April 3, 2008

Stuart Smith, President
James Conrad, President Elect
Ertunga Ozelkan, Secretary
David Binkley, Parliamentarian
M I N U T E S
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FACULTY ORGANIZATION (CEFO)
Thursday, April 3, 2008, 12:30 PM
CARC, Room 101

Regular Meeting

The following individuals signed the attendance sheet:
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING: R. Johnson, R. Smelser, W. Heybruck
OFFICE of STUDENT DEVELOPMENT & SUCCESS: C. Blat, L. Thurman
ENGINEERING COMPUTING SERVICES: J. Stein
CIVIL ENGINEERING: J. Amburgey, J. Anderson, J. Bowen, D. Boyajian, J. Gergely, M. Kane, D. Naylor, V. Ogunro, S. Pulugurtha, W. Sounders, D. Weggel
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING: R. Adams, L. Casperson, J. Conrad, J. Hudak, B. Joshi, Y. Kakad, V. Lukic, M. Miri, A. Nasipuri, T. Weldon, A. Willis, J. Xie
ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT: C. Lim, E. Ozelkan, S. G. Teng
ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY: A. Brizendine, J. Gresser, J. Hildreth, D. Hoch, S. Kuyath, T. Nicholas, M. Noras, C. Orozco, R. Priebe, P. Schmidt, D. Sharer, B. Sherlock, J. Urbas, S. Wang, E. Yang, A. Zhou
MECHANICAL ENGR & ENGR SCIENCE: H. Cherukuri, R. Coger, A. El-Ghannam, H. Estrada, J. Hill, R. Hocken, S. Kelly, J. Raja, J. Raquet, L. Sharpe, Stuart Smith, Q. Wei, T. Xu
GUESTS:
Documented attendance: 63 total
Documented attendance of voting faculty: 47
Total Voting Faculty: 93
Quorum of voting faculty: 47

Agenda:

1. Call to order (CEFO president, Stuart Smith)

Stuart Smith called the meeting to order (approx.) at 12:40 PM.

2. Approval of past minutes (from November 8, 2007 meeting) (Stuart Smith)

A motion to approve was made by Dr. Stuart Smith, and seconded, then passed on a voice vote.

3. College update (Bob Johnson, Dean)

Bob Johnson updated the faculty on several upcoming events and ongoing activities briefly summarized below:
Student Achievement on April 23rd, contact: Chrystal
Legacy Dinner on April 24th for the scholarship donors and recipients.
Ben Moller is assigned to COE from the development office as the director of development
April 30th: COE Senior Design Expo, contact: Bill Heybruck
New Hire to Dean s office: Beverly Guessford, administrative assistant
There is a new search for ECE Dept Chair. Lee Casperson decided to step down.
ISL: Industrial Solutions Lab has been success. It has brought 130K from the industry for senior projects. We need students to support these projects.
UNC Tomorrow: Dean talked about the directions set by UNC President Erskine Bowles. He indicated that there will be some changes and affect of this initiative. One of the things he mentioned was about the consideration of branch campuses (e.g. UNC Hickory that will be supported by App. State, Western Carolina and UNC Charlotte) (NOTE: You can find a brief article on UNC Tomorrow in the November 7, 2007 issue of the campus news http://www.publicrelations.uncc.edu/resources/pdfs/newsletter/11.07.07.pdf)
Epic Building: Energy Production Infrastructure Center, there is a big push for this center
Research awards totaled $3.9M which is a big improvement from last year
College/University Elections: he encouraged faculty to get in posts.
There were a few questions by the faculty: Robin Coger asked whether given the UNC tomorrow initiatives, if UNC Charlotte will get a big role and how the pie will be split. Dean mentioned he is optimistic. Jim Bowen added that there is a list of competencies listed under UNC Tomorrow. He indicated that in the Undergrad Curriculum Committee a list of reading/writing related competencies have been discussed. He was asking whether the Dean knows if UNC Charlotte will be required to acquire all competencies. Dean mentioned that this is difficult to answer at the moment.

4. Elections — 2008 2009 Nominations are needed for the one and two year committees (Stuart Smith, Ertunga Ozelkan)

Stuart Smith indicated that nominations are especially lacking for the College P&T Review Committees from CEE, ME and ET department.
Some hard-copy nomination forms were distributed by Ertunga Ozelkan during the meeting. Ertunga indicated that nominations were needed by April 14th, Monday. He also mentioned that in addition the department chairs need to appoint someone for the Faculty Council.
There were a few comments/suggestions: Jay Raja proposed that a nominating committee can be formed. It was discussed that this process may be useful for the next year s elections. It was discussed that the committees like Faculty Graduate Council have significant impact on the college curriculum. So the Dean encouraged senior faculty to participate.

5. Senior Design Faculty Mentor lunch (James Conrad, Bill Heybruck)

Bill Heybruck and Jim Conrad talked about the process and progress of the senior design project initiatives. Companies give $5000 donation and there is a $500 supplement for faculty mentors of projects per project. So far ECE, ET, but only a few MEs were involved. Robin Coger indicated that ME has their own process but it is mentioned that the desire is to make Bill Heybruck the point of contact for these projects coming into the College. J. Wu indicated that CEE has some ABET issues due to coverage area in these projects. April 30th there is Senior Design Expo between 11am-4pm and On May 1st there is a luncheon for current and prospective faculty mentors.

6. Other items of interest to faculty

Grad School Criteria on Membership to Graduate faculty: there were some concerns that there is too much control by the grad school, and there are some vague statements in the criteria definitions. It was suggested to invite Tom Reynolds to clarify. It was also suggested that a letter indicating disagreement with the new graduate school regulations was to be prepared by the graduate coordinators with input from CEFO. The faculty voted for the communication letter and approved on a hand vote.
J. Wu indicated that there are overlaps and coordination issues between courses at Masters level, he suggested more dialogue between colleges and curriculum committees. It was indicated that graduate coordinators should be in a good position to make this communication.

Adjourn (Stuart Smith)

Dr. Stuart Smith asked the attendees if there were any other items of interest to be discussed or other announcements to be made. A silence indicated that no more items remained for discussion. The meeting was then adjourned by Dr. Stuart Smith at (approx.) 1:20 PM.

Please submit additions or corrections to Ertunga C. Ozelkan, CEFO Secretary at ecozelka AT uncc DOT edu .