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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Roman Z. Morawski; Jerzy Woznicki; Andrzej Krasniewski

career objectives. • possibility to adjust the pace of studying to individual capabilities and preferences: A full-time student is allowed, within certain limits, to decide on his/her workload (the number of courses taken) each term. This makes it possible for better students to complete their programs ahead of schedule. On the other hand, weaker students and those who take part-time employment are more likely to complete their programs, instead of being dismissed Page 2.367.2 for inadequate progress or inferior performance in the courses taken.Enhancing diversity and flexibility of the system of study can have an essential impact on

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas R Phillips

thespecific learning opportunities awaiting students at the partner institutions.In order to successfully market a program, there must be a professional or career rationale thatmakes sense to students. Students want to know why they should study abroad, what they will bedoing, and the likely payoff. It is fine if each student has a slightly different mix of course work andpractical training. There is no reason, however, for not having activity models with stated learningobjectives, whether you are planning courses, projects, or internships. This seems reasonable if aninstitutions plans to give academic credit. Moreover, this information is needed for marketing aprogram, recruiting students, budgeting, and later evaluation.Insufficient plans for

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Bob Lahidji

, simplifying in manufacturingprocesses, and optimizing of human resources. The objective of this paper is to report the core courses and laboratory activities inmanufacturing/mechanical engineering technology programs. These programs prepare studentsfor careers in America's changing industrial environment.Introduction Four-year Engineering Technology programs started in the early 1960's becauseengineering programs were becoming too theoretical. A baccalaureate in engineering technologyprepares individuals to become engineering technologist. The Engineering Technology Councilhas defined engineering technology as a: Profession in which a knowledge of the applied mathematical and natural sciences gained by higher education

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Saeid Y. Eidgahy

Session 3260 CQI IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERS: Dynamics, Obligations and Myths S. Y. Eidgahy, Ph.D Jefferson Community College ABSTRACT: Professional development or continuing education of practicing engineers hasbecome paramount to our international competitiveness. Whether such educational efforts aredirected at learning new technologies and processes; simply updating existing skills andknowledge, or even completely retraining engineers for new careers; training is now an integralengineering activity. That is why this issue must be under constant

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

William W. Predebon; Peck Cho

students come from disadvantaged school districts, andmost UP female students are from rural school districts. Preparation or encouragement to train Page 2.172.1for a science or engineering career may not have been emphasized during their secondary schooleducation and/or appropriate preparatory courses may not have been available. In addition, thesestudents in particular may find it more difficult to adjust to the University campus andcommunity environment, and to develop the critical personal connections that will provide themacademic support. Often the high expectations from faculty, peers and self that encourage highperformance from students

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Stephen A. Raper; Susan L. Murray

Engineering & Management Press, 1988, p. 44.7. Niebel, Benjamin W., Motion and Time Study , Ninth Edition, Irwin Publications, p. 25, 1993.8. David Britton, Career Opportunity Center, University of Missouri-Rolla, Interview, February 20, 1997.9. Salary Survey, September 1996, National Association of Colleges and Employers, Bethlehem, PA.10. Sarchet, Bernard R., “Engineering Management - Key To The Future”, Engineering Management Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1989, pp. 4 - 7.11. Kocaoglu, Dundar F., “Strategic Opportunities For Engineering Management,” Engineering Management Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1989, pp. 8 - 10.12. Editorial, “Research and Educational Characteristics of the Engineering Management Discipline

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Barbara Blake Bath

on their own during the week and then meet on Fridayto present their weekly progress report. These weekly meetings enable the students to get an ideaabout all of the project areas. Some students determined last year that there was an area ofsoftware development in which they were not interested. Others found new areas of interest. Some field trips to local firms to determine career opportunities are planned. Once studentsget involved with their project, they are usually anxious to see it to conclusion and are notthrilled about having too many speakers or field trips.Reporting Requirements: Each team presents a ten minute oral report each week which gives abrief overview of accomplishments of the past week and plans for the next week

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Lynn G. Mack; James C. Wood

behaviors of the faculty .Preliminary results to date demonstrate that the exemplary faculty are highly committed to thegoals and objectives of the SC ATE initiative and to changing their instructional and professionalpractices to improve the quality of education and career preparation of engineering technologystudents. Faculty are now communicating and collaborating across discipline and departmentallines to develop an integrated instructional system. The cultural change that occurred can beillustrated by the comment of one faculty member made after a workshop: "...faculty had beenmoved out of their boxes and they could not be placed back into them if anyone wanted to."ConclusionThe Exemplary Faculty Project is encouraging new approaches and

