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S.97-63

•

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

OFFICE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT, ACADEMIC ?

MEMORANDUM

From:

Subject: ?

SchoôiofEngineeringScierice -----------------------------------------

Date: ?

the Report of the School of Engineering Science

External Review Committee

• ?

the Response prepared by the School of Engineering Science

• ?

Five Year Plan for the School of Engineering Science

o ?

REPORT ON

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCE

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Engineering Science Review Committee

Jon W. Mark, Chair

University of Waterloo

Andrew P. Sage ?

George Mason University

C. Andre T. Salama

University of Toronto

J.C. (Chuck) Irwin (internal)

Simon Fraser University

Site Visit: October 25-27, 1995

Submitted: December 19, 1995

Executive. Summary

The comments and recommendations contained in this report are based on the docuinen-

tation provided prior to the site visit and the information gathered during the site visit. The

structure of the report adheres to the SFU Senate Guidelines and Terms of Reference.

The Review Committee's impression is that, with an exceptionally high calibre crop of

first year intakes, the School of Engineering Science is in an envious position to be an elite

engineering science school. ;However, theCommittee was surprised to find that the School's

undergraduate program has been suffering from a high attrition rate and a long degree

cqp1etion time. To enhance the reputation of its undergraduate degree program, the School

must exert concerted efforts to improve its approximately 50% throughput rate to a vicinity

of 90%, and to ensure a degree completion time of eight academic semesters, as advertised.

The Review Committee feels that anyeffort towards improving the undergraduate program

will also help strengthening the full-time Ph.D. and M.A.Sc. programs.

The mission to enhance the reputation of the School's undergraduate and graduate pro-

grams will require a significant restructuring of the undergraduate and graduate curriculums.

With its present human resources, the School has the critical mass and the capacity to achieve

this mission. A starting point would be the establishment of priorities and the formulation

of administrative policies through wide consultation and effective communication. Effec-

tive communication and consultation processes have the effect of mitigating some of the

contemporary unhappiness observed during the site visit.

The Internship program has been serving the mandatory co-operative engineering science

program well. The operation of the Internship program should be maintained within the

School through effective networking with the University

Co-operative program.

As a whole, the School is weak in hardware and software computing in terms of fac-

ulty expertise and laboratory facilities. If infrastructure is available, priority should be in

strengthening computing, both in terms of human resources and laboratory workstations.

The School of Engineering Science should integrate its computing efforts with those of the

School of Computing Science.

The recommendations of this report should be taken in a constructive vein aimed at making

the School of

Engineering Science a very significant contributor to manpower training and

research not only in British Columbia but also in Canada. This is seen by the Review

Committee as an achievable and realistic goal.

• 1 Introduction

The Engineering Science Review Committee was provided, in advance, with written docu-

mentation containing background information about the School, the School's mission state-

ment, the undergraduate and graduate programs, the laboratory facilities, the administrative

and professional staff, and the teaching and research activities of the individual faculty. This

information together with the SFU Senate Guidelines facilitated the Review Committee to

gather additional complementary information during the site visit to form the basis for the

comments and recommendations contained in this report. A formal presentation by the Di-

rector of the School clearly delineating current status and future plans would have been of

tremendous help to the Review Committee.

The School of Engineering Science administers both undergraduate and graduate pro-

grams. The undergraduate program is structured following the vision and model established

at the time of its inception (1981). A major feature of the undergraduate program is that

it has been attracting high quality students. At present the School has 22 professorial rank

faculty plus two lecturers who oversee the communications skills aspect of the undergrad-

uate program, and 9 laboratory professional staff who run the day-to-day operation of the

laboratories and assist in the supervision of undergraduate theses. The current first year

enrollment is approximately 70 students, with a planned maximum of 80. The School runs a

regular (full-time) Ph.D. program, a regular (full-time) M.A.Sc. program and a (part-time)

M.Eng. program. The current student populations are 22 Ph.D., 61 M.A.Sc. and 40 M.Eng.

2 Review Guidelines

Over the three day site visit period, the Review Committee interviewed the Director of the

School, some of the faculty, either on an individual or group basis, the secretarial staff, the

laboratory professional staff, and representatives of both undergraduate and graduate stu-

dents. Based on the review of the documentation provided for the visit and time information

gathered on site, the Committee makes the following observations, which reflect the SFU

Senate guidelines.

a) Quality of the Program

The quality of time undergraduate program, as measured by the exceptionally high

calibre of the students admitted to the program and the quality of the graduates from

the program, is very high. However, from the statistics collected over the past 8

years, the attrition rate is in time vicinity of 50%. This high attrition rate indeed raises

serious questions on the overall health and quality of the program in the long term. Time

School must direct considerable attention and effort to identify the causes and to take

appropriate corrective measures to rectify the situation. The graduate program has

3 components: Ph.D., M.A.Sc. and M.Eiig. The M.A.Sc. program, currently has 61

students, has been running

running for about 10 years. The Ph.D. program, with 22 students,

needs nurturing attention. The M.Eng program has been experiencing a rather long

completion time. As the other two programs have to cater for the M.Eng program

in terms of course offering, the School should conduct a critical re-examination of the

M.Eng program. In addition, the School should consider facilitating the creation of

new graduate courses which mirror the interests of an increasingly research oriented

faculty.

Quality of Faculty Research

The major strengths of the School are in the areas of signal processing and commu-

nications, microelectronics, micro-electro-mechanical systems, controls and robotics.

The quality of the faculty research in these areas appears to be quite good. In the ab-

sence of an absolute yardstick, the size'of NSERC research grants and the attainment

of professional society fellowships are good measures of research excellence. The top

NSERC research grants in the School is visibly low and there are no society fellows in

the School.

Administration and Knowledge Dissemination

The Review Committee was unable to determine time extent of collegial participation

in the administration of the School nor the style in which this participation takes

place. The Committee had the feeling that the faculty tended to act more as individual

entrepreneurs in their research specialty rather than as a member of a cohesive research

team. The Review Committee hastens to add that this is not a unique characteristic

of time School of Engineering Science at SFU.

Environment within the School

From the information collected, the Review Committee was unable to determine the

short-term and long-term. objectives of the School. It appears that the School is still

guided by the original visionary model introduced at the time of inception. At its

present size, the School is probably reaching maturity. Administrative policies should

now be formalized and announced in a collegial way to create a harmonious environ

mnent.

3 Report on the School of Engineering Science

The Engineering Science Review Committee was instructed to examine and to provide com-

ments and recommendations on a number of strategic areas pertaining to the mission and

goal of. the School. The following list - the Review Committee's findings, comments and

recommendations.

