Faculty Meeting Notes - Fall 2008-2009

11/12/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, Khairul Alam, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jay Gunasekera, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders, David Jones, Stephanie Walker

 

Reminder Schedule

> 9th/10th week: Area of Expertise mtgs to review and discuss assessment and other info from this quarter [Per quarterly Assessment schedule approved by department 03/12/08]

> Exam Wk: no meeting

> Winter Break: no meetings

> 2 weeks after final grades due (Dec 9th) – outcome assessment reports due for the quarter

 

For Info:

SAB/GSAB – Discussion with TJ on the ASME conference trip led to ideas for better graduate student engagement in departmental matters.  The idea is to schedule a “State of the Department” gathering once or twice a year that would include a 15 minute presentation on department issues (developed in conjunction with the GSAB liaison) followed by an open discussion as well as an opportunity for anonymous comments and questions.  It would include a social aspect (free food J ).  It could also be done separately for undergrad MEs if the SAB thought it would be useful.

 

For Discussion:

> Assessment, in Area of Expertise meetings


Area of Expertise Group 1: Thermal Systems, Lab / Experimental Methods, and Service Courses [Members as of September 2008: Jun Choi, Izzi Urieli, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Khairul Alam, Jesus Pagan]

 

Area of Expertise Group 2: Mechanical Systems, Materials & Manufacturing, Design, and Computers/Simulation [Members as of September 2008: Bob Williams, Rudy Pasic, Frank Kraft, Jay Gunasekera, Greg Kremer, Ken Halliday, John Cotton]

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10/29/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, Khairul Alam, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jay Gunasekera, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders, David Jones, Stephanie Walker

 

Reminder Schedule

Department Social – Nov 1st – Dinner at Bob and Lisa’s home, starts at 6 PM. Sign up in Steph’s office.  Details sent by Bob via email.

Nov 3 – 7: Greg is away at ASME conference.

Nov 5th – no faculty meeting.

 

For Info:

FERPA-related answers

1) Is having a copy of an email request from a student sufficient documentation for writing a recommendation letter for a student?

The best practice would be to have a signed statement from the student.  If time is of the essence and the faculty member feels comfortable that the e-mail is coming from the student, i.e. from the student's Oak e-mail account, then an e-mail request is sufficient.

 

2) Is it OK to put graded homework assignments "outside your door" for pickup if the students agreed it was OK and signed a statement permitting the instructor to do it?

Yes, provided you have a signed statement from each student authorizing you to do so.

 

3) Is it OK to post student grades on the Blackboard course website in a file that all students in the course can access if PID numbers as the only identifying feature and if the students agreed it was OK and signed a statement permitting the instructor to do it?

Yes, this meets the FERPA regulation but is not a practice that I recommend.  Please be sure that the PID order is random, i.e. not in alphabetical order by name (even though name is not displayed) where a student could possibly deduce the grade of another student.  Also, this should be done only if you have 10 or more students in the class.

 

For Discussion:

Q2S Working Session

1.    Area of Expertise groups work on the big picture of how the ideal curriculum would look for their course sequences.  Include info on # of offerings of each course per year.  Try to use as many 3 credit courses as possible to make scheduling easier on us and our students.

2.    Count up the # of courses and credit hours we need to offer each semester.  Target is 40 courses per year or 120-130 credit hours per year taught by ME faculty (including grad and ugrad courses but not including summer). 

Prioritize curriculum components (using program outcomes) to get to the # we can handle, and use benchmark data to make our case to the CAC for the course sequences we want to offer with ME faculty.

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10/22/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, Khairul Alam, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jay Gunasekera, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders, David Jones, Stephanie Walker

 

Reminder Schedule

Department Social – Nov 1st – Dinner at Bob and Lisa’s home, starts at 6 PM. Sign up in Steph’s office.  Details sent by Bob via email.

Nov 3 – 7: Greg is away at ASME conference.

Nov 5th – no faculty meeting.

 

For Info:

IT – IT101 will be a 3 credit semester course.  They do not plan to support IT117 after the switch to semesters.

MATH – 263ABC – proposed to convert to 2 semesters.   263D and 340 – proposed that each will be a semester and # of credit hours is being debated.

Data Security updates – Handouts on FERPA and data encryption

PhD program discussions have been initiated with ISE.  By next week they will supply their concept of how the program should look to accommodate them, then we will begin the real discussions.