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert George; Allen Soyster; John Lamancusa

student’s academic career. Of the literally hundreds of such projects with which thisdepartment head has been involved, the students’ evaluation of their importance in theireducation is an almost universal A+. The industry involvement makes a real difference: like thedifference between practice and “playing in a real game.” It is an opportunity to innovate anddesign. Most importantly, there is a “customer” and someone who really cares - the sponsor. Inmany cases, such projects provide a pathway from the classroom into a productive job.This writer remembers his own undergraduate experiences with an “industry project” (severaldecades ago). The project involved the design of an inspection station for an automated line inthe production of cigars. Soon

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Dale Ross; Bill Taylor

the children who collect information about New Mexico'srivers and streams. On our annual Discovery Day, buses from all over northern New Mexicoconverge on Highlands University--since 1994. Students enroll in mini-workshops of interestwhich are conducted by Engineering faculty and students. Each participating high school studentreceives a NASA logo tee-shirt and an experience of the possibilities awaiting them inEngineering careers. We instituted a bi-weekly seminar series for student development. Speakersfor the Engineering students have included former graduates from the Engineering program andalso speakers from NASA, the National Laboratories, as well as from private industry.A student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professionals and

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Mumtaz Usmen; John Raad; Haluk Aktan

NDT technologies. The first stage of the plan was todetermine those NDT procedures which have the most potential use in civil engineering andcould readily be adapted to classroom applications. The second step was to locate suppliers anddetermine the financial cost vs. teaching benefits. The third step was simply the acquisition andde-bugging of the equipment. The final step was to develop lab procedures which could easilybe integrated into the current curriculum.NDT is still considered an emerging field in civil engineering, thus it is difficult to determine thefull impact of these procedures. However, on a smaller scale the success of these methods isindisputable. During the careers of the current generation of civil engineers NDT methods

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

P.E., Dr. Henry L. Welch

technical electives can leave anundergraduate too specialized for their potential career path. This paper will address the issuesof prerequisite material and specialization in the area of fuzzy set theory and its applications. Itwill be shown that there is little or no significant prerequisite material problems for mostengineering majors and that an appropriate breadth-based approach to application areas canaddress the specialization issue. The results of teaching a quarter-long course in fuzzy sets forthree years at the Milwaukee School of Engineering(MSOE) to electrical and computer engineerswill also be presented.IntroductionFuzzy sets or fuzzy logic, as they are most often referred to, suffer from a number of problems intoday's engineering

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Jerry W. Samples

Session 3233 The One-Page Thermodynamics Course Jerry W. Samples University of Pittsburgh at JohnstownABSTRACT: While the title may be a little misleading, for those who have experienced it, this onepage may have saved their academic careers. This paper illustrates how to take a complexsubject and make it less overwhelming. Some years ago, several students who were overwhelmed with thermodynamics came insearch of help in understanding this often difficult course. Understand that this was a one-semester course that covered the lion’s share of a standard

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Sue Godez; Scott Evans; George H. Staab; Eric Engdahl

dedication a seeminglyimpossible task can be accomplished. Many of the high school students felt that this projecttaught them the true meaning of commitment. Until this time they felt that they had beencommitted to organizations and athletic teams, but never to the point of devoting all of their freetime, thought, and energies to the success of a project. Additional "tools" the high school seniorshave acquired from the university students, and which may prove useful in their post secondaryeducation are; Cliff Notes can be used for reports when you are out of time; "all nighters" are auseful way to make up for procrastination.The interaction between high school and university students has also influenced the views andpossible career paths of some

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Arthur T. Johnson

whopresently are associated with academic programs with agricultural engineering roots.] It's probably fair to say that we have had some success at reforming ourselves from theagricultural engineering tied to one specific, but important, industry to the biological engineeringthat is based on a science instead of on an industry. In order to make the change thus far, we havehad to contemplate what things we did previously that had prepared us for the reformation, and howbiological engineering would be a natural extension of historical trends within agriculturalengineering. Some people have embraced the change easily; others still don't see the relevance ofbiological engineering to their careers. The result is a lot of repetition of the

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Randall L. Kolar; David A. Sabatini

more complete picture of theproblem. We have also found that team teaching enhances group discussion. Finally, we note thatteam teaching is funner (sic), which equates to high instructor enthusiasm.On the other hand, we are not blind to the fact that most schools, including our own, do not havethe resources to place two professors in every course. A possible solution, which we have justbegun to implement, is to team teach with select Ph.D. candidates or post-doctoral students,especially those who wish to pursue academic careers. No additional funding is provided becausewe view it as part of their overall academic experience, not an extra service. A very positiveaspect of this arrangement is that it helps us address a widely-recognized weakness

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Jian Edward Zhang; Lucy King

manufacturing), (b) GMI students to teach whatthey learned so they are better able to understand and retain the knowledge, (c) pre-college studentswith incentives to select mathematics, engineering and science careers, (d) GMI students with theopportunity to work with and serve as role models to these younger students, and (e) local smallindustries with seminars and workshops on CIM. GMI students are able to learn, teach, implementand experience the power of hierarchical computer control of an integrated flexiblemanufacturing facility with some sensor feedback systems. Subsequently, sharing thisexperience with other students off-campus using the CIMoW allows the students to becomementors to pre-college students and attract them to choose careers in

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Mark A. Pagano; Christine L. Corum

ofthis paper and are given below [4].“V.A.3. Programs must have written goals which are consistent with overall institutional goals.These goals must, as a minimum, focus on the student body served, resource allocation, andother factors directly affecting the program. Articulation of goals should be accomplishedthrough specification of objectives by which achievement toward goals can be measured.Programs must demonstrate achievements through various methods, e.g., student outcomeassessments, graduate career performance and employer feedback measures.V.A.4. Programs must have plans for continuous improvement. The visiting team will belooking for evidence which demonstrates implementation of continuous improvement processesand procedures for each

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Raymond B. Landis

curriculum to provide freshman students increased exposure to topics such as computing,engineering design, problem solving, and creativity.Generally, little consideration is given as to whether these activities and interventions reallyaddress those factors that are impeding student success. Consequently, although worthwhile,the types of interventions listed above do not generally have a significant impact on studentsuccess. The postulate of this paper is that enhancing engineering student success can best beaccomplished by taking a direct approach to changing student attitudes and behaviors.In Chapter 1 of the author’s text Studying Engineering: A Road Map to a Rewarding Career,2the keys to success in engineering study are described as

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Sheela N. Yadav-Olney; Jill M. Clough

the competition much more interesting because each teamwas unique -- with its own machine and a strategy built around the capabilities of the machine.For UW-Platteville students, several mentioned that participating on the FIRST team hadreinforced their career choice (particularly of EE for some reason -- several mentioned beingunsure, but seeing the seniors having such fun with the control systems inspired the youngerstudents to stick with it).Future plansHappily, after last year's competition the students have taken the initiative to organize themselvesinto a continuing group. In May, officers were elected to the posts of design leader, treasurer,public relations director, and animation leader. Each post represents two positions -- one

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Carol Richardson

may include career information,communication, teamwork and leadership activities, drug and alcohol education, values,diversity, and ethics, study skills, personality and interest inventories, and selfmanagement of stress and social issues. The new student is provided with a directconnection to academic department, peer and mentor support from the student affairs andfaculty facilitators, and an introduction to campus resources. Resources that can beintroduced are the library, computer systems, and the Learning Development Center. Thecourses are not always restricted to freshman students. Some departments encourage new Page 2.208.22 Upcraft, M. Lee

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Mary Ann McCartney; Maria A. Reyes; Mary Anderson-Rowland

position has established the K-12 outreach as anintegral part of the CEAS.This year, on the Navajo Reservation, the first group of MESA Window Rock High Schoolstudents graduated, impacting the number of Native Americans entering engineering. TheseMESA students have distinguished themselves by demonstrating less anxiety about enteringengineering, by utilizing the MEP services more frequently than their peers, and by taking Page 2.259.3leadership roles early in their academic careers. The ASU Vice President of Student Affairs has 3asked MEP to team with the Native American Achievement Program (NAAP) so

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

James R. Sherrard

MANDATORY CREDIT REDUCTION OF ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS - CAN QUALITY HIGH CREDIT PROGRAMS SURVIVE? James R. Sherrard Three Rivers Community-Technical College The late 1980's and 1990's have proven to be very difficult times for engineering technologydegree programs nationally. Not only have the numbers of enrolled students declined whileemployment opportunities have generally diminished, but the costs to support quality programshave continued to grow. The perceived reduction in interest for technology as a career choice hasput added pressure on both institutions and program faculty to save and revitalize these programs.Business and industry have