•

1. The Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate program is structured as a four academic year (eight academic

semester) co-operative program. It is a credit-based system and the four academic

year B.A.Sc. degree program has a formal requirement of 160 credit hours (CH),

which include a thesis requirement of 12 CH. The first two academic years constitute

the common core. The last two academic years of the program are structured as four

options: Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, Engineering Physics (Elec-

tronics), and Systems. Starting in the third academic year, students elect one of the

four options. In addition, students in each of the four options may elect to pursue a

"biomedical engineering stream". Even though there is faculty strength in communi-

cations and signal processing, there is no explicitly defined option in this area. The

Review Committee was-informed- that -the- communications and signal processing-dis-

ciplines are implicitly encapsulated in the electronics engineering option. In fact most

of the upper year students are in the electronics engineering or systems option; fewer

are in the engineering physics or the computer engineering option. There appear to

be sufficient technical electives in each of the options but a reorganization of the op-

tions may consider dropping the

Electronics

designation from the Engineering Physics

(Electronics) option. A salient feature of the program, perhaps few other engineering

departments/schools would have, is the explicit communications skills course in each

of the eight academic semesters.

With a formal requirement of 160 CH, the B.A.Sc. engineering science degree pro-

gram indeed has breadth. The program has a nominal 20 CH per semester. It is not

reasonable to expect that many of the students would take 20 CH per semester. The

credit-based system allows a student to take fewer than 20 CH per semester. During

the visit, it appears that, on average, a student takes 15 to 16 CH per semester, and

takes 10 to 11 academic semesters to complete the four academic year (eight academic

semester) program. Moreover, the undergraduate engineering science program has an

alarming attrition rate. A typical view of the undergraduate enrollment in the first

through the sixth year of the program looks like this: 65, 52, 38, 37, 37, 18. This trend

indicates that none of the students complete the four year program in four academic

years, some 19 students complete their degree in the fifth year, with the remaining 18

going into the sixth year. The sad reality is that of some 65 or so students admit-

ted to the program, only 37 will graduate with the others either dropped out of SFU

entirely or transferred to another program at SFU. The School has not conducted ,ail

investigation of the attrition; such an undertaking is clearly and urgently needed.

As a comparison, other comparable B.A.Sc programs in Canada and time USA require

• ?

from 120 to 128 CH for completion of a four academic year program. In B.A.Sc. pro-

grams in Canada that are not credit-based, the requirement is a mandatory five-course

per semester package, ,which is estimated to be equivalent sto 128 ,CH. In the School of

Engineering Science, thelaboratory courses are strictly

open ,

wjth no scheduled compo-

nent

; it is thus difficult to Obtain a .good estimate of the,effoit required. Nevertheless,

the high attrition rate and ilong completion times are contentious issues that

h e

School

should address. Perhaps agood star

tingpointfor the School is to-take a critical -look.

the .four academic year degree ;requirement to arrive at .a more reasonable undergrad-

uate curriculum. With a full-time ;faculty. of 24 and a;full-time laboratory,

professional

staff of 9, a B.A.Sc. degreeproduction of only 37 or so students per year is extremely

low. With an exceptionally qualified crop of intakes, the School should be more con-

scientious of the attrition, and make every effort to improve its throughput rate to, say

90%, with a completion time of eight academic terms.

On the positive side, the overallprogram appears to be quite solid. However, the re-

quirement of six courses in mathematics in. the

first two years is a, rather large number,

although it was established during the site visit that the coverage in the six courses of

mathematics is equivalent to four in comparable B.A.Sc programs in Canada and the

USA. This may also be a place for the School to consider reducing the 160 CH. require-

ment. In its current form, the computer engineering option is rather weak, both in

terms of hardware and software computer engineering courses. A major strength, and a

competitive advantage to the SFU engineering science program, is the conimunicati

skills courses. The two. lecturers. in this program appear overburdened with students

and their major service to the School does not appear to be uniformly appreciated by

all of the engineering faculty and administration.

2. The Internship 'Program

The internship program is being managed by a staff of two full-time and one half-time

person,

all

of whom report to the Director of the School. The internship program

appears very solid and

is one of the major features of the SFU engineering science

co-operative program. There appears to' be about

150 companies of varying sizes,

;which are required by the.SFU engineering science co-operative program. The Review

Committee did sense a certain amount of friction between the Engiiie.ering' Science

Internship program and the University Co-operative program. Undoubtedly, there is

some. overlap, between the functions of these two offices and some students,indifferent

programs, 'particuiar.lyim Engineering Sciences Computing Science, and Physics, may

compete for tile samejob. This

suggests that these two offices should have, a better

umiderstandingiof each other's. operation through better and more effective, communiça-

tion and information exchange. Maintaining, a close relationship with industry appears

to be

the fabric of ,.the- engineering.. science co-operative. program. This suggests to

the Review.

Committee Ahat, tile. S

chool:of Engineering Science. shpuld retain the ad-

ministration ofth InterllSi

l.ip program,', but closely network. it

with'the :University

Co-operative program.

3. The Graduate Program

The graduate program has three components: Ph.D., M.A.Sc., and M.Eng. Having

been established only in 1990, the Ph.D. program is relative new and is still in the

transient phase. With a current student population of 22, this program deserves time

to nurture. The M.A.Sc. and M.Eng. programs have been in operation for almost

ten years and should have attained the steady state condition. With a current student

population of 61, the M.A.Sc. program has almost attained the steady state status. In

any engineering department, an average of four to five graduate students per faculty

is a good level. With a faculty of 22, the School should aim for a complement of

- - about 100 graduate students (Ph.D. + M.A.Sc.). The M.Eng. program was designed

to provide continuing education and upgrading to professionals in industry. However,

this program has been suffering a very high dropout rate and a very long completion

time. If the M.Eng. program is to remain viable, the School must find ways to reduce

the dropout rate and the length of completion time.

The graduate programs have the following requirements: six courses plus a thesis for

the Ph.D. degree, four courses plus a thesis for the M.A.Sc. degree, and six courses

plus and engineering project for the M.Eng. degree. As in comparable engineering

schools, all courses are one semester with 3 lecture hours per week. There are prob-

lems with the course requirement and the course offering. A Ph.D. student who has

completed his/her M.A.Sc. degree at the School would have a very difficult time to find

six additional appropriate courses for the Ph.D. program. Also, the Ph.D., M.A.Sc.

and M.Eng. students all take the same courses that are offered twice a week in the

evenings. Offering courses in the evenings is designed to cater for the part-time M.Eng.

students. Nevertheless, commuting to the SFU campus twice a week for each course

may not be that attractive to professionally employed students, and may be a factor

associated with the high dropout rate and the long completion time. Also, having all

three groups of students taking the same course in the same class may compromise

both breadth and depth. Interviews with some of the graduate students suggests that

the course selection with the appropriate contents is rather limited. It appears that,

because all three groups of students with differing backgrounds are taking the same

course simultaneously, there is a tendency for time lecturer to spend more time covering

background material at the expense of new material. Interviews with a few graduate

students suggests that some of the introductory graduate courses cover material which

they have already taken at the undergraduate level at other Canadian universities.

