduate student representatives to discuss methods for addressing issues that are raised through
this process.
IV.
Diversity Plan
The ECE Department is committed to providing an environment in which diversity is a
fundamental value. This environment must result in a climate in which people value individual
and group differences, respect others, and communicate openly. A draft Diversity Plan has been
prepared for the Department and is contained in the Appendix to this report. It contains five
well-defined and attainable goals:
1. To create the atmosphere of commitment to diversity by the entire ECE Department
faculty and staff.
2. To create an atmosphere in which diversity flourishes.
3. To increase the number of faculty members of minority ethnic groups.
4. To increase the number of minority students in ECE.
5. To develop a strong undergraduate and graduate minority student retention program.
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This plan will be reviewed by the Department Executive Committee during the current academic
year and, after approval and possible modification, submitted to the full faculty no later than the
end of the current academic year.
V.
Strategic Plan
Since the last PRP review, the ECE Department has continued to improve its academic
and research programs. The Department has achieved a strong national reputation in both its
academic and research activities. We have consistently attracted highly-qualified applicants to
our programs and our successes in research funding reflect this reputation. This development is
expected to continue during the next seven years with particular emphasis on areas that can take
advantage of the rapid growth of interest in the field of communication and telecommunication
systems. Given the breadth of this field, virtually all focus areas within the Department will be
advantaged.
Through a series of retreats held by the Department, a number of strategic goals have
been identified. On a broad scale, the Department aspires to become one of the top 15
departments in the country during the next five years. This will entail continued development
and evolution of both the undergraduate and graduate curricula. We desire to be recognized as
being in a position of leadership with respect to defining and implementing effective degree
programs for our students. We also strive to significantly increase our perceived research
quality, as measured by national surveys similar to the recent NRC report. Significant
improvements will require aggressive marketing to attract the very best graduate students in an
increasingly competitive environment. Given our current faculty age distribution, the
Department will probably experience three or four faculty retirements during the next five-year
interval. In addition, we can anticipate capturing one or two of the new positions that will be
generated at the College level through our strong participation in the research focus areas
announced by the Dean. The addition of the resulting four to six new faculty into the
Department is essential if we are to fully implement our strategic plan.
A.
Undergraduate Curriculum
During the past three years, the Department has completed major renovations of its
undergraduate curriculum. Seven courses that define the core electrical engineering curriculum
15
have been developed and implemented. These classes involve significant components of handson laboratory experience and team learning for the students. Prior to this change, there were
relatively few elective hours available to our students, particularly in the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Degree and the introduction of the new courses has further exacerbated this
problem. Lack of flexibility in selecting elective courses is viewed as an issue that needs to be
addressed by the Department. As a result of this concern, the goal of our future undergraduate
curriculum development is “to significantly increase the number of free elective hours available
to our undergraduate students.”
Achieving this goal will not be simple and may well entail a major restructuring of our
entire undergraduate curriculum. Recently, the Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department at Carnegie Mellon University completed a radical change to their undergraduate
curriculum that resulted in one full year of electives for their undergraduate students. Their work
has paved the way for many of the changes that we desire to implement.
In addition to the overall goal of increased flexibility, the Department strategic plan
includes four several specific undergraduate initiatives that capitalize on this additional
flexibility. The specific initiatives are:
1)
The Department will broaden the set of elective courses available to our students. These
include an expansion of our non-traditional course offerings. This semester, a class in
patent law and intellectual property was offered as part of the ECE curriculum. It has
proven to be very popular with our students. Additional classes in the areas of ethics,
quality principles, and entrepreneurship are being developed.
2)
We also plan to expand the number of possible degree paths for our students through the
introduction of two new degree options. At the present time, the Department has one
formal option, Biomedical Engineering, which is used primarily by pre-med students.
Work has been initiated on the development of the first new undergraduate option in
telecommunications. In addition to technical courses in the Department that cover signal
processing and communication systems, students selecting this option will take classes
that cover regulatory matters, policy, and economic issues related to telecommunications.
The option is timely and should prove to be very popular.
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The final option planned by the Department will cover topics relating to the use of
multimedia and effective utilization of electronic networks. This is a new area and one
that will become increasingly important as usage of the World Wide Web and Internet
expand. Our Computer Engineering faculty will be responsible for developing this
option.
3)
The Department is fully committed to the implementation and success of the new
Electrical and Interdisciplinary Sciences (EIS) degree. It is designed to create degree
paths for students who are interested in engineering fundamentals but who are not ready
to commit to a full “main-stream” career in Electrical Engineering. It is an excellent
opportunity for the Department to broaden its recruiting efforts and, presumably, many of
the students initially attracted to the EIS degree will later elect to pursue an ECE degree.