 

For Discussion:

Advising / curriculum:

> Accept Robe Leadership as the “3 ME tech elective credits”? – No, the class is accepted as a tech elective, but not an ME elective.

> Current seniors with ME350 are exempt from 451 (even though it is coreq with 471).

 

SAB/GSAB – no items

 

Q2S Discussion

3.    Service courses that we teach – do we plan any changes? Drop ME100, keep ME321 as 3 semester credit course, modify ME224 to be part of Mechanics sequence, Change ET181 – more info later.

 

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10/15/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jay Gunasekera, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders, David Jones, Stephanie Walker

 

Reminder Schedule

Department Social – Nov 1st – Dinner at Bob and Lisa’s home, starts at __PM.  More info to follow.

Advising week – starts next week.


For Info:

Q2S: The course conversion deadline for departments is now spring 2009-2010 as opposed to fall 2009-2010.  The updated timeline is also available on the EVPP Web site along with more info at http://www.ohio.edu/provost/q2s.cfm.

> Other updates: [Ken]

 

Faculty Senate update – Collective Bargaining, other items

 

SAB/GSAB ?

 

Grad Program

> Discussion of hiring a proposal writer to help with the ME PhD proposal

 

For Discussion:

Q2S Working Session – Area of Expertise groups work on prioritizing curriculum components (using program outcomes).  Needed to determine what changes to request within the college this year.

 

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10/08/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, Khairul Alam, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jay Gunasekera, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders, David Jones, Stephanie Walker

 

Reminder Schedule


For Info:

> 5-year Vision Ohio Implementation plan updates

For Discussion:

Semester transition planning

> Ken, Izzi and Jun will be our undergraduate transition planning committee, but all faculty will be involved in the process through discussions in our area of expertise committees

> Ken provided some initial benchmarking data from peer institutions and is compiling data in response to specific questions such as

 * Does the ME department teach Statics and Dynamics? (6 of 9 yes, 1 has Statics and ENG course, 2 have Statics as CE course.)

 * Is Fluid Mechanics an ME course? (9 of 10 yes, for 1 it is an aero course)

 * Are there 2 Thermo courses? (8 yes, 1 No, 2 have 1 course plus lab)

> Other questions were posed at the meeting (Mechatronics required?, Manufacturing course required?, # of tech electives?, tracks?, total # of semester hours to graduate [ and broken down to # of hours in ME and in engineering]), and Ken invited others to propose more questions. 


Grad Program Items -
> Still need CE PhD proposal – Steph will work on it

> The grad committee will be responsible for the conversion of the MSME grad program to semesters.


SAB/GSAB items
> David and TJ will check with others to see what role students want to play in the planning of the semester curriculum

> Students still want more tech elective options


College Workload Policy

> We have been directed to make sure our P&T and yearly evaluation policies are consistent with the workload policy.  We are asked to create a department policy, but no deadline established yet.  Greg will draft something and present it for discussion.

 

Updated / Reformatted ME Department Outcomes List

> The list is now in ‘review ready’ form – the form to be used in the ABET report.  Please let me know if any corrections are needed.

 

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10/01/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, Khairul Alam, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jay Gunasekera, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders, David Jones, Stephanie Walker

 

Reminder Schedule


For Info:

> ME headcounts look good, but 2008 grant awards are down

> Let students know about Hollings Scholarship (promising sophomores or juniors on 5-yr plan)

For Discussion:

Class schedules - Winter (work out ME288 instructor and Jay’s teaching load) and Spring (Ken will teach the Automotive Engineering course)

CAD Lab report - Color Printer instructions, web page and curriculum flowchart

Grad Program Items -
> ME PhD – Dave and Frank will meet with ISE reps and move forward (partnership with CASE needs to be revived)


SAB/GSAB items - none

Curriculum Decision points / Semester transition milestones
> ME280/380 – Dave and Jay will work together as course sequence directors / organizers.  [Note: Include cultural awareness / global perspectives (Have international students talk on their cultures / experiences?), something on bio / info / nano, life science, entrepreneurship, sustainability]

> Mechatronics – plan to make decision during Spring 2009 faculty program review meeting so we know if it should be included in semester planning? [Jun / Bob to assess and make proposal?]
> Mechanics sequence (include Statics?), Thermofluids sequence (include Fluids?), EE courses (what can we get in one semester), ChBE courses (do we still want versions of 231 and 418?), IT117(alternative course or module focused on key outcomes), Mechanical Systems Sequence (what gets combined?), ME Lab sequence (how to convert), Design sequence (maintaining ‘clustered’ courses), Technical Electives (how many to require),..