Recently, the School replaced the written Ph.D. comprehensive examination with two

courses to increase time Ph.D. course requirement from four to six. Interviews with the

faculty suggests that this move was designed to avoid making graduate students devote

time and effort studying for, the comprehensive examination winch may have little or

uousefulness iiii their

Pl.D.work•

While, -this. iiiayz be a. valid consideration,. the lack

of good courses at. the level creates a different prpblem.': Interviews with, both

faculty. and graduate students suggests that many of the graduate courses have small

class size, say .2 to-4 students. Also, since all courses are offered twice weekly, in fixed

time slots in the evenings, .nost of the courses are being offered simultaneously in the

same semester. This further

limits the freedom to select courses in a given semester.

The Review Committee feels that, if the School of Engineering Science is serious about

establishing a. good reputation for its Ph.D. and M.A.Sc. programs, it must put these

'two programs as a high priority even if,it means compromising the M.Eng. program.

With a current 'student population of 40, and in view of the .high dropout rate and

long completion time, the School should choose between making the M.Eng. a viable

program, separate from the full-time

gra

d uat e

programs, or to wind down the M.Eng.

. program. If the School continues to operate its graduate programs in their current form,

it is the Review Committee's opinion that the School's full-time graduate programs

Will

continue to suffer both quality and poor perception. With regard to the qualifying

examination and course requirement issues, the Review Committee feels that it is

appropriate to institute a comprehensive examination based on background knowledge

on and related to the candidate's research area. This comprehensive examination may

either be in a written or oral form.. In this way, the course requirements can revert

back to four.

4. Graduate Student Support

Although the School has a limited teaching assistantship budget ($50,000 per annum),

interviews with graduate students suggests

that many of them obtained teaching assis-

tantships with other SFU departments, notably the School of Computing Science. It

appears that there is no fixed level of graduate student support, and many students do

rely heavily on teaching .assistantship. Many faculty feel that they are not in a position

to support graduate students while they are mainly taking courses. Interviews with

some graduate. students suggests that they would rather be self-supported than taking

financial support from their supervisors whose research funds have strings attached,

e.g., under contract to do mission-oriented work for industry. The Review Committee

feels that it does not have a clear picture of graduate student support in the School, as

different students seem to be receiving varying amounts. The Review Committee feels

that the Graduate Studies Office of the School should have mnorediscretionary power

in initiating and administering policies (or guidelines) in terms of course structuring

and financial, support.

'Degree Completion Times

As has already been noted, the progress rate and degree completion times for under-

graduate students are very significant issues that require immediate attention. One

effective way to address these issues is to redesign the undergraduate curriculum to be

more in-keeping with a four academic year (eight academic semester) program so that

students can actually complete the program in eight academic semesters. With the

flexibility inherent in a credit-based system, even with a redesign of the undergraduate

curriculum, the School needs to be more vigilant on degree completion times.

There is insufficient statistics to substantiate comments with regard to the Ph.D. pro-

gram. Except for the problems associated with course offering noted earlier, the

M.A.Sc. program seems to be running well, both in terms of progress rate and de-

gree completion times. As noted earlier, the M.Eng. program suffers both from a slow

progress rate and long degree completion times. The School needs to make a consci-

entious decision to either make the M.Eng. program worthwhile or to contemplate its - -

demise.

Environment within the School

From the information contained in the documentation and the rapid pace of the three

day site visit, it is difficult for the Review Committee to comment upon the extent to

which the environment within the School is conducive to attainment of its objectives.

• From the Review Committee's perspective, the objectives and vision for the School

are not well articulated, nor is there any commonly accepted set of objectives for the

degree programs. An educated observation is that a major objective of the faculty

is to achieve individual research success in their areas of specialization. While this is

laudable, for this to be successful, they have to operate from a base that is enriched

with a highly qualified undergraduate and graduate program. The School needs to

clearly enunciate its mission and objectives and to establish priorities.

The

Faculty Complement.

A complement of 22 professorial rank faculty plus two lecturers is a good size for a

program that has a first enrollment of about 70 (and aimed at a maximum of 80)

students. However, in relation to the degree production rates at the graduate and

undergraduate levels, the size of the present faculty is large. A faculty workload of

two assigned courses plus unassigned tasks per year can easily be the lowest within

SFU or elsewhere in Canada and other parts of the world. As noted earlier, with its

present size, the School should be able to comfortably handle a first year enrollment

of 80 and maintain a throughput rate of 90% or better. This may mean an increased

workload for the faculty. The Review Committee was informed that the unassigned

workload component, in the form of personal interaction with advanced undergraduate

• and graduate students, is relatively heavy. Although this may well be the case,, it is

difficult to quantify. The Review Committee has the uneasy feeling that the overall

operation, encompassing both assigned and unassigned workloads, is neither efficient

nor effective. The present workload situation does not appear to be a healthy one, in

the long term, even for the faculty who benefit from it. An increased workload to 3

courses per year per faculty member would also go a long way towards addressing the

issue of availability of graduate courses. The School should collectively address this

issue.

Research and Teaching Contributions

The faculty appear adequately involved in individual research efforts. There is some,

but perhaps not extensive, group and collaborative research efforts within the School.

Some of the faculty do have good interaction with industry.

As the Review Committee had no opportunity to either observe classroom performance

or access such information, it cannot offer any tangible comments on classroom teach

ing. However, with the small class size at both the undergraduate and graduate levels,

classroom teaching must be quite pleasant.

External Research Support

The level of external support is good, but not outstanding. The average NSERC

research grant appears to be at or below the national level. Many faculty express

strong interests in interaction with industry, and some do have ongoing industrial

interaction.

10.

Interaction and Integration with other Units

There appears to be interaction with the School of Computing Science, Departments

of Physics and Mathematics, and the Institute for System Science. Much of the in-

teraction appears to be at the research level, as opposed to teaching. The School of

Engineering Science is weak in hardware and software computing. Every effort should

be made to integrate the efforts of computing science and engineering science to en-

hance efficiency and effectiveness at the teaching as well as the research level.

11.

