EE Undergraduate Committee Interim Report – Fall 2013
The EE undergraduate committee was re-formed with new membership and an expanded charter at the
beginning of the Fall 2013 semester. The membership of the committee is Joanne Dugan, Harry Powell,
Bobby Weikle, Ron Williams, and Lloyd Harriott (chair). The charter was expanded to include a fresh
look at the EE undergraduate curriculum with the intent of updating and strengthening it. This report
represents our current thinking on the EE curriculum. Our initial focus has been on the required core
courses.
The committee decided to start from scratch in defining the curriculum in terms of outcomes. That is
setting out to define what an EE graduate should be able to do or to know at graduation. We had inputs
from multiple sources including alumni and graduate surveys, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam,
published concept inventories for EE courses, benchmarking of other strong EE programs, as well as
many discussions within the committee. Some major themes have emerged from our work: 1) our
program should increase the emphasis on hands-on lab experiences, 2) our courses should be designed
to increase the level of integration of key concepts across courses. Several other observations were
made including: 1) Three of the seven required core EE courses are generally taken in the Fall of the
third year which represents a heavy load for our students 2) Our basic courses are only offered once per
academic year which can present a sequencing problem for transfer students, students who change
their major to EE, or students who fail a required course. 2) The course topics for Physics 2415 and 2419,
Physics II and lab, substantially duplicate* those in ECE 3209 Electromagnetic Fields, a required EE
course. Physics II is usually taken in the second semester of the second year and ECE 3209 is usually
taken in the first semester of the third year. 3) Although some of our required courses have lab content,
it is largely cook-book style and not particularly effective (with the exception of Embedded Systems). 4)
ECE 3434, Embedded Systems was introduced into the curriculum recently and includes a substantial
hands-on laboratory component which has been offered in a modified studio style with success.
Our current list of required courses for the BS degree in EE are: ECE 2630 Circuits (3 credits), ECE 2660
Electronics (4 credits), ECE 2330 Digital Logic Design (3 credits), ECE 3209 Electromagnetic Fields (3
credits), ECE 3430 Embedded Systems (3 credits), ECE 3750 Signals and Systems (3 credits), and the
Capstone Design (3 credits).
Our proposal is to: 1) Eliminate Physics II and the associated lab as a requirement for EE undergraduates,
freeing four credit hours. 2) Make all required EE courses (with the exception of capstone and DLD) 4credit courses with substantial hands-on lab content taught in a studio fashion. 3) Combine Circuits,
Electronics, and Signals and Systems courses into a new series of Electrical Engineering Fundamentals I,
II, and III (4 credits each). With a re-shuffling of content across these courses to bring some advanced
topics into the courses earlier (i.e. active components in the first semester) and to emphasize bridging
themes (i.e. time domain vs. frequency domain). 4) Expand the lab content of Embedded Systems and
make it a 4-credit course 5) Develop studio style lab content for Electromagnetic Fields making it a 4credit course. (a pilot class (3-credits) will be offered in Spring 2014). 6) Offer our basic required courses
during each academic semester to give greater flexibility for the students. 7) Develop a basic syllabus
and concept inventory for all of our required courses that (literally) addresses the question(s): “By the
end of this class, a student will be able to _____”. 8) Limit enrollments in sections to enable studio style
teaching.
Our proposed new program includes the same number of credit hours but we believe that it will be
more efficient in delivering what students need to be prepared for the future, minimize duplication, and
facilitate integration of EE concepts. Many of the details of our proposal are not fully worked out at this
time. We have some general plans but it will be necessary to offer the proposed courses and work
through the details. We suggest that the required EE courses above be initially offered by members of
the committee who have been directly involved in the vision for our new curriculum. Members can be
added to committee if needed.
The largest impediment to implementing our plan is the lack of adequate studio classroom space. In
Thornton Hall, Room E225 will be used to pilot the studio version of Electromagnetic Fields next
semester. The enrollment in the class is limited to ten students but in the future, that room could
accommodate about 20 students at a time. We also can make use of the circuits/electronics lab on the
first floor which could accommodate about 24 students at a time (estimated). Clearly, our current class
enrollment numbers are far in excess of these. In the short term, we may need to adopt a modified
studio strategy with a single (large) lecture and several smaller studio sections per week depending on
class size. In the longer term, a better solution would be to convert some other existing classrooms to
studio space. In Thornton Hall, E304, E303 and E316 are all possible candidates. The rooms would
require some modification and new furniture. However, the biggest issue may be the use of these
rooms for classes other than ECE classes which is currently the case. The studio rooms will need to
house the equipment needed for the hands-on work by the students and a demo station for the
instructor. This may be incompatible with other courses such as APMA. We may need to do some
careful scheduling to make full use of a converted classroom(s) for ECE classes/labs.
In summary, we believe that we have the outlines of a new and stronger EE undergraduate program that
will better prepare our students for the future. There are many details and issues to work out as we
begin to implement. Our hope is that the committee membership can be stable so that we can see our
vision through.
*Physics 2415 and Physics 2419 Lab Course Catalog Description: Second semester of introductory physics for
engineers. Electrostatics, including conductors and insulators; DC circuits; magnetic forces and fields; magnetic
effects of moving charges and currents; electromagnetic induction; Maxwell's equations; electromagnetic oscillations
and waves.
Draft Syllabi for EE Fundamentals I,II,III
EEFUN1
 Voltage, Current sources
 Resistors
 Nodal Analysis 1
 Voltage, current division
 Thevenin, Norton
 Capacitance, Inductance
 Ideal diodes
 BJT as switch
 Digital Circuits 1
 Mosfet as switch
 AC Fundamentals
 Impedance Model
 Signals in time and frequency domain
 Basic ideal Opamp
EEFUN2
 Nodal 2
 RC, RL circuits, transient response
 Digital Circuits 2
 Real Diodes
 Mosfet, BJT as linear devices
 Amplifiers
 Freq Response 1
 Discrete time signals 1
 Opamp filter circuits
 Non-ideal opamp 1
 Freq content of real-world signals
 fourier
 Sampling 1
EEFUN3
 Nodal 3
 RLC
 Digital ckts 3
 Non-ideal opamp 2
 Laplace xforms
 Freq response 2
 Discrete time signals 2
 Sampling 2
 Distortion
o Bjt and mosfet
o Opamps
 Feedback analysis and stability