College of EMS Advisory Board Meeting
April 4, 2008
Joe Coenen welcomed everyone to the meeting. Rich provided an overview of the day.
Daryl George brought pictures of the building which was recently purchased at Fox Valley. The building was purchased from a previously owned manufacturing company. It will house ME and EE programs along with labs and faculty offices.
Joe Coenen shared information about the meeting at UW Fox Valley regarding the Advisory Board. They are looking for more representatives to serve on the board. Governor Doyle attended the open house event. An article about our program will be included in the Lake Winnebago Business magazine.
There are currently 26 graduates from the ME program with 25 of the 26 accepting positions in the Fox Valley area. The program continues to do very well.
Nominations report—Sue Babb requested to step down as Vice Chair due to health reasons. Kevin Hagen has agreed to replace her. Motion carried. Kevin will assume the Chair responsibilities this fall.
Dave Hahn was asked to serve on the Advisory Board and has accepted the position. There is one more vacancy to fill with an ME emphasis. If you have any persons of interest, please share with Joe Coenen or Rich Shultz.
College Update—A summary of Rich Shultz’s update follows. The new engineering building is on track, on time and scheduled to be on line by January 2009. Electrical, Engineering Physics, Physics and General Engineering labs will be housed in this building. All student organizations will have a workspace there as well.
The College of EMS enrollment has reached an all time high of 2,089 in engineering. There have been eight new faculty hired and currently there are four other faculty searches still happening. Rich continued with an update of our outreach programs. UW Fox Valley is up to 170-180 students enrolled with 5-6 graduates per semester. We are beginning to have electrical engineering students enrolled in the upper courses. At UW Rock County there are 40-50 students in the program and we have hired a mechanical engineering faculty on site to begin in Fall 2008. A funding request is in for a third program to begin at UW Washington County in West Bend for the 2009-2011 biennium. This proposal will have both mechanical and electrical engineering programs. The renovation of Ottensman Hall is in the planning stages and is set to begin construction during the 2011-2013 budget. Planning will take place during the 2009-2011 biennium.
Lisa is on sabbatical leave this semester. Rich indicated that part of Lisa’s leave will include seeking international co-op experiences with industry in Europe and building of the International Exchange Program. He also relayed his experience at ATC while he was on leave last spring.
Currently we are working on a Renewable Energy minor. This needs UUCC and APC approval but we are confident that it will move forward.
The Ullsvik Center is complete and open. Administration is moved in and settled. Please take time to visit this facility.
Streaming video update was provided. The program targets non-traditional place bound students and has been successful. Rich demonstrated with John Goomey teaching a circuits course. This has been piloted at UW Marathon County, UW Marinette County, UW Fox Valley and UW Rock County. Gerry Dassler expressed kudos to Rich and faculty for this great opportunity.
Engineers Without Borders—Sam Owusu-Ababio and seven students gave a presentation to the board regarding projects for EWB. They outlined opportunities and outcomes that they have experienced to date. EWB was involved with construction of a music pavilion at Wisconsin Badger Camp. This project allowed them to learn about planning and knowing parameters/expectations of the group and operating within these expectations. They quickly learned that they needed to involved people with prior construction experience for this project. Two individuals (Jerome Flogel and Joe Elsinger) travelled to Ghana in August 2007 to establish relationships with the villages and identify potential projects to the leaders. Three initial projects have been proposed as follows:
1) Concrete Culvert repair and modification (estimated cost $2700)
2) School driveway repair (estimated cost $1875)—also donation of K-8 books/textbooks
3) Public toilet facilities (estimated cost $9100)
The total project cost estimation is $13,675. Travel would be $18,400. Additional allocation for accommodations, food, and transportation would be $7100. Total for everything would be $39,175 minus the participate contribution of $5000.
Fundraising efforts will include: letters to potential donors and/or businesses, conducting a book sale on Amazon.com, and involving Linda Bernhardt in the coordination of book donations. Future plans include money to go to Ghana in August 2008 and complete the indicated projects. The organization would like to stabilize fundraising efforts and return to Ghana on an annual basis.
Joe Coenen requested feedback from the Advisory Board members on the field visits which were conducted last semester in place of the meeting. General consensus was that the visits were very nice but they would really like to keep the two meetings/year.
Break for lunch.
Breakout session reports follow.
1) General Engineering Discussion—Overall the general concept is supported. GE provides students with the opportunity to meet other students (upper level). A general discussion was held regarding course structure vs. discipline specific courses, rigor of classes, resource management, modifications of credit requirements, and the correlation of students being successful in engineering.
2) Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Curriculum—Discussion included preparation of broad based knowledge, current issues of engineering education, systems design implementation, modeling courses for design & content, thinking locally, nationally, and internationally while balancing the curriculum. IE discussion was held regarding ergonomics, impact on baby boomers, cost of worker’s compensation money.
3) Civil and Environmental Engineering—A very passionate discussion was held regarding a great deal of opportunities and challenges. Topics included alternative delivery methods and a better understanding of the programs and this type of alternative deliver style.
Rich and Joe thanked everyone for attending. Rich mentioned some upcoming events: Mythbusters is scheduled for April 21 and UWP Homecoming is October 4.
Our next meeting will be Friday, October 3.
Meeting adjourned.