The Electrical Engineering Program at Suffolk University

Dec 20th, 2012

Contents

• Engineering is a vital component to local, state, and national goals• Highly connected to the community: Power Industry, Beacon Hill’s

AMCE/MA, Industrial Advisory Board, Boston Public High Schools • Connects students to technology• Diverse department• Excellent student employment • Valued by students and alumni• ABET accreditation• Collaborations with other departments• Financially strong• Student-centered education; successful with students with weaker technical

backgrounds• IEEE participation• Strong faculty• Strong growth• Innovative instruction• Addressing low enrollment in upper level EE classes

America needs engineers

• “If we’re not training engineers to make sure that they are equipped here in this country, then companies won’t come here. Those investments are what’s going to help to make sure that we continue to lead this world economy.”

President Obama, debate with Mitt Romney, 10/17/12

• “A chronic shortage of engineering students threatens America’s role as the world’s leading innovator and continues to impede our nation’s fragile economic recovery….American universities are simply not producing enough engineers. A McKinsey Global Institute survey released in June found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. employers reported that engineering and science-related jobs were the hardest jobs to fill.”

Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel Corp; member of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

Partnerships with the power industry

• EE program partners with the following power engineering companies which provide internships and jobs to graduates as well as other support:– Phoenix Electric Corp.– Three C Corp– Electroswitch Corp– Omicron

IEEE Power and Energy Society

• Partner to encourage students to go into power engineering

• In October 2012, awarded two students scholarships which come with internships

• Power industry has huge need for electrical engineers since 50% of power engineers will be retiring in the next five years

Center for Energy Work Force Development

New Partnership

• The American Council of Engineering Companies of Massachusetts: ACEC/MA, located in Beacon Hill– ACEC/MA has a huge need for electrical engineers

to specialize in designing electrical systems for buildings

– Has scholarship opportunities for students– Has internship possibilities for students

Companies of other members of Industrial Advisory Board

• MIT Lincoln Laboratory• Draper Laboratory• I Robot• AMD Corp• Bose Corp• Canon Design• BBN (Raytheon)• PID Analyzers

Partnerships with Boston Public High Schools

• EE program has partnerships with three BPHS’s:– John D. O’Bryant School of Science and Mathematics– TechBoston Academy– Boston Academy

• Partnering on setting a pipeline of students to come to Suffolk to study electrical engineering and then to work in the power industry

• EE students help HS students with both projects from Suffolk and from the HS’s

• EE faculty and students teach robotics to students in the summer• Collaborated on NSF grant proposal (under review)

Teaches technology and uses technology in teaching core science requirement

• SF 101 Energy and Water• SF 197 Sustainability, Energy and Technology

– Uses robotics to teach the science• SCI 171 The Built World

– to be taught as a hybrid in Spring 2013• SCI 184 Contemporary Science and Innovation

– Uses robotics to teach the science– to be taught as a hybrid in Spring 2013

Diverse, predominantly male department

• Students’ origins– Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Brazil, Senegal, Ethiopia,

Mexico, China, Qatar, US (mainly New England), and other countries

– 85% male—helps to off-balance higher percentage of female students at Suffolk

• Faculty origins– US, Algeria– Christian, Moslem, Jewish – Female chair

Excellent student employment and graduate school admission (Only 2011 graduates are shown)

Identifier YearGraduated Major

Initial or Current Employment/Job Title/

Other Placement

AH 2011 EE Engineer at EdgeTech PV 2011 EE Graduated Cornell with MSEE;

REMS Engineer at Schlumberger

KL 2011 EE Grad Stud. Ohio State in EESP 2011 EE Field Engr. at NSTAREB 2011 EE Junior Firmware Engineer at

Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering

FA 2011 EE General Manager in a Saudi Arabian company SNS

FK 2011 EE Applied for green card (critically injured in auto accident)

• More information on graduates can be found here• Almost all graduates (2005-2012) work in a technical field or are in graduate

school in a technical field• Engineering students get high-paying jobs in their major!

