Mechanical Engineering Department Policies

Advising

The academic advisors for the ME department for academic year 2008-2009 are:

a. Freshman: Izzi

b. Sophomores: Carole

c. Juniors: Bob

d. Seniors: Ken

· If in a special case you are advising a student outside of this structure please keep the official advisor, and the department, up to date on your activities.

· Each student's DARs will be sent to the appropriate official advisor. Co-op students will get their DARs from this advisor and then schedule a meeting with the ME Co-op advisor (Dave).

· Any exceptions to the required curriculum that you want to approve for your advisee should be submitted with an explanation in writing to the department chair, who will then submit them to the Dean's office.

· Only faculty advisors will distribute DARS in the context of an advising session. Stephanie will not pass out DARS after advising week.

· Group sessions are good for information sharing, but should be used only in special circumstances for actual advising.

Class Scheduling:

· To facilitate student's scheduling it is expected that all faculty will finalize their class schedules (hours and room requirements) before the first day of the academic advising period.

· Please get an assigned room for each hour the class will meet. The demands on the department's conference room (research group meetings, advisory board meetings, prospective sponsors and students, etc.) have increased to the point where the room can no longer support class room use.

· Try to avoid scheduling classes for consecutive hours. It is easier for students to schedule classes, and to get a suitable room assigned, that meet at the same hour on multiple days (MTThF 9-10 instead of TTh 9-11.)

Instructor Absences:

· The Faculty Handbook specifies that faculty can use 10% of their time for outside activities. The department interprets this to mean that each instructor must meet classes at least 90% of the assigned times.

· If an instructor is going to miss a scheduled classes they should notify the department chair explaining how they will cover the class time - i.e. with make up assignments, make up classes, substitute instructors etc.

· If the absence(s) were unscheduled then this plan should be submitted to the chair as soon as possible after the instructor returns.

Graduate Policies:

Thesis Committee:

· All of the 4 MS thesis committee members except the college representative can be from the ME department. There is no need to have a member from the college but outside the department in addition to the college representative (who is external to the college).

Administrative Policies

PCard policy for meals on travel:

Do not use PCARD for meals on travel*. Take per-diem rate or pay out of pocket and submit via a travel expense form that you take responsibility for.

Reason: To avoid the cost and risk of dealing with receipts and the many exceptions and special cases that arise and cost the department money and resources to deal with.

* This also means that you should not charge meals to you room and pay the entire bill via PCARD.

Policy approved by faculty vote: 9/13/06

> The following Tech Fee policy proposal was approved 3/5/08

To request tech fee money to purchase software, please include responses to the following questions in your request:

a) Course use: Is the software used in a required course, an elective course, or not in any course?

b) Individual student use: Will the software be used to support student mentoring (including undergrad research, graduate research, student projects,...)

c) Number of students impacted: Please estimate how many students a year will use the software for any purpose (research, course work, etc.)

d) Is there any other justification for use of Tech Fee money for this purchase (for example you plan to give a yearly seminar in colloquium on the software application to make students more aware of its capabilities)?

> The computer lab coordinator (John) will review the requests and either act on them (with department chair approval) or if there is some question he will bring them to the faculty meeting for discussion. Requests for software that is primarily for research and that would impact a small number of students are only eligible for up to 25% of their cost from tech fee money. For transparency, the computer lab coordinator will periodically report to the faculty on tech fee budget and purchases.