Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Jim Gattis; Bryan Hill

. One of the keyelements of a successful recruiting plan is the management of information. The Collegedecided to implement a Customer (potential student) Relations Management system thatcould be used simultaneously by every member of the recruitment team. The well knownPC based systems, ACT! and Gold are not designed to handle many users working onvarious parts of the system simultaneously. Nor are they able to handle the number ofstudents that are being tracked by the College. Instead of creating an in-house CRMprogram or investing in a vender based multi-user program (Siebel), the College decidedto contract for web based CRM services from a new company called SalesForce.com.SalesForce.com currently has 15,500 customers (companies) and 267,999

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Chris Ramseyer; Beth Brueggen

“Camp Concrete” – An Experiment in Undergraduate Research Chris Ramseyer, Beth Brueggen University of Oklahoma, Norman OklahomaAbstract:The summer experience of a faculty member, two graduate research assistants and tenundergraduate research assistants is discussed. The students who participated in the inaugural2004 program coined the name "Camp Concrete" after they cast and tested more than 50,000pounds of concrete specimens at Fears Structural Engineering Lab, University of Oklahoma.The goal of Camp Concrete is to involve undergraduate students in high-quality research.Research projects are selected to address immediate needs of local businesses and agencies, suchas the

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Avery Schwer; Donna Dufner; George Morcous

Construction Systems College of Engineering University of Nebraska – LincolnAbstractFaculty are working with students on a research project developing a project managementsoftware program. This research project uses case-based reasoning (CBR), an artificialintelligence (AI) approach that overcomes most of the drawbacks of rule-based expertsystems (e.g., codification of the knowledge base) by looking for previous cases that aresimilar to the current problem and reusing them to solve the problem. CBR has beensuccessfully used in solving design, diagnoses, and prediction problems. The objective ofthis research is to develop a generic project management

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kurt Gramoll

Workshop on Designing, Developing and Implementing Online Collaboration Tools forEngineering Education, Kurt Gramoll, University of Oklahoma With the increased use of computers and electronic media in teaching basic engineering courses comes a need for better online collaboration tools. Many basic tasks, such as office hours, help sessions and even lecturing, can be done more efficiently and conveniently over the Internet with the right collaboration tools. However, there are few commercially available tools that work well for engineering. Engineers have special needs like vector-based graphics that can be edited, equations, illustrations, diagrams and other hard to create images. These tools also

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Karen S. Hays

oflaboratory health and safety, and it describes the necessity of such training as it pertains to notonly OSHA Compliance but also to the ethical obligation to provide a safe and healthy learningand working environment for the faculty and students. This paper defines the process ofevaluating necessary training topics using OSHA guidelines.IntroductionAccording to Prudent Practices in the Laboratory, a new culture of safety consciousness,accountability, organization and education has developed in the laboratories of the chemicalindustry, government and academia. So drastic is this new climate toward “safety first” in thelaboratory that it could scarcely have been imagined 25 years ago. This new culture of safetyconsciousness nurtures basic attitudes

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Danielle Julie Carrier; Katherine S. Vaughn; Carl Griffis

The spring freshman Biological and Agricultural Engineeringcourse at the University of ArkansasDanielle Julie Carrier, Katherine S. Vaughn and Carl GriffisBiological and Agricultural Engineering, University of Arkansas,203 Engineering Hall, Fayetteville, AR, 72701The objective of this presentation is to report on the content of the spring semesterBiological Engineering freshman design class. In this class, contact with students is donethrough a 60-minute lecture that is interfaced with a 170-minute laboratory. Thisfreshman class is the second of our design studio sequence that extends through to thesenior year. The purpose of the class is to introduce the students to design, namelythrough the understanding of the problem, pertinent

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Stephanie Ivey; Anna Lambert

When They Stay and When They Don’t: Examples of First Semester Retention Rates and Relationships to Learning Styles Stephanie Ivey and Anna Lambert Department of Civil Engineering, The University of MemphisAbstractOur research presents initial findings of a pilot-scale project performed at The Herff College ofEngineering, The University of Memphis, in the 2004-2005 academic year. This projectinvestigates the persistent issues surrounding difficulties in retention of first-semesterengineering students and examines the possibilities of variances in student learning styledifferences as potential contributors to students leaving engineering programs. While theresearchers

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Wangping Sun; J. M. Zhang; Z. J. Pei

meet the challenges in their future careers. In thispaper, the instructors of IMSE 564 will share some experiences in teaching the course, anddiscuss how the learner-centered environment was established for the class.KeywordsEngineering education; Lean manufacturing; Learner-centered environment.1. IntroductionAt Kansas State University, Product and Process Engineering (IMSE 564) is an engineeringcourse offered once a year to the senior undergraduates by the Department of Industrial &Manufacturing Systems Engineering (IMSE). It is a required course for the students whose majoris Manufacturing Engineering, and the students with other majors may take it as an elective. Inthe course, the students learn how to design the economic production

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

R. C. Clifft; Shivan Haran

Enhancing Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory Experience Dr. R. C. Clifft, Professor of Civil Engineering, and Dr. Shivan Haran, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Arkansas State University, P. O. Box 1740 State University, Arkansas 72467-1740 ABSTRACTThe importance of experimental activities is being increasingly recognized as integralelements of engineering curricula today. A reflection of this trend is evidenced by thereview criteria applied by educational accreditation boards such as ABET. The crucialrole that laboratory experiments play in providing a meaningful engineering experienceto the

