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