4)
An “in-reach” program will be developed to allow better access to experts in industry
through tools such as the Internet, cable systems, and satellites. The goal is to be able to
have “live” connection with individuals in industry during classroom lectures and
seminars. In addition, student mentoring could take place with these individuals through
e-mail or direct Internet connections.
B.
Graduate Education Program
Three strategic goals have been identified for our graduate education program. The first
addresses the fact that new graduate student enrollment within the Department has declined
during the past three years, following a national trend that reflects the lower number of
undergraduate electrical engineering students. Competition for the best of these students is at an
all-time high. Our goal is to “dramatically increase our success rate in attracting the best
graduate student applicants in a competitive environment.”
Our applicant pool remains strong with many qualified students at both the Masters and
Ph.D. levels. In order to increase our “hit rate” with these students, we intend to introduce a
number of new initiatives. Top-rated graduate applicants will be invited to campus to meet with
faculty and existing graduate students. Faculty will be encouraged to increase the number of RA
17
offers to masters-level students. Additional financial aid will be offered by the Department as
cash supplements under a schedule in which the amount offered reflects the scholastic
accomplishments of the applicant. (Students with the best academic records will receive
$4,000.) During the visit, potential students will be shown office space and computing resources
that will be provided if they accept our offer. The resources necessary to fund these initiatives
are substantial. Cash supplements alone will entail approximately $50,000. Corporate
supporters of the Department will be solicited to help fund these projects. Companies that agree
to provide resources will have the opportunity to interview the students during their visit to
Boulder.
The second goal in graduate education is to “widen the range of degree options at the
Masters level” by taking advantage of the flexibility offered by the Master of Engineering
degree. At the present time, the Department has one ME degree in Software Engineering that is
offered jointly by the Computer Science Department. We plan to augment this by adding the
ME degree in Telecommunications Engineering. This will be a technical telecommunications
degree and will augment the existing non-technical College-Level Interdisciplinary
Telecommunications Program. The ME degrees will be advertised as programs that students are
expected to complete in only one year. The Master of Science degree requires 30 credit hours
and is rarely completed in two semesters. However, the Graduate School requirement for a
Master’s degree is 24 hours, including thesis. Our objective is to require this minimum for both
the Software and Telecommunications ME degrees.
Recent statistics compiled by the National Electrical Engineering Department Heads
Association (NEEDHA) have shown that in 1995, approximately one Ph.D. graduate in 17 was
able to secure a university faculty position upon graduation. The unemployment rate for
Ph.D.’s, however, is low with the majority of graduates finding industrial positions as project
managers. The third and final goal in graduate education is to “better prepare Ph.D. students for
industrial positions.” Ph.D. students will take courses in project management that will be
developed in close cooperation with industry through the “in-reach” program described above.
In addition, graduate students will be encouraged to develop detailed project plans for their thesis
projects, including detailed schedule plans. At early stages in their graduate careers and while
still taking classes, Ph.D. students will be offered the opportunity to work part-time in industry
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under an intern program. The intern program will be closely coordinated with the Department
Industrial Advisory Board.
C.
Graduate Research Program
Graduate faculty in the ECE Department have a strong record of continued success in
attracting support for their research programs. Growth in these programs will entail increased
need for research space and graduate student offices. At the present time, the ECE Department
has sufficient resources to accommodate its research activities. Additional space must be
identified, however, to accommodate needs projected for the next two years. This problem has
been recognized since 1993 when a request was made to renovate the ECE Power Laboratory by
condensing the amount of space used by the Power Electronics Group and provide increased
facilities for the Control Systems Group. The change was approved by the College
Administrative Council and construction was scheduled to begin in the spring of 1995.
Unfortunately, the College has postponed renovation of the ECE Power Lab due to cuts in capital
funding that were imposed by the Vice Chancellor’s office in late 1994. At the present time, the
project is on indefinite hold. A goal of the Department is to “ensure that renovation of the ECE
Power Laboratory occurs at the earliest possible date.”
D.
Faculty Hiring Plans
With respect to the anticipated four to six faculty additions that will take place during the
next five years, the goal of the Department is “to attract faculty with the highest possible
credentials and potential with the area of expertise being a secondary consideration.” There are
two reasons for focusing on quality as the first priority. The first is that the Department take
great pride in the high level of quality of its existing faculty and the resulting programs that they
have generated. Maintaining this level will always be a first priority of the Department. The
second reason is simply that the two broad areas of development identified for investment by the
faculty, communications and biomedical engineering contain as essential components virtually
every discipline within Electrical Engineering.
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