Administration

of the School

The Director of the School, assisted by an Associate Director and a Departmental

Assistant, has the overall administrative responsibility, including setting guidelines

and priorities. The Director appears adequately supported by an administrative staff,

which include a departmental assistant, a Director's secretary, a graduate secretary, an

undergraduate secretary, a receptionist and a laboratory resource control person. The

School has structured appropriate committees to oversee its day to day operation. Of

particular relevance are the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Graduate

Program Committee, as these committees have the overall responsibility to develop and

to monitor the respective curriculum. With a membership of 15, the Undergraduate

Curriculum Committee is too large to be effective. As noted earlier, the high attrition

. rate and the long completion times of the undergraduate degree program need urgent

attention. The Review Committee feels that the School needs a smaller and more

effective Undergraduate Curriculum Committee to adequately address revamping the

curriculum.

There appears to be a modest amount of contemporary unhappiness on the part of

the laboratory professional staff, the internship staff and the communications program

staff. This would appear to be caused by a perceived lack of consultation prior to the

recent imposition of a hierarchical reporting structure. Perhaps this situation can be

rectified through better communication and consultation processes.

12. Resources and Facilities

- -- - -- - - - TheJibrary -resources appear quite- adequate. Several graduate -students -expressed-- - - - - - - - -

unhappiness with both the number and quality of available computer workstations, and

the office space that is available to them. Overall, computer workstation upgrading is

needed for both undergraduate and graduate programs.

4 Conclusions

• The School of Engineering Science has the critical mass and the capacity to handle ap-

proximately 300 undergraduate and 100 graduate students. By setting priorities and taking

effective measures to position its undergraduate and graduate curriculums, the School has

potential to attain a good reputation in both undergraduate and graduate programs. The key

elements are improvement of the undergraduate throughput rate, reduction of the B.A.Sc.

degree completion times, and better nurturing of the full-time Ph.D. and M.A.Sc. programs.

The School was apparently founded by a person with much vision. The School should

develop long range planning to better articulate its future mission and to evolve a visionary

model that would better reflect the reality of today, as opposed to holding onto that of the

past.

5 Summary of Recommendations

With 22 professorial rank faculty, 2 lecturers, 9 laboratory professional staff, 6 admin-

istrative support staff and 3 Internship staff, the School of Engineering Science has the

critical mass and the capacity to effectively handle approximately 300 undergraduate

and 100 graduate students. The basis for these numbers includes a first year enroll-

ment of 80 with a throughput rate of 90%, and an average of 4+ graduate students

per faculty. The School should structure a model with these numbers as parameters.

• The Review Committee was surprised to learn that, with statistics compiled over an

8-year period, the throughput rate is only approximately 50%. Moreover, the under-

graduate program was structured (and advertised) as a 4-academic-year (8-academic-

semesters) program, those completed took at least 10 academic semesters. The Coin-

inittee attributes this to two causes: (i) the overall program requirement of 160 credit

hours is heavy and (ii) the credit system, which offers flexibility to the students, is not

being tightly controlled. The School should devise measures to improve the throughput

rate to the vicinity of 90% and to ensure a degree completion time of eight academic

semesters.

• The Ph.D. program, which started in 1990, is still embryonic. The M.A.Sc. program

appears to be running well. However, for the M.Eng. program, the degree completion

time is far too long and the dropout rate is too high. It is recommended that the

School considers the separation of the part-time M.Eng. program from the full-time

Ph.D. and M.A.Sc. programs in terms of course offering, and to consolidate efforts on

the health of the full-time graduate programs.

• The Internship program in the School of Engineering Science appears to be the fabric

of the mandatory co-operative undergraduate engineering science program. It appears

that the Internship has been serving the School well, and its operation should be main-

tained. Nevertheless, the Internship program and the University Co-operative program

should have better communication and consultation to avoid potential conflicts.

• There appears to be a modest amount of contemporary unhappiness on the part of

the laboratory professional staff, the internship staff and the communications program

staff. It appears that this is caused by a perceived lack of consultation prior to the

implementation of administrative changes. The School should be sensitive to this

and to ensure a harmonious working environment through better consultation and

communication processes. Whatever is the cause, it is critically important that the

School focuses on harmonizing time work environment.

April 26, 1996

A Response To Our External Review

The School of Engineering Science

1 Summary

The External Review Report (ER) on our School was received by Engineering Science in

January of this year. Although the report contains valid criticisms of our School, it is

nonetheless flad b

rdr ihfáct and hyfálii tepétãtiórs lti fdep ofletn

that the report neglects to mention any of the major achievements in our School (which

are very significant given our youth). Indeed, we feel that the review team's intent was

to provide a critique, rather than a balanced evaluation. Nonetheless, we see the external

review as an opportunity to initiate a planning process that will guide the development of

the school.

We began planning in February and will have developed a long term vision for the School

by the end of August. As a result of this process, specific one and five-year plans will be

prepared in order to coordinate the various initiatives going on within the School (such as

our curriculum revision); they will address the problems raised in the ER.

The purpose of this document is as follows:

To recognize and address the most important criticisms raised by the external review.

. To correct the most serious factual errors made by the the review committee.

• To give our own interpretations of issues and facts to provide a counterpoint to those

of the review committee.

2 Valid Criticisms

The ER makes a number of valid criticisms of our school, many of which we have been exam-

ining (and re-examining) for a several years. On some matters, such as the major curriculum

revision, a long process is unavoidable since the issues involved have deep implications; how-

ever, on other points, we have tended to substitute discussion for action. In this sense, the

galvanizing action of the ER can be seen as a catalyst for action.

2.1 Problems

The following section lists the main problems brought out by the external review and indi-

cates how these are being dealt with.

can increase our first year adnissions to some degree.

In ia.ct, we decided in an April retreat to increase ;the size of our96-3 first-year class to the

recommended number 6f

80: we also committed ourselves to double our FTE output in 5

ears This FTE goal is feasible, since our curriculum revision project (passed by the E\SC

U- CC in Mardh 1996) will reduce our attrition and will bring more courses into Engineering

Science. .Longer term goals and FIE targets will come out of our planning, process

;Inregards to class size, a study ofthe size of our lower and upper division classes indicates

that there is some capacity in the upper years of our program; however, this is not a. problem

thatisuniqueto Engineeringasis inicatedbelowin Tables 1 and 2. The problem is expected

-to rbe reduced as first year enrollments increase and our attrition rates

become healthier.

Table 1: Percent Distribution of Undergraduate Course Sections (lower. division).

Percentage _ofStudents Enrolled

9.5

Table 2: Percent Distribution of Undergraduate Course Sections (upper division).

The ER is strongly critical of our attrition rate and indicates that a rate of 10% should be

achievable at SFU due to the high quality of our incoming class. New data regarding our

actual attrition rate (computed by looking at BC Grade-12 entrants who spent at least two

weeks in Engineering) was obtained from Analytical Studies and is summarized in Tables

and 4 below; the data in Table. 3 -indicates the cohort size at the end of each academic

year (year zero is the freshman class size). Transfer students- (of which there were 10 in

1995) follow a different profile and are difficult to track as a group; as a result, they are not

included in these-tables.

