Faculty Request from the Department of Physics and Astronomy
December 2015
Engineering Scientist -- Experimentalist
1. Program strength and vitality
Eastern Michigan University is strategically located in an area of technological innovation.
Within 100 miles of campus, there are hundreds of research, applied physics, and engineering
companies that require staff with not only a background in physics and engineering, but also a
strong technical skill set. The Physics and Astronomy Department is seeking a strong candidate
in the field of Engineering Science who will be able to strengthen our Engineering Physics
program. Our department has significant potential for growth in this major especially since
incoming students have learned that our graduates gain immediate, lucrative employment in
industry, and in research & development labs. Many of our graduates work for subsidiaries of the
major automotive industries, but others work for optical firms, green energy research groups, and
biomechanical firms. The biotechnical engineering firm, Celsee Diagnostics, recruited Austin
Payne, a recent graduate from our Engineering Physics program, to work as an engineer. Mr.
Payne has used the knowledge and skills he obtained in his coursework in our department to
make important contributions on a team of engineers that revamped the design of a mechanical
heart valve.
We need to be able to give our Engineering Physics majors a strong, comprehensive
background in engineering fundamentals if we are to prepare our graduates for competitive jobs.
The primary responsibility of the new faculty hire will be to teach PHY 229 Strength of Materials
and PHY 230 Engineering Dynamics. It is not sufficient for the faculty member to just teach the
concepts in these courses, they must also teach students how engineers solve problems. It is a
unique approach, very different from that used by scientists, that is a strength of the engineering
field. We cannot maintain a competitive program if we do not have faculty who are properly
trained in this process; we need to have a new faculty member with a background in engineering
practices.
The Department has begun taking the initial steps to gain ABET accreditation for our
Engineering Physics program (ABET is the international accreditation agency for engineering
programs.) The preliminary review board told us, a few years ago, that we must increase the
number of approved faculty who teach the Engineering Physics curriculum. To be approved the
faculty member must have at least a minor in an area of engineering or have experience as a
practicing engineer. We currently do not have sufficient faculty with a broad background in the
engineering concepts and practices that our graduates will use in the workforce. ABET
accreditation provides assurance to employers that a university program meets the quality
standards of the profession. When we obtain ABET accreditation for our program our graduates
will be well positioned for high-salaried high-skilled entry-level employment in engineering.
2. Demand for program
Our greatest growth has been in our Engineering Physics major. We anticipate that this will
continue as the economy in Michigan continues to improve and diversify. There is increasing
demand from expanding local industries such as the major automotive R&D departments, optical
engineering, non-destructive testing and evaluation, biomedical instrumentation, and aerospace
and defense technologies. The Department of Homeland Security regularly sends email requests
to our faculty asking them to recommend good physics graduates for jobs in that sector. We need
to make sure our students are properly trained from the start of the program. This can only be
done if a qualified faculty member who understands, and is trained in, the engineering process
teaches PHY 229 and PHY 230.
3. Relation to department and college goals
A significant goal of both the department and the college is to prepare our graduates for
excellent jobs after graduation. Employers now want our graduates to be able to solve real-world
problems that result in product solutions that have the potential to shape the future of society,
technology, and medicine. Our students must have a diverse range of physics and engineering
skills to meet the challenges in modern industry and have their skills be recognized, by the local
industrial and engineering community, as being of the highest quality. To meet this goal we will
continue our process of obtaining ABET accreditation for our Engineering Physics program. We
will need significant help from the new faculty member to achieve this goal.
An equally important goal, and one stressed by the Provost’s office, is to increase the amount
of research done by faculty members. The new faculty hire would be expected to establish a
vigorous engineering science research program that would involve students at all levels.
Engineering science is an extremely broad area of research ripe with projects that can involve
students. Our extensive electronics laboratory already has much of the equipment necessary for a
new faculty member to begin his/her research program. The faculty member can also use
equipment in our other laboratories, including a vacuum chamber and a recently purchased 3D
printer. We have plans to purchase a high-speed camera that our faculty can use in several
research projects, including fluid dynamics – an extremely active and lucrative field of research in
engineering. Furthermore, due to the breadth of topics that an engineering scientist can tackle,
students in our CSIE courses, can have an opportunity to participate in an exciting project that
will help them solidify their choice to major in a STEM field.
4. Current availability of faculty
I (Dr. Oakes) developed the PHY 229 and PHY 230 courses shortly after joining the faculty at
Eastern Michigan University and I taught the courses until I became Department Head. Since I
can no longer teach the classes because of my administrative duties, Dr. Behringer has taught
PHY 229, but he has no formal training in engineering processes. He learned some of the
fundamentals by taking (as a student) PHY 485 with Dr. Jacobs, but his professional credentials,
experience, and development are not in engineering, as is necessary for ABET accreditation. The
PHY 230 course has been taught by lecturers the past three times it has been offered and it is clear
when the students take the higher level engineering physics courses that, although they are
grounded in theory, they have little knowledge of standard engineering practices. This deficiency
puts the students at a serious disadvantage in the junior/senior courses, as there is little time for
them to master fundamental skills when they must apply them from the first day of class. Dr.
Jacobs is currently the only faculty member with the necessary expertise and background in
engineering to teach PHY 229 and PHY 230 but she already teaches two of the three junior/senior
level engineering physics courses. Also, the Engineering Physics program can never be
accredited if only one faculty member teaches the entire curriculum.
5. Relation to general education
Enrollment in our General Education service courses is fairly steady since physics is a
fundamental science that is included in the modern curricula of programs as diverse as sports
medicine, chemistry, computer science, technology and aviation. The new hire would teach a
share of these service courses. Additionally, as mentioned above, engineering science has
applications in a wide range of technological fields including energy, medicine, and climate –
disciplines that encompass some of the biggest problems facing our current civilization. The
department would want the new faculty member to develop a course that addresses the role of
physics in finding solutions to such problems; hopefully this would attract students to
interdisciplinary studies in the STEM areas.
6. Other important Information
The Department has taken the initial steps to achieve ABET accreditation for its Engineering
Physics program. We need to have a sufficient number of faculty, with the proper training in
engineering sciences, to achieve this goal. We will attract many more students to the program if
they know they can be eligible to achieve certification as a Professional Engineer (PE), which can
only be done with courses from an ABET accredited program. The high standard of quality that
ABET accreditation guarantees will inspire confidence in our program to the incoming STEM
students and the companies that will eventually hire them.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.-Submitted by A. Oakes 12/15/15