Students’ comments from Spring 2012 program survey about what they like about the EE program

• I like that the teacher is always available for student questions.• Personal and close knit community, professors seem approachable and treat

you as an individual.• It is small and close knit.• Small class size, availability of professors.• The teachers are great, they really care if you do well; the class size is really

nice because your teachers really get to know you; we cover a lot of material

2009 Alumni Survey Results for level of academic support

• 70% of alumni respondents gave the EE program a 5 (highest) • 30% gave it a 4 (second highest)

Summer 2012 email from an alumna Saleha Abdulla (Math SAT score of 470 and a HS GPA of

2.7))I work as a Quality Engineer at Sensitech Inc in Beverly, MA and all this credit goes to SU and its Engineering dept. My education at Suffolk helped me get to this point in my life. I really appreciate all the encouragement and support I got from all my professors at Suffolk….

Another summer 2012 email from an alumnus Pavel Vasilev (an honor student)

I have just finished my MEng Degree at Cornell few weeks ago and I am currently down in Houston, TX. I am starting my work assignment as a REMS Engineer at Schlumberger Limited - the top oilfield services company in the world. I am very pleased to say that I had a wonderful one-year experience at Cornell and I would say that my education from Suffolk University was a great plus for that. My experience in analog circuitry was highly valuable. Believe it or not Cornell undergraduate students have a very minimal exposure to lab work the way we do…

Alumni involvement

• Members of IAB• Senior project supervisors• Arrangers for student shadowing• Arrangers of internships• Providers of research projects for faculty• Givers of presentations to students• Manning tables at open houses• Responders of surveys

ABET Accredited Program*

• ABET-Accreditation means– International recognition of its quality– “Best practices" in education– Students have access to enhanced opportunities in

employment; licensure, registration and certification; graduate education and global mobility

– Graduates capable of leading the way in innovation, emerging technologies, and in anticipating the welfare and safety needs of the public

(http://abet.org/why-accreditation-matters/)

* Since 2004

Partnerships with other Suffolk Departments (not a comprehensive list)

• Collaborated with Psychology on NSF grant proposal (with Tim Poynton, under review)

• Ongoing collaboration with Biology (joint labs, Carl Merrill)• New collaboration with the Business School (George

Moker, EE senior project students and entrepreneur students)

• Collaboration with Law School on 3/3 BSE in EE/ JD degree in intellectual property (Andrew Rodau, Gail Ellis, Ian Menchini)

• Ongoing partnership with Physics

Many EE majors are full paying international students since foreign governments will pay for

an ABET accredited program• Discount rate for average EE student: 16%• Discount rate for average Suffolk student: >30%• 62 EE students in September 2012 bring in

$1,500,000 (2012-2013)• Department expenses (salaries &benefits,

department budget, not overhead): ~$720,000• Tuition-direct costs=~$800,000• 62 EE students would not be at Suffolk if major no

longer existed– there is no comparable major

Student Centered Education in EE Program

• Faculty meet about eight times during each semester to discuss students and problems that come up so that these can be addressed

• Faculty participate in early alert program to help struggling students in the middle of the semester

• At the end of each semester, the faculty review each student’s performance and letters to students are sent—either congratulatory on high achievement or warnings that advise students to take reduced loads or retake certain classes; sometimes they are advised to switch majors

EE program is successful with students with less strong math skills

• Most engineering programs across the US require a minimum of 550 on the math SAT

• The EE program at Suffolk is typically successful with students whose math SAT scores are a minimum of 470**. (Doubles the number of students we can reach.)