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Barry J. Farbrother

requirements in addition to the traditional engineering topics.(ii) The Sophomore yearA distinguishing feature of both new programs is that the sophomore year for bothprograms are virtually identical (differing only in one course) and the student is given thebroad engineering science foundation which we believe is essential if they are to functioneffectively throughout their careers. The curriculum incorporates an innovative sequenceof courses in electrical, mechanical, fluid and thermal systems which were developed withsupport from the National Science Foundation. The Foundation Coalition7,89 focuses uponfoundation curricula which are integrated, interdisciplinary and design-oriented. Theyutilize student discovery, co-operative learning and problem

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Matthew R. James; Mario G. Beruvides

their leisure.For demographic purposes each subject was asked information on: sex, age, race, zip code,occupation, course of study, classification, and highest degree earned. The questions weredesigned so that both EM and MBA students would be confronted with general perception issues Page 2.318.3for the two degree programs. These questions covered the following areas: 1. The difficulty of both programs at the subject’s university. 2. The ability for EMs to substitute for MBAs, and vice versa. 3. The career mobility of men and women with each degree. 4. The expected leadership abilities associated with EMs/MBAs

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Alley

campus.Finally, we incorporated design aspects into the course that we believe will help our students intheir engineering curricula and engineering careers. These design aspects included opportunitiesto research a topic in science and engineering, consistent instruction in writing between freshmancomposition and the technical communication courses that they will take later, and linking ofassignments so that students achieve depth in their writing and speaking. While we do not advocate that all engineering colleges try to teach freshmancommunication, we do offer the following suggestions for other engineering colleges based onour own experience: 1) Show an interest in the freshman composition course of your students. There is perhapsno better

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard R. Schultz

source code templates of a number of useful image processingalgorithms. These C source code templates were deliberately missing critical componentsThis work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development(CAREER) Program, grant number MIP-9624849. In addition, this material is based upon work supportedin part by the U.S. Army Research Office under contract number DAAH04-96-1-0449. Page 2.392.1of the algorithms; the students finished writing the source code, and then conductedseveral experiments to visualize how well the techniques actually performed. In thismanner, the students were coerced to understand

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Mary Ann McCartney; Maria A. Reyes; Mary Anderson-Rowland

2.446.1themselves. One is now considering teaching as a career. Curriculum team members continuedto tutor students after the program creating a support structure for the students.IntroductionA unique, very successful summer bridge program was held for incoming underrepresentedminority freshman and transfer engineering students at Arizona State University (ASU) duringthe summer of 1996. The Minority Engineering Program (MEP) Summer Bridge Program was atwo week residential program designed to ensure academic success for the 44 studentparticipants. The program was supported by a grant from the Coalition to Increase MinorityDegrees (CIMD) and ASU’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS). (Note:CIMD is sponsored by the National Science Foundation

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert J. Beichner; Hugh Fuller; Richard M. Felder; Philip R. Dail; Leonhard E. Bernold; Ernest E. Burniston

Engineering” (beginning and end of the fall semester, and for IMPEC only, end of the second semester). An instrument developed at the University of Pittsburgh that assesses attitudes toward engineering as a curriculum and career, self-reported confidence levels in core freshman-year subjects, and in the postsurvey, attitudes toward the freshman year experience.• Force Concept Inventory scores (IMPEC only, beginning and end of second semester). A widely used instrument that assesses conceptual understanding of mechanics.• performance on common final exam problems in calculus, chemistry, and physics courses.• responses to open-ended questions on midsemester and end-of-semester surveys (IMPEC only).• Written and oral

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Barbara Olds

student. The writingincluded in a portfolio may be selected by the student or assigned by the teacher; it may cover anentire college career or a single semester; it may include samples from only one class or from anentire curriculum; it may include peer or student commentary or evaluation, or it may simplyinclude the student’s work. Any of these approaches may be successful if the instructor has aclear purpose for asking students to maintain portfolios and if this purpose is clearly articulatedto students. In the best cases, portfolios help students reflect on their growth as writers, helpstudents to interact with peers in the discussion of writing, and help faculty and students todiscuss ways in which students may become better writers. In