Table 3: Enrollment by Year Cohort (BC Grade-12 Admissions)

enrol. at the end of the academic yr.

Year Cohort (BC Grade-12 Admissions) -

cumulative attrition (percent)

As can be seen, our final attrition rate is in the order of 40-50%. Although we agree

that this rate is somewhat high (despite the fact that 50% was the anticipated rate when our

program was created), a number of students leave due to our requirement that they maintain

a 3.00 GPA. It is not clear that we want to relax our academic standards in order to push

more students through. On the other hand, we do lose a number of students by a failure to

convey the appeal of Engineering early in the program; this issue is being addressed in our

curriculum revision project. In addition, we recently started a "Faculty Advising" program,

where each student meets with a faculty member every semester to discuss their program. It

is hoped that these measures will significantly increase our retention of students and a 70%

target is expected to be achievable.

2.1.3 Graduate Program Curriculum

We agree with the ER that the Graduate Program, and especially the M.Eng. program,

needs a careful review.

St.udents who have graduated have not been removed from the enrollment numbers.

2.1.4 Long Completion Time

The ER points out that our undergraduate program has .a relatively long completion time,

with the average student taking approximately 5.5 years ito finish. The -main cause of this

problem is the fact that we have .a flexible program and that we allow students to deviate

from

fhe "plan" lid out in The calendar. -Indeed, many students take substantially fewer

credits than the recommended number. However, this problem is also a virtue.in

some sense,

since flexibility is seen as a real Plus of our program by our -students. We are addressing the

completion ti me issue .on two fronts:

• 'Our-revised curriculum willbe structured so that it is easier to-follow the-recommended

schedule.

. We will enforce our minimum- load per semester rulemuch -more strictly in the future.

2.2 Action Items

The School is undertaking a number of initiatives to address weaknesses identified in the

Report; these are summarized below.

• Undertake a process to articulate a vision and set of plans of the School's development

over the next five.years. This process will be completed by the end of August.

• Initiate a reassessment of the goals and design of graduate program, including the issue

of financial support.

.' Form a committee to analyze the workload of ENSC faculty.

• Study the School's FTE output in terms of external pressures and the long term vision

for the School.

3 Errors and Misinterpretations

The ER contains a number of errors and misinterpretations. 'Although these are proba-

bly due to the short amount of time available to the review committee (and perhaps poor

explanations on our- part), it is nonetheless important that they be corrected.

3.1 Errors in:Fact

3.1.1 Investigation' of the Attrition

On page 5, the Report states 'that "the School has not, conducted an investigation of the

completion times. The process involved analysis of student records, extensive consultation

with

faculty and students,public meetings of the entire School (faculty,

staff

and students)

and surveys of time taken by courses in relation to their credit hour designations. A memo

reporting the findings was distributed to the entire School and used to initiate and guide the

curriculum revision activity.

3.1.2 Long Completion Times

The Report is also critical of the long completion times for the B.A.Sc. degree. As just noted,

the School analyzed the problem in late 1993. In early 1994, a curriculum revision project

was launched to address it. The goal was a program that students could complete within the

Canadian norm for co-op based engineering programs: 4-5 years with 8 academic semesters.

The methods include restructuring to 18 credit hour semesters and strict containment of

- - the time-demands-of engineering courses to -an -amount commensurate with-their credit hour--

---------

designations. Because of a simultaneous change of School Director and UCC Chair, the

process was somewhat delayed; however, it was almost complete at the time of the review,

and discussion and passage of the revised curriculum is scheduled for 96-2. The fact that the

School was already addressing completion time in this way is critical information, and the

team was told about it during their visit. Perhaps they misunderstood its significance, but

it is unfortunate that their Report omits any reference to our curriculum revision project.

• ?

3.1.3 Number of Credit Hours

At the foot of page 5, the Report claims that our credit hour requirements are much greater

than those of comparable Engineering programs in Canada and the USA; this is not true

in our opinion. A simple comparison of calendars, using standard credit hour definitions (1

credit-hour/lecture hour/week, + 0.5 credits per tutorial or lab hour/week) has showed that

our credit hour requirements are less than UBC's, a little more than UVic's and about the

same as Waterloo's.

The Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) has recently defined the "ac-

creditation unit (AU)" as a means of comparing the course loads at different institutions.

According to the CEAB, the AUs earned by courses are equal to the number of contact

hours per week (one for each lecture hour and a half for each lab hour) multiplied by the

number of weeks in the semester. The CEAB mandates that an Engineering program must

have a minimum of 1800 AL

s. The number of 120 credit hours recommended in the ER for

our program comes in at 1560 AUs, which is well below the minimum. Our current program

has 2080 AUs.

The School believes that its revised curriculum proposal (at approximately 155 credit

hours - or 2015 AUs ) is quite feasible and that it is a substantial improvement on the status

quo. ?

3.1.4 Financial Support in the Graduate Program

• ?

On page 8, the report states that "it appears that there is no fixed level of graduate stu-

dent support, and many students do rely heavily on teaching assistantships." We do have

guidelines for minimum levels of support. As for the reliance on teaching assistantships, we

believe that the level of graduate student support from faculty members' research funds in

Engineering Science is the highest of any department at Simon Fraser University. The team

may have accepted chance comments from graduate students uncritically, and generalized

from that point.

3.2 Misinterpretations

3.2.1 External Links

On page 10, concerning external research support, the Report states that "many faculty

express strong interests in interaction with industry, and some do have ongoing industrial

interaction"; this is a gross understatement. In fact, the majority of our tenure track faculty

members have research contracts, do extensive consulting, foster SFU spin-off companies,

have just returned from a sabbatical in industry or have just joined from industry. Our two

communications skills Lecturers are also active professionally and are in continual demand

for their services in off-campus workshops and short courses.

3.2.2 Objectives of the Program

On page 9, the Report states "... nor is there any commonly accepted set of objectives for the

degree programs". Although this statement is partially true, the ER ignored the fact that we

do have a high degree of consensus on the generaltype of education that we want to provide

our undergraduates: we do not want to train student engineers in cookie-cutter fashion;

we want them to be intellectually proficient and self-reliant; we want them to integrate

high academic achievement with industrial experience and a smattering of entrepreneurship.

These goals are elaborated in the same vein at every retreat. Most of the faculty believe that

the sense of idealism and mission are far higher here than at any other engineering school in

the country.

