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College requiring the capstone senior design course. Along with this senior design course comes the problem of effectively evaluating the performance of the student in that course.

Introduction

College enrollment is growing and the make up of a college classroom is changing with more students attending college in a nontraditional manner. The diversity of students in the mechanical department at BSC (see Table 1) is similar to many institutions. It is made up of males and females, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and foreigners. However, the typical individual enrolled in our program is a caucasian, employed (working full or part time in an industrial position), male student that is a resident in our geographic area. Many of our students are transfer students that may have a college degree. Almost any course on a student’s transcript can be transferred from a previously attended institution. Students currently in our department have transferred as much as two years of college credit from more than fifty different institutions. Along with accepting transfer credit comes the question of preparation for the next course in the technical sequence. While a student may have received credit for a course in thermodynamics or fluid mechanics taken at another institution, it is important to know what was covered and in what depth? Faced with this mix, the main concern that we are facing is how to ensure that the students that we are sending into industry are truly prepared and ready to contribute.

Table 1. Student Ethnicity Data at Buffalo State College

BSC African Asian Caucasian Hispanic Native Non Undisclosed American American Resident Alien 10.4% 1.3 69.2 3.7 0.5 0.8 14

When a degree is granted to a student, it is important that the student be familiar with several important principles from each course. To certify to potential employers of our graduates that our student’s posses certain basic skills upon graduation, a diagnostic test is taken by seniors before they are allowed to take the senior capstone course. Many institutions have a senior design course, each having their unique requirements and taking on its own look. For many institutions the course is mainly a design project that is completed by a senior during the students last semester. Emanuel and Worthington1 discuss how the senior design course evolved at Bradley University and discuss potential changes that need to be made in the course. Experiences at Purdue University/Calumet are discussed by Pierson2. Here a two course sequence, utilizing the team approach, is in place. Projects involving the design, construction and testing of a device is used to bridge the university-industry gap. Neff, Tickoo and Abbas Zahraee3 discuss the advantages of the urban setting in creating "real life" senior projects at Purdue. Like Purdue, Louisiana State and the University of Alabama also utilize two semester courses. Yannitell and Cundy4 describe Louisiana's experiences while Parker, Midkiff and Kavanaugh5 discuss

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Kukulka, D. (2004, June), Development Of Energy Design Projects To Meet Tac/Abet Outcomes Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--12795