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kathleen Condray

Standing Out from the Crowd: Opportunities for Research and Work Abroad in Engineering Dr. Kathleen Condray, University of Arkansas The benefits of an experience abroad are indisputable; students can improve languageskills and cultural fluency, learn to think in new ways, and experience world masterworks of art,architecture, and engineering first hand. Obviously, these benefits also make students moreattractive to potential employers. Time abroad can also help universities with retention as thestudents return with a renewed sense of purpose after encountering such life-changingexperiences. Because engineering students face a rigorous plan of study, however, few

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Ken Vickers

in industry. Sincestudents in the microEP program were projected to be substantiallyoriented toward industrial careers, the Cohort Methodology was createdto give them practice in the behaviors that would most strongly benefitthem in organizations with large common goals.The Cohort Methodology was recognized as an interesting new approach toPhD education in 1999 when the microEP graduate program won a NSF IGERTgrant for $2.5 million to support its experiment in PhD education. Thetactics implemented in this grad program have had the result ofpreparing microEP graduates for early career success in both industryand academics, as well as resulting in a supportive work groupatmosphere that has been attractive to underrepresented group students.The

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Carol Gattis

Workshop on Student Retention through Better Advising, Carol Gattis, University ofArkansas One proven way to increase student retention, especially during the freshman and sophomore years, is to improve advising. Research shows that by improving the quality of advising, and including more than just what classes a student should take, the freshman retention rate can be significantly improved. In addition, research shows that for 4-year public colleges and universities, students rate academic advising as the most important aspect of their educational experience, along with instructional effectiveness. In engineering, rarely are faculty given advisor training. Many advisors say they would like

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Ken Vickers

summers 2000-03, andhas now been funded in a second five year REU site award for summers2004-08. The microEP REU site has successfully organized the otherfour NSF REU sites on campus and one internally funded HBCU partnershipprogram into a coordinated effort to maximize the undergraduateprograms' impact on total campus graduate recruitment and retention,especially underrepresented group retention. In this paper, the authorwill describe the methods used to implement the creation of this "broadcommunity of visiting undergraduate researchers" on the Fayettevillecampus, as well as the difficulties encountered in merging thedifferent academic cultures that host these summer undergraduateresearch programs.

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Martin S. High; Paul E. Rossler

, the curriculum is a logical extension of traditional scienceand engineering education in that it demonstrates the practical and economic importance ofapplying sound technical skills. More important, it provides business with technologists whorecognize the economic value of responsible design practices. Society, in turn, benefits frombetter, safer products and processes, and from legal systems and processes that better reflectthe unique challenges of technology practice.

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kamesh Namuduri; Ravi Pendse

experiences in enhancing the ECE curriculum at Wichita State University,our efforts in getting the curriculum certified by the Committee on National Security, andour collaborations with the neighboring universities and community colleges to bringawareness of information security in the community. 1. Introduction This paper discusses our experiences in introducing information assurance andsecurity (IAS) curriculum in the ECE department at Wichita State University. Whileproviding specific details of implementation at WSU, this paper also provides a generalstrategy and outlines the steps that one can follow to develop such degree or certificateprograms. It discusses the steps involved in introducing IAS

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Andy Matthews; Jerri Dwyer

The Professional Development Institute: Completely unknown at this time but destined for success!Andy MatthewsCareer Development CenterCollege of EngineeringUniversity of ArkansasBell 3159Phone: 479-575-6265Fax: 479-575-7744matthews@uark.eduJerri DwyerCareer Development CenterUniversity of ArkansasARKU 607Phone: 479-575-3360Fax: 479-575-6742jdwyer@uark.edu AbstractCommencing the job search can be overwhelming for college graduates. The yearsspent in the classroom does not necessarily provide students with preparation formarketing their product – themselves. A number of students lack the confidence toeffectively present themselves to employers while others incorrectly assume

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Stephanie G. Adams; Lance C. Perez

basedon a review of the literature and the first author’s ten-year experience with theseendeavors. Next, the current and planned efforts to increase the enrollment of studentsfrom underrepresented groups in the graduate programs in the College of Engineeringand Technology at the University of Nebraska are described. This includes novelundergraduate research experiences, summer bridge programs and targeted fellowships.Finally, we describe external funding programs for these efforts and the plan forinsitutionalization.

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Ralph E. Flori

UM-Rolla’s Introduction to Engineering Summer Camp Ralph E. Flori, University of Missouri-RollaThis paper describes University of Missouri-Rolla’s Introduction to Engineering summer camp.This week-long camp, geared to high school rising juniors and seniors, attempts to answer threequestions for students. First, is engineering for me? They learn about the engineering professionand solve some simple engineering problems. Second, is there an engineering field thatparticularly interests me? They learn about the fifteen different majors offered at UM-Rolla,they tour some departments, and they participate in hands-on activities in departments theyselect. Third, does UM-Rolla seem to be a good school for me

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Min Zou; Li Cai

, andleadership ability become critical factors for success. Engineering laboratory coursesprovide unique opportunities to address above issues. This paper reports a new teachingapproach for engineering laboratory at undergraduate level, discusses the philosophybehind the teaching approach, and reviews the effect of the teaching methodology on thelearning process of the students and their ability to handle real world challenges. Theteaching approach actively engaged students in learning process, fostered theirenthusiasm about the course topics, challenged them to think critically and creatively,helped them build connections between what they learned in classroom environment andreal world. In addition, the teaching method helped students develop effective