Spring 2008 Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
May 19, 2008 12:00 p.m.
Room C-258 Parkview Campus
Present: Rex Bell (Miller Davis Company, Johnanna Johnson (Kalamazoo County Road Commission), Tim Mitchell (SME, Inc.), Bobbi Welke (MDOT)
Student Representative: Michael A Romkema, President CCE Student Chapter
Faculty: Haluk Aktan, Osama Abudayyeh, Sherif Yehia, Jun-Seok Oh, Ahmad Jrade, Upul
Attanayake, Hubo Cai
- New IAB member Ms. Johanna Johnson was introduced. Ms. Johnson is the managing director of the Kalamazoo County Road Commission. She has two degrees from WMU.
- State of the Department
- CCE Student Activity report for 2007-2008 and plan for 2008-2009
- Program Objective Assessment Changes for 2008-2009
- Program Outcomes for 2008-2009
- IAB members proposed two new members. Mr. Tim Mitchell and Mr. Rex Bell will make connections between the two prospective members and the department chair in the near future.
- Next meeting is scheduled for December 2008. Exact date and time will be defined during early Fall 2008. Meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.
a. Department is interviewing for a new structures faculty position, Dr. Upul Attanayake is appointed to Faculty Term Appointment for 2008-2009 AY
b. CCE Enrollment Trends
i. Enrollments are up and currently have 281 students in the civil and construction engineering program.c. Capstone Design Factory link on the department URL is presented. Capstone Design Factory is fully supported by the Industry Advisory Board (IAB) and a means of obtaining realistic design projects for the capstone design teams in both civil and construction engineering programs. Also, distributed was the quick response card for the project ideas and the mentors from the industry. IAB indicated that they would like to include these documents on the AGC website for their membership to respond to. IAB indicated that they will provide project ideas and mentors as well as solicit other firms to do so. The Fall 2008 soft deadline for project submittal is the end of August 2008.
ii. Graduating student numbers are also up and reached 36 for Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 commencements. Inclusive of Summer 2008 is estimated to be 40. This is a significant number of civil and construction engineers joining the work force. The department is making a significant impact to the SW Michigan's civil and construction industry in both public and private sectors.
a. Student chapter president elect Mike Romkema presented the organization of the student chapter, this past year activites and planned activities for next year. Next year's activities will include increased number of site visits, continuation of concrete canoe and organizing and judging selected Science Olympiad competitions related to CCE and initiating participation in the steel bridge competition. The student chapter placed 3rd and 4th on selected NCRC canoe events and sixth overall this past year. The goal is to improve to fourth overall next year.
b. NCRC will be hosted by us in 2010. Student chapter put together an organizing committee to start working on hosting the event. The department chair will work closely with the committee to help assure a successful event.
Two new assessment tools are presented. First tool is direct and qualitative data collected by the Industry Advisory Board (IAB). The second tool will be through organizing an annual CCE alumni experience day every fall. On this day, the alumni will tour the facilities and laboratories, listen to a class room lecture, interact with current students and provide feedback to the program objective related questions posed to them by the chair during an open session. The questions will poll their agreement or disagreement regarding the program objective goals. Additional qualitative input will also be collected from the alumni group.
Current assessment instruments are surveys completed by the graduates and their employees. IAB made recommendations regarding modifying some of the questions specifically to include elaborations. The IAB indicated that they would like to make follow up calls to the employers that have completed the survey for elaborating some of the responses.
The IAB indicated that they would like to collect formal feedback from the employers of our graduates. The department will be compiling a spreadsheet with the companies employing our graduates with the program name and the year of graduation so that IAB members will be able to focus data collection to those companies.
The IAB approved the new instruments for use in program objectives assessment for both civil and construction engineering programs.
A. The 2008-2009 ASCE Professional Program Criteria changes for the construction program was presented by Dr. Jrade, prepared by Dr.'s Jrade and Cai. The changes primarily consisted of understanding of management topics such as economics, business, accounting, law, statistics, ethics, leadership, decision and optimization methods, process analysis and design, engineering economics, engineering management, safety, and cost engineering. To assess the program outcomes based on the abovementioned criteria new means and metrics were presented as follow:
a. Collecting data from specific assignments covered by the courses offered in the CCE department such as: CCE 3860 "Structural Analysis"; CCE 4310 "Construction Planning & Scheduling"; CCE 4360 "Construction Estimating / Bidding and Cost Control"; CCE 3330 "Construction Codes. Specifications and Contracts"; CCE 4380 "Construction Project Management";
b. Collecting data from specific papers covered by the courses offered in the CCE department such as: CCE 4830 "Project Design and Control"; CCE 4310 "Construction Planning & Scheduling"; CCE 4380 "Construction Project Management";
c. Collecting data from group projects which are part of some the courses offered in the CCE department such as: CCE 4310 "Construction Planning & Scheduling"; CCE 4360 "Construction Estimating / Bidding and Cost Control"; CCE 4380 "Construction Project Management"; CCE 4850 "Senior Design Project or Capstone Design Project";
The IAB requested clarification on the assignments that will be used as tools based on the concern that the students will be overloaded. The faculty indicated that the assignments are already in the course plans. The student performance in these assignments will be tabulated for use in the program outcome assessment. IAB also suggested simplifications specifically by including some of the outcome assessment from the capstone design outputs in lieu of assignments in several classes. IAB also inquired about the tool used to evaluate the data from lecture series. The faculty indicated that students prepare a one page essay following the presentation. The essay is a very good tool to assess their understanding of the presentation subject matter. It was decided that the use of presentation in the assessment will be retained.
B. The 2008-2009 ASCE Professional Program Criteria changes for the civil engineering program was presented by Dr. Attanayake prepared by Dr.'s Attanayake, Oh and Yehia. The changes primarily consisted of: design of a system, component, or process in more than one civil engineering context; and ability to explain basic concepts in management, business, public policy, and leadership. The capstone design projects already require the design to include at least two civil sub-disciplines.
Civil Engineering Program Assessment plan for 2007-2008 consists of eleven outcomes listed from A to K.
Except outcome A of Civil Engineering Program Assessment plan for 2008-2009 all other outcomes (i.e., B - K) remain unchanged.
Outcome A is modified as "Graduates have an understanding of and the ability to apply knowledge of traditional mathematics, differential equations, calculus-based physics, science, and engineering skills." Additional assessment means to outcome A are introduced as follows:
Outcome A:
CCE 3860 Moment and shear assignment
CCE 3860 Deflection calculation assignment
CCE 3380 Cement hydration assignment
Though outcome B, C, and F are not changes additional assessment means are introduced.
Outcome B: CCE 2530 Lab exam
Outcome C: CCE 4850 Senior project
Outcome F: The existing CCE 4830 PE paper is replaced with CCE 4830 Paper on professional practice
A new program outcome is added to Civil Engineering Program Assessment plan for 2008-2009 to address the professional criteria. This outcome is labeled as "L". Outcome L description is "Graduates are able to explain basic concepts in management, business, public policy, and leadership." Program outcome L and assessment means are listed below;
Program Outcome L |
Assessment Means |
1. Graduates are able to explain basic concepts in management. |
CCE 4500 Team paper CCE 4830/CCE 4850 Management paper |
2. Graduates are able to explain basic concepts in business. |
CCE 3330 Bonding assignment CCE 4500 Cost benefit analysis assignment |
3. Graduates are able to explain basic concepts in public policy. |
CCE 3330 OSHA safety assignment CCE 4500 Transportation legislative history paper CCE 4830 Public policy paper |
4. Graduates are able to explain basic concepts in leadership. |
CCE 4830/CCE 4850 Leadership paper CCE 4830 Ethics of leadership paper CCE 4850 Organizational structure paper |
The IAB members were very pleased to see that the program will be including knowledge of soft skills. IAB approved the new tools and metrics related to the civil engineering program outcome assessment.
The IAB indicated that we should now move beyond the minimum outcome requirements suggested by ABET into areas that will represent the challenges for the upcoming decades. Some of these changes are articulated as managing a sustainable civil and/or construction business in a global environment especially during economic downturns; ability to incorporate innovations into the way projects are implemented; knowing and leveraging best practices from the international arena. The IAB also indicated that their single and foremost expectation from a newly hired engineer is a very good math and science background with a robust problem solving ability.