3.2.3 Faculty Workload

For years ENSC has stated that our workload is at least as heavy as that of faculty members

in other departments, although details of the load mix may vary. We have presented the

argument publicly on several occasions, but have felt that it met with misunderstanding

on the part of other members of the university community. The crux of the issue is the

"unassigned load" component of our teaching, which consists of the supervision on B.A.Sc.

theses, a great deal of one-on-one student contact ( which is required in a high calibre

Engineering program like ours) as well as the teaching of Directed Studies and Selected

Topics courses. The newly formed "ENSC Workload Committee" is developing quantitative

measures of this unassigned component.

• 4 Outstanding Achievements

Our School has

many

outstanding achievements to its credit (especially considering its yo

uth)

and it is disappointing that these were overlooked in the ER. A partial list is presented below.

4.1 Research

Information recently completed an anal

sis of the impact of research publications, as mea-

sured by the number of times a paper was cited. Among all Canadian engineering schools,

Simon Fraser's received the highest ranking. In particular, this puts the quality of the

School's research contributions ahead of those from Waterloo and Toronto, two schools rep-

resented on the team. SFUs Physics department enjoyed a. similar distinction, and thought

it sufficiently important to have a congratulatory article published in Simon Fraser-News-

("Physics department leads country in research impact", January 11, 1996). The review

team was made aware of Engineering Science's leading ranking in citations during their

visit, and one member of the team was a long-serving Chair of the SFU Physics department.

4.1.1 Participation in NCEs

Recently the TeleLearning NCE was created. This program is coordinated from SFU and

one of the NCE leaders, Tom Calvert, has a 1/4 position in Engineering. Two of the projects

•

also involve members of Engineering Science (Viad Cuperman and Jacques Vaisey).

Engineering Science also participates in the IRIS (Intelligent Robotics) and CITR (Telecom-

munications) Centres through the projects of John Dill, Paul Ho and Shahram Payandeh.

4.1.2 Society Fellows

Bill

Gruver and Vladimir Cuperman were recently named Fellows of the IEEE. It should be

noted, however, that these elections took place after the visit of the Review Committee.

4.2 External Service/Technology Transfer

Jim Cavers was awarded the Science Council of B.C. Gold Medal in Engineering and Applied

Science shortly before the team's visit, a fact that was in the documentation.

The V-chip, which has received intense media coverage recently, was developed by Tim

Collings, an Engineering Science lab engineer.

4.3 Quality of the Students/Teaching

We would like to comment on an observation the team did not make. While acknowledging

"the exceptionally qualified crop of intakes", they did not look beyond this point to the fact

that our students win awards at provincial, national and international student competitions,

both for presentations and for projects, in proportions far beyond their numbers. This

suggests that our program really does "add value" and does it in a way geared to the

intellectually able student.

Our School attracts many of the best students at SF13, which raises the level of all of

•

the- classes in which they participate. Even if these students leave Engineering, they usually

transfer to another Dept. in the University rather than drop out completely.

The School of Engineering Science

Page

Executive

Summary ?

........................

Operating Philosophy ?

.........................

The Five-Year Vision

.........................

Goals..................................

Actions..............................

N ?

Executive Summary

This document sets out the philosophy of the School of Engineering Science,.and our vision

for the School's development over the next five years. Key action items include:

• We will increase our first-year intake to 80 students, effective September 1996.

• We will implement extensive changes in the undergraduate curriculum to reduce

attrition and completion times. The new curriculum has been designed and is

awaiting confirmation at the faculty level.

• As a result of the first two items, the average number of FTE's and contact hours

taught in the School are expected to increase by 100% over the next five years.

• The first priority in our capital budgets over the next five years will be to in-

crease the number of computer workstations for the undergraduate and graduate

programs.

• We

will examine and-restructure-our- part-time Masters programtheM.Eng.) to

address the problems of long completion times and high attrition rates.

In the remainder of this document, the details of this vision are described at four successive

levels of refinement, starting with our general philosophy and progressing to actions by

identifiable individuals.

1 Operating Philosophy of the School of Engineering Science

Our responsibility is to dree6, disseminate and apply engineering knowledge through ex-

cellence in research and teaching. In both graduate and undergraduate teaching, we must

continually strive to offei- the best education possible, to develop engineers capable of making

outstanding contributiont to our societ Our vision Of this education" is based

deep

understanding of the natural

sciences

but thüst also include practical exëriencè, the ability

to work productively

a member of team, superior comiñiinicatióh kills, and an áppreci-

ation foi the economic and social contexts of our profession. These goals are realized through

the formal curriculum, the co-op and comthuriication programs, and, accompanying and un-

derlying this, the continuing partnership of students, faculty and staff in the application of

engineering to the betterment of the hum An condition.

We seek to foster a sense of community within our School, where telationships are built

on mutual respect for out strengths and tOlerance for our differences: Our School must be

one where initiative and innovatiOn are encouraged and all feel that their cohtributiOñs are

valued. In this light

eveiyone in the School should understand and take responsibility for

his or her role in accomplishing the School's mission, and must know what measures to use

to evaluate their success.

2 The Five-Year Vision

2.1 Introduction

The School of Engineering Science was established in 1983, and offers both undergraduate

and graduate programs. The first students in our undergraduate program graduated in 1986,

our first M.A.Sc. students in 19S8, and our first Ph.D. student in 1993.

We are not a traditional engineering school, but focus on innovative and personal instruc-

tion, combined with a program emphasis on advanced technological areas such as micro-

electronics, telecommunications and signal processing, systems engineering, and computers.

Our research programs aim at excellence in selected areas and our faculty members are en-

industry. Weareacomparatively siapson

program that prides itself on its quality, and we produce engineering graduates with an

unusual ability for innovation.

Undergraduate Program

We have four major areas of concentration where faculty members' research strengths are tied

to the undergraduate curriculum: electronics engineering; computer engineering; engineering

physics, and systems. We also have a biomedical engineering stream, which allows a biomed-

ical "flavour" to be added to one of the existing options: the idea being to prepare students

either for graduate training in biomedical engineering or to work in the interdisciplinary field

of engineering applied to the medical sciences.

Among the most distinctive features of our School are the communications program, the

mandatory co-op program, and the undergraduate thesis. In a set of courses closely inte-

grated with the rest of the curriculum, the students study communications topics such

written and oral presentation, reports and project documentation, computer-aided drafting,

ethics and social implications of technology. Further, every Engineering Science student

must spend at least three semesters on co-op workterms. The final industrial semester often

involves a major project, which is subsequently written up to form the undergraduate thesis.

An alternative thesis mechanism is for a student to work on a project related to a faculty

member's research.

Graduate Program

Since accepting its first graduate student in 1986, the Engineering Science graduate program

has grown to its current population of 83 full-time Master's and Doctoral students. While

further growth is still possible, current enrollment represents an average of about four grad-

uate students per faculty member, and may therefore be close to steady-state. We also have

40 students enrolled in the part-time M.Eng. program.