> co-op plans wrt semesters – should we restrict options to make it easier to manage?

> Develop Dept. guidelines for semester transition - for example:
   * Based on 1st MATH semester and placement methods lay out curriculum appropriate for majority of students.
   * Follow standard course recommendations as much as possible and develop set times for all required courses and available time slots for elective courses to ease scheduling 

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09/24/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Rudy Pasic, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi,

 

Reminder Schedule

> Stocker Faculty Enrichment Fund proposals due at end of the month

 

For Discussion:

Assessment Process

> Complete "ABET review-ready" outcomes list (including new outcomes as required by updated Program Educational Objectives)
(may need to include implementation dates)


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09/17/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders; David Jones

 

Reminder Schedule

> Stocker Faculty Enrichment Fund proposals due at end of the month

 

For Info:

> ME Board on campus Friday for SrD and ME101 interactions

 

> Centers of Excellence Update:

 * Approach to “Centers of Excellence” graduate report from Department level

 

> Faculty Advising Manual: www.ohio.edu/univcollege/farmindex.cfm

 

> Chronicle Of Higher Education now available free online through OU Library

 

 

For Discussion:

Fall Department Social – at Bob and Lisa’s new home.  Potential dates…

 

Q2S timeline:

> 2008-2009 Planning Year

* Department level: define key curriculum-related decision points on college and department level, and identify resource-limited courses (labs) that are section-size limited to determine if we will be able to get all students through in two semesters.

* 2008-2009 Summer – they expect planning to continue in earnest (conversion guidelines expected by Winter), with stipend $ available

> 2009-2010 Curriculum Conversion

* Fall – Departments finish curriculum conversion

* Spring – Colleges finish approving…

> 2011-2012

* Fall - Contracts are prepared with each student caught in the transition

> 2012 – 2013 Year 1 of semesters

 

Grad Program Items:

> The CWE is organizing a panel discussion for graduate students called "Getting Done: Graduate Students Discuss Writing the Thesis / Dissertation" for Thurs. Oct. 30.  We are trying to offer a balanced representation of panelists from different disciplines across campus.

   * Suggested students from ME?

> ME PhD - next steps (need to partner with CASE)

 

SAB/GSAB Items?: None

 

ABET items:

> Changing the culture: Proposal - For yearly merit evaluations and department-level P&T supplement student evaluations with assessment reports and indications of closing-the-loop with outcomes-based improvements to judge teaching effectiveness. 

> Better Communication and sharing of Information: Link ABET syllabi, outcomes, and assessment reports (with example work) to the new curriculum flowchart

   * Complete outcomes links during 08-09, and assessment reports by 12/09.

> To Do Now: Complete "ABET review-ready" outcomes list (including new outcomes as required by updated Program Educational Objectives) (may need to include implementation dates)

> 07-08 and 08-09 academic years: Assess new courses (101, 288/388/488, 303/304, 314,...) and existing courses per our assessment plan with a special emphasis on compiling evidence of "closing the loop"
> By December 2008: 1st draft of self-study report completed to identify areas of concern
> By end-of-summer ’09: Complete self study copy suitable for external review
> During 09-10 academic year: Compile course binders and address any open items or areas of concern
> By end of Winter ’09: Course syllabi and faculty resumes compiled, and syllabi linked to curriculum flowchart
> January 2010: Final Self Study Draft complete
> July 2010: All info sent to ABET
> Fall 2010: ABET visit

 

Time permitting:

Curriculum Decision points (post-ABET2010, post-semester transition)

> ME280/380 – Course Sequence director (Dr. Jay?), Include cultural awareness / global perspectives (Have international students talk on their cultures / experiences?), something on bio / info / nano, life science, entrepreneurship, sustainability,

> Mechatronics – decision during Spring 2009 faculty program review meeting? [Jun / Bob to assess and make proposal?]

 

 

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09/10/08

Attendees: Greg Kremer; Izzi Urieli, Ken Halliday, Frank Kraft, Rudy Pasic, John Cotton, Bob Williams, Dave Bayless, Carole Womeldorf, Jun Choi, Jesus Pagan, TJ Cyders

 

Reminder Schedule

 

For Discussion:
Scheduling / Curriculum Items:

> No unresolved problems. 

