Minutes October 16, 2024

Attendees: I. T. Abraham, U. Bhowmik, Z. Cheng, P. Dragic, E. Gunter (CS representative), S. Gupta, B. Hu, Y-C Hu, J. Huang, R. Iyer, E. Kudeki, O. Mironenko, U. Ravaioli, C. Schmitz, C. E. Snyder, Y-L Wei, C. Yu.

The committee discussed ECE 398 YZ “Bioinspired Photonics“ submitted by Yang Zhao for first time offering in Spring 2025. Generally, the idea of the course was well received, but there were questions the technical content of the course which prompted a robust discussion. Since there are no stated prerequisites, several committee members expressed the need to understand how in-depth the topics would be covered. Many of the listed topics would probably require some level of sophistication in order to treat the theoretical background. Would this course be suitable at all as a technical elective? Should it be rather at the 298-level? Jian Huang asked whether the material will cover in some detail aspects of semiconductor photonics and the impression was that semiconductor examples are not specifically included and that biological and electromagnetic aspects are the main focus. The chair will communicate with Yang Zhao to clarify these aspects of the submission and report back to the committee.

The second course reviewed was ECE 498 BH “Large Language Model Reasoning for Engineering” submitted by Bin Hu for first time offering in Spring 2025. Bin Hu was present to introduce the course and aswer questions. The discussion was very positive about the content an timeliness of this course, given that Large Language Model (LLM) is a rapidly emerging approach. There were several suggestions regarding the proposal. The title could be shortened by replacing “Large Language Model” with “LLM” which is perhaps more readily recognizable by students. The course description is long and very detailed. Eran Kudeki suggested to develop a brief course description following the campus requirement of 75 maximum words for new permanent course submission, which would be handy when the course evolces to that point, and stll keep the present course description as explanatory material in class documents. The were also a few suggestion on shortening the prerequisites section by replacing “the students are also recommended to have some background in one of the engineering domains (such as electrical, computer, mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical, material,etc) and Python programming“ with “Junior standing in an engineering major“. Python programming is already implicit in requiring Math 257 which is based on computations with Python. The course was approved by the committee with unanimous consent.

UPDATE

After discussion, Yang Zhao resubmitted her course as ECE 298 “Bioinspired Optics and Photonics” and was in agreement with the assessment of the committee that the course would be suitable as a free electric. The revised material was shared electronically and the course was approved via email polling.