The School offers two Master's level degrees, the M.Eng; and M.A.Sc.; since 1990 we have

also accepted Ph.D. students.

'The'M.Eng.. program is designed; for'part -time study by-practicing engineers, and involyes 24

credit -hou;s of course-work, at. least 20 of which must be at graduate level. Graduate courses

•a.re normally offered in the evenings, making. them accessible to..people working fulkime. In

addition, the program'requires-cornpletjon of a project, normally performed in industry.

'The M.A'.Sc. program is .desi

ned for. full-time students and involves ,a

minimum of, 12

semester-hours of course-work, plus a' thesis-based on an

independent project with a signif-

'ica.nt' research component. The thesis must be:defended orally, in accordnce,wi.th

general

• University regulations. With, approval from the Graduate. Committee and, the student's

'.Supervisory Committee, the thesis may be carried out in (industry.

The Ph.D;program is'designed.for full-time students and involves, a.minimum

minimum of 18 credit-

hours:af course work,. at least

12, of

which must beat graduate level.: In addition, the program

requires 'the student to define. and undertake a pro

ram, of original research, the results of

which '

are

reported in a thesis.

2-.2 iThe Vision

:Ourvisionfor

Engineering. Science over

the next five years is:

TToimprovethe quality of our. undergraduate. program by implementingour redesigned

curriculum; while retaining a. solid grounding in the sciences and continuing to. develop

strongengineering

ski]ls

.jn. our"students. This new curriculum is expected to reduce

'completion times 'and

to, help.-us in. lowering our :attrition to less than' 30% without a

change 'in -our. academic- standards. (A recent external, review suggested a .target attrition

;rate of 10%. 'We believe this to be .unrealistic; the attrition rate for. SFU as a whole is

We considerthe,followingeatures..to bevital to aq.uality program:

:a)- a.'great deal..-of one-on-one, student—teacher contact (this means that we need to

'limit 'both our,

undergradu ate and;graduate enrollment. to. a manageable. number. of

students The eighty that we will be admitting in 96-3 is the maximum that we can

teach with our current.. resources);

'b) 'maintenance of a:-strong communications program;

.c).

proj ect-oriented 'labs ' (especially; in.thei4pper...division);

'd): good ;and'televant co-opjobs;

..e) wellequipped'.teachin'gAabs- that

operate primarily, on the "openprin'ciple', that - is,

students ha've

:a.ccess.to,the.lab 24 -hours .a.day,. seven,

a we

ek -

a, h e

*A]thy -student, culture reflected in mutual support and ..communication :across

-years;

.g)'.en'couragement of initiative

creativity, and. social responsibility;

h)' involvement of the undergraduate students in research proj.ects, leading to peer-level

interactions

with. graduate 'students, st'aff:and laculty;

•

2. To continue to develop our research programs and to strive for increased international

recognition.

To continue to maintain strong links with industry and to develop opportunities for

technology transfer.

To significantly improve the quality of our graduate program so that it is as innovative

and exciting as our undergraduate school. Making this improvement recognizes the

importance of the graduate students to our research programs and to the health of the

school in general.

Our M.Eng. program must he rationalized to eliminate the following problems:

a) It seems that very few M.Eng. students finish their program. One hypothesis is that

they are mainly interested in upgrading their skills in a selected area.

--------b) Most

- of -

our cuet:M.Eng. students are itëeted in \

be of direct use in their careers; this conflicts with the goals of our current M.A.Sc.

courses.

c) Many M.Eng. students require significant review of basic material in order to un-

derstand the topics covered in our M.A.Sc. courses; the need to cover this materia.l

compromises the level of the courses for M.A.Sc. students.

5. To seek ways in which we may cooperate with and serve other sectors of the university

• ?

community, by developing joint programs and a minor in engineering.

To do all of the above in a co-operative manner that builds a sense of community within

the school.

A vision is what we want to happen, while goals and actions are the means of making it

happen; these are presented in the next two sections.

3 Goals

tU.ndegraduate Program

i. To'inrease our. average FTE by 100% by September 2001. This goal will be.a.chieved

an immediate-increase

academic standards)..' Much of this reduction is expected to occur in the next two years

asa result of our curriculum re-design. Exit interviews must be conducted with those

:leaving the program todetermine where they've gone and why.

'2. Todeal with increased

.enrollment

we will '

.consider the following measures:

splitting the lab, though not the lecture, sections of large-enrollment classes and

having reserved time biock for particular labs, during which the appropriate faculty

and lab tstAff will be available to answer. questions;

Arranging for "workshops"' at designated hours, during which TA's will be available

'to answer questions on any one of a number of courses;

.c) arranging for on-line newsgroups associated with each course, so that frequently-

asked questions. need only be addressed once.

For undergraduates entering the program in 1996 and subsequently, our goal.is.that90%

'of'the-'gradiiating class will graduate in 10 academic semesters or fewer.

ToL

have adequate computing resources- available to. our undergraduate . students, it is

estimated that we require. 0.2 workstations per FTE student, these workstations should

offer the current equivalent of' Pentium performance. To reach and maintain this level,

'we require an adequate budget (currently estimated at $18k) to be spent on new work-

stations as our' student population grows over the next five years.. Lastly, we must keep

our software licenses current; the cost is estimated to be $lOk per year.

We will increase the--entrepreneurial, emphasis in our program through -several mecha-

- nisms:

a)" We-will seek to' develop a- new "stream" in the Management of Technological Innova-

tion in collaboration 'with 'the. School of Business

Administration,

drawing as far as

possible on existing courses. -Although this stream might.take longer to complete, it

il'l' be attractive-to those students who like -the business route, want

formal recog-

'hitionof their- emphasis. and who can benefit.-by taking a well-thought-out sequence

.of.-courses. - We believe thatfor this to, be successful, a,faculty,member from ENSC

'must'be found 'to act as a "champion".

"'b)

'We will offer more seminars-from successful entrepreneurs.

c)We'will: arrange for more tours of small companies.

'd)

We '*ill; solicit 'help from the BC Advanced Systems Instiut'efor student

projects

intdërtaken'ith:'sthall 'companies.

6. To rationalize the biomedical engineering stream by developing a clear list of prerequisites

and a set of suitable projects. We should also investigate the possibility of a new course

on biomedical instrumentation, targetted at Kinesiology students. Professor Andrew

Rawicz has stepped forward to act as a champion for the biomedical stream.

To continue to investigate the possibility of a software engineering option, offered jointly

with Computing Science.

To investigate the possibility of offering a minor in Computer Engineering (which would

be attractive to Computing Science students).

All faculty will actively seek to involve undergraduate students in their research programs

(even if simply as "sub-contractors" for their graduate students).

10.