> ME101 – all faculty are invited / encouraged to give a talk in 101 to introduce yourself to our large freshman class (Ken).

 

Budget Plan – faculty allotments

> $700 discretionary for faculty, $350 for staff.  (with allowable rollover)

* Faculty and Staff office supplies, computer equipment, etc.

* Course Development

* Teaching aids to increase engagement

* Class projects or extracurricular projects

* Travel supplement - for any university related travel

* Recruiting initiatives

* Small Lab supplies

* Small matching funds

> $1200 for qualifying travel – determined per Stocker research support requirements

> Some money available for Faculty Development and Grad Student Recruiting - see Greg if interested.

 

Space / TA office hours/ PhD student ‘offices’…

> STKR 418 policy – 4 desks available for TAs to reserve for office hours, PhD students can claim other desks as semi-dedicated work space.

> Room 403 is currently available, but needs cleanup.

 

SAB/GSAB items / members: No report this week.  Need new GSAB members.

 

Committee Members that represent ME Dept.:

BIOENGINEERING STEERING GROUP – Bob (2011), Dave (2010)

COOPERATIVE EDUCATION COMMITTEE – Dave (June 2010)

COMPUTER SECURITY COMMITTEE – Randy

CURRICULUM and ACCREDITATION COMMITTEE – Greg (2011)

FACULTY ACADEMIC HONOR COUNCIL –Izzi (2011)

GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH COMMITTEE – Frank

INTEGRATED ENGINEERING PH.D. STEERING COMMITTEE – Frank (2011)

LABORATORY SAFETY COMMITTEE – Randy

LIBRARY COMMITTEE – Jun (2011)

PROBATION COMMITTEE – Ken (2010)

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS COMMITTEE – Khairul (2011)

PROMOTION AND TENURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE – Rudy (2012)

ROBE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE ADVISORY BOARD – Greg (2009)

SCHOLARSHIP AND RECRUITMENT COMMITTEE - Dave (2011)

STOCKER FACULTY ENRICHMENT FUND COMMITTEE – Rudy (2010)

STOCKER FUND PLANNING AND ADVISORY COMMITTEE – Khairul (2010)

TECHNOLOGY FEE ADVISORY COMMITTEE – Adam McNally

 

ABET: Going electronic with all assessment reports (we have multi-sheet scanner to support it). 
Goal: Have current assessment reports on file for all required Ugrad classes by the end of the academic year.
Deadline for assessment reports for all Fall quarter required Ugrad classes classes is December 2008.

 

For information:

> 015 update: Most removal and initial rearranging complete.  Plan: active lab stations with holding areas. Mechatronics to be set up in 015C.

> ME Website Update: Jesus is acting webmaster, Sarang helped over the summer to do maintenance and begin improvements.

> No House Bill this year

> IT117 – Frank working with John Deno

> Grad Student Sarang Dalne is being funded by the department for CAD lab support, and he is available for other basic computer help.  Office hours are 10:30 – 1:30.

>  Rudy reports that the discussion about the faculty unionizing is continuing and all faculty will likely be asked to vote on the issue in the near future.  Rudy will put info in our mailboxes summarizing the issues. 

 

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Open items:

>  Technical Writing Committee: (John, Greg, Frank,...)

> Develop standard Technical Writing guidelines for the department (common expectations for reports).

> Define a standard citation format for all departmental undergraduate (lab and design reports) and graduate (project and thesis) reports.

> Other Items

          > SAB Suggestion: Create a suggested tech electives sheet for the ME program (Ken offered to work on this)

> Address issue with transfer students and total # of hours of Math and BS (in catalogue, DARS, and by assigning a "transfer advisor")

> Address issue of the lack of courses for students early in the program (if they do not start in MATH263A)

> Promote tech elective "concentrations" such as Energy, Biomedical, Robotics, Automotive, Manufacturing, ...

> Develop department-level understanding of an appropriate scope and level of difficulty for a graduate project (vs. a thesis).

> Need more SAB members (personal invitations to freshmen, sophomores and juniors) and GSAB members

> Report to Task Force on Centers of Excellence in Graduate and Professional Education - due date and format TBD
> College Strategic Plan and Workload policy

> IT117 Long Term Plan

          > ME PhD - next steps (need to partner with CASE)

 

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Modified September 2008, Copyright 2008, Ohio University

 
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