• How?– Small class sizes– Study groups with every EE course– Good advising on what courses to take– Having students repeat courses– Offering remedial courses– Nurturing faculty

** See page 11 of NSF grant proposal

IEEE involvement

• Every EE major is an IEEE member• Yearly participation in IEEE competition– Often places in the top 3 in IEEE regional

micro-mouse competition – 2nd place winner in

IEEE student paper competition in 2011• In October 2012, awarded two students IEEE

PES scholarships which come with internships (mentioned on earlier slide)

Faculty are strongly student-focused

• Personal emails from ABET team after their 2010 visit:– It is obvious that you are putting the well-being and the

interest of the student at the top of your priorities. You are doing an excellent job at that-Mohamed Chouikha EE chairman at Howard University

– You and your faculty and staff colleagues are clearly committed to your students and dedicated to providing them the very best program possible- Ted Bickart, Dean Emeritus at the Colorado School of Mines.

– …it's obvious that you have built a department of competent, team-oriented, enthusiastic, caring people: W. Vance McCollough, senior engineer at Raytheon.

Teacher-Scholars

• Renowned expert in power engineering (CMC-splits time between Suffolk and MIT))

• Presentations at professional conferences in the past 5 years:– ASEE (LS)– CDIO (LS)

• Published journal articles in past 5 years (LS, CWC)• Lectures given at Tokyo University, Waseda University, Kitakyushu

University (CMC)• For engineering faculty, more appropriate may be Teacher-Scholar-

Engineering Practitioner– Phoenix Electric Corp (LS, CWC)– Spaulding Rehab (CWC)– Toshiba Corp (CMC)

• IEEE advisor for micro-mouse competitions (Ziad)

Dramatic increase in number of new majors

• Number of new majors quadrupled in the past two years; • “Across country, new engineering programs are being started, even at

very small liberal arts colleges to address demands of incoming students… Demand is expected to grow” Dayne Aldridge-ABET Director for Engineering

• Our reputation is growing• Engineering students get high-paying jobs in their majors!

`05 `06 `07 `08 `09 `10 `11 `120

5

10

15

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25

30

35

# of new EE majors

Number of graduates have been increasing

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20110

2

4

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8

10

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# of EE graduates

• Although numbers are modest, they have significantly increased since 2007 (modest numbers due mainly to low freshmen enrollment in previous years; see previous slide)

• Increase is due not only to increased number of incoming students, but also to student-focus of department (see page 12 of ABET 2010 self-study)

• Numbers will most certainly increase dramatically starting in the next two years since the number of freshman has increased dramatically in the past two years

Innovative Instruction

• Technology kits to enhance self-learning to accommodate larger EE labs– Undergraduates teaching assistants used to support

student learning with technology kits• Podcasts are used for all EE classes• Hybrid classes scheduled for core courses taught be

the department in spring 2013• Other technology used for instruction include

robotics, blogs, Blackboard

Current issue with EE major– low enrollment in upper level classes due to attrition

Out of the 27** students in the fall course Freshman ENS 103 Intro to Engineering Design in 2011• 6 students no longer at Suffolk

• 1 was dismissed• 2 had weak academic performances; left Suffolk• 2 transferred to state schools because of lower tuition• 1 transferred because he was unhappy

• 21 students still at Suffolk• 17 EE majors

• 12 students continued to sophomore year fall course ECE 205 Circuit Theory II in 2012• All likely to graduate

• 1 upperclassman already had taken ECE 205• 4 weaker students did not continue (need at least a “C “in ECE 205 prereqs to continue)

• Some may take course later by repeating prereqs and achieving at least a “C”• Some may switch majors• Some may be dismissed

• 4 switched majors• One blind student– EE too difficult• One with very poor English-- EE too difficult• Two weaker students

Unlike at other schools, students do not switch out of EE because they are intimidated by EE courses!

Fall 2012 Sophomore Circuit Theory II had 15 EE students—all are likely to graduate in EE• 1 transfer student joined class• 2 upperclassman joined class (took ENS 103 in 2010)

• To ensure robust upper level class sizes:• Need a larger freshman class

• Sufficiently large freshman class should be achieved within a few years, given current trends in EE• Need more transfer students

• Program plans on looking into partnerships with local community colleges**Slide 24 showed 23 new students in 2011 because 3 ENS 103 students did not declare their major and course had 1 upperclassman