We will put more emphasis on high-school visits and do a better job of attractin

those

- --------------students who-visit-our-school-in ordert:omintai thqulit5

ftheapplkaht pa-or frôr

which we recruit.

11.

We must increase the number of undergraduate course offerings in the summer.

12.

We all (students, staff and faculty) will treat each other as partners in the building of

our programs and community.

Graduate Program

1. We should develop a source of funding to support graduate students for that portion of

their time when they're still doing course-work. (TA-ships alone are not an adequate

source of funds for this purpose.)

2. The School as a whole must develop a set of graduate courses adequate to support

healthy M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. programs. The Academic Planning Committee believes that

this can be done by:

maintaining our current graduate courses, and perhaps increasing their rigour as we

will no longer need to adjust them for M.Eng. students (see below);

ii)

adding one advanced graduate course per faculty member per biennium, to strengthen

the Ph.D. program.

3. We need to ensure that adequate computing resources are available for our graduate

students, which means that we should have in the order of 0.25 workstations per FTE

graduate student (exclusive of the machines owned by individual research groups), these

workstations should offer the current equivalent of Sparc 5 performance. We should also

introduce a policy to control the use of workstations by visitors, perhaps by restricting

them to the research machines of the research group with which they are associated.

4. To have a regular seminar series, featuring presentations by grad students, faculty and

guest speakers, at least every two weeks.

To reduce costs and promote efficiency, we will have graduate students pay for their

printing in the same way that our undergrads do now.

We must investigate the use alternative course delivery mechanisms such as the internet

and video so that our offerings will be available to more students (especially those in the

M.Eng. program). We also need to look more deeply into offering video conferencing

courses together with other institutions.

We will modify our current M.Eng. program by offéing certificates for "packages" of

courses, short of the eight courses required for an M.Eng. degree.

We will remove the project requirement from the M.Eng. program, thus converting it

to a "mainstream" Masters degree without a thesis (álon the US model). This should

allow students to enter this program without an industrial connection and to finish in 3

semesters The progra.m will be t.argetted to two groups: those students who want more

education, but who aren't interested in research, and who want to finish their program in

a timely manner; and those students wishing to do a Ph.D., who will get their research

experience in the course of their Ph.D.. It is recommended that the course requirement

for Ph.D. students graduating from this or other course-based Masters shall be dropped

from 6 to 4.

We will investigate whether it will be possible to offer enough graduate courses in the

summer so that students in the new M.Eng. program will have the option of completing

in three semesters. We also hope to be able to offer more of our graduate courses during

the day, which will make things more pleasan

for our on-campus graduate students.

10.

Some students coming into our graduate school (particularly M.Eng. students) either

have an inadequate background, or have forgotten important material through lack of

use. This problem needs to be dealt with, since it compromises many of our current

courses. One possibility is to develop a set of "refresher" courses in the biggest problem

areas (which could be offered in a distance mode). We should also consider placements

exams for certain types of students so that they could be required to take "refresher

courses" if needed.

General

1. We must exploit technological options for improving the efficiency and delivery of teach-

ing. The basic idea here is to create/buy CD-ROMs or videos for instructing students

on basic skills such as using instruments and software packages. In addition, we might

be able to make our courses more efficient through appropriate uses of technology: for

example, by putting many of our course materials on the Web. The Engineering Student

Society (EUSS) is planning to provide coaching for first-years in the use of selected lab

equipment.

2. The increase in enrollment and the anticipated increase in retention will increase the

workload on the staff. To deal with this, we will:

examine and balance the staff workload;

obtain and maintain up-to-date office equipment;

create and maintain a database;

employ two permanent full-time co-op coordinators;

ask faculty and staff to help in finding/providing relevant co-op jobs and theses;

ask faculty and staff to help with high-school liaison work.

3. We should have a policy of meeting some of our hardware needs through student projects,

if possible. ?

4. We must find ways of obtaining more space, with the goal of maintaining a certain

minimum square footage per student. Four suggested methods for doing this are:

the sharing of offices by staff members, removing intervening walls when necessary;

putting up portables;

pursuing a new Applied Sciences building;

investigating vacant or under-used space on campus (for example, in the Shrum

building).

5. We need to be more pro-active in recruiting the top high-school students into our pro-

gram. This activity should involve more visits to high-schools and more compelling lab

tours of our facility. The tours and demos should focus on student projects more than

faculty members research: we should keep the best student projects in working order so

that they can be demonstrated as needed.

In this

Actions

section,

we translate or goals into specific actions organized according to the com-

12 ?

•

mittees responsible for implementing them.

The progress towards the goals (and vision) will be tracked b

a new Oversight Commit.

tee. This committee shall consist of the Director, the undergraduate and gra-duate chairs,

representatives from the undergraduate and graduate students, and representatives of the

office and lab staff. The committee will meet at least once a year and should prepare an

annual report to the School documenting our progress towards our goals and suggesting any

necessary modifications to the plan. The report should be released in a time frame that

corresponds with the School's annual retreat.

4.1 Committee Responsibilities

Capital Budget Committee

To set aside, as a first priority, adequate funds (current estimate: $lOk) every year to

maintain software licenses.

To set aside, as a second priority, adequate funds (current estimate: $18k) every year

for computer acquisition and maintenance.

Com p uter Committee

To maintain 0.2 or more workstations per undergraduate FTE student, these worksta-

tions to provide the contemporary equivalent of Pentium performance.

To keep our necessary software licenses current.

To develop a policy whereby grad students pay for their printing, in the same way as

undergrad students do now.

To develop a policy on the use of workstations by visitors.

In consultation with the Graduate Program Committee, develop a policy to ensure 0.25

publically available workstations, with Sparc 5 performance or better, per graduate stu-

dent.

Coon Office

1. To arrange for additional tours of local companies for groups of students (in collaboration

with the EUSS).

Graduate Committee

The. Graduate committee will develop a, certificate program to supplement the current

M.Eng. program, offering suitable certificates for the completion certain packages of

courses.

The project requirement shall be -dropped from'.theM.Eng. degree.

I :

The Graduate committee wi]l attempt to develop a timetable of graduate course offerings.

S ?

cluding the summer semester, to allow full-time M.Eng. students to complete eight

suitable courses in one year.

The course requirement for Ph.D. students graduating from our course-based Masters

program shall be reduced from 6 to 4. The Committee will decide on which other

programs fit this same category on an on-going basis.

Establish and maintain a graduate seminar series.

By the end of 1997, examine the graduate courses offered by the research groups and

determine whether the

offer adequate coverage at the M.Eng., M.A.Sc. and Ph.D.

levels.

By the end of 1997, investigate and report on the use of live video links from ENSC

to selected remote sites. The potential of the internet asacourse delivery mechanism

- