Date
Feb 28, 2022
Attendees
C. Bayram, S. Bogdanov, Z. Cheng, P. Dragic, V. Kindratenko, J. Kim, E. Kudeki, K. Levchenko, S. Lumetta, U. Ravaioli, J. Schuh, G. Schwing,
The chair provided and update on the email voting on the permanent course proposals for ECE 404 and ECE 405, which were discussed on February 14. Positive votes have been collected in excess of the majority and no negative votes were received, therefore the two courses have been approved by the curriculum committee. We were informed today that the deadline for submission of proposals for a graduate certification (CERT program) has been extended until end of March. ECE 404 and ECE 405 are part of a proposal prepared by Eric Chitambar and as stipulation in the CERT program, permanent course proposals need to be at least submitted to College of Engineering Executive Committee. Therefore, there should be now ample time for completion. and it was opportune to accelerate approval by the curriculum committee.
The committee reviewed the temporary course proposal ECE 498 "Engineering Electromagnetic Compatibility" submitted by Yang (Victoria) Shao, for second time offering. The course was very well received by the committee. It is recognized that EMC has been a gap in the ECE portfolio of courses and that this topic should become more an more prominent with the current trends in expansion of electrification, Internet of Things and so on. Therefore, pending approval by the EMORS area committee the course received unanimous approval by the curriculum committee. The following suggestion were made to the instructor to be considered as the course evolves toward possible future permanent approval:
1) It would be nice to see an expansion of the design component over time, which could become a very attractive feature of the course
2) Kirill Levchenko has an interest in discussing potential demos ideas and other possible interaction. His interests come from cybersecurity/networking which is not a traditional area considered by EMC but there is growing interest in shielding and the like to prevent data theft, for instance. Perhaps there could be future possibilities for developing also laboratory experiences.
3) ECE 329 is fine as a prerequisite for now, to make the course accessible to more undergraduates. The instructor could also assess whether adding ECE 350 as recommended or even as a co-requisite would make sense eventually. Much depends on how enrollment is going to be in the future, particularly the balance between graduate and undergraduate students. The first time around enrollment was still fairly small but the committee would like to see it grow given the growing importance of the topic. Erhan Kudeki agreed that we need to be more aggressive with advertising the course and he will give assistance and suggestions for that to the instructor.
Finally, the committee revisited the proposal made earlier to consider an additional writing requirement which could make use of the recently increased free elective hours. There was a brief discussion on how revision of writing takes place in ECE 445 and it was decided that Jonathon Schuh will present to the committee next meeting how writing is structured in the course. There was a suggestion to invite in the future Prof. Philip Hillmer, the instructor of ECE/PHIL 316 "Ethics in Engineering" to share his experience in teaching advanced composition to a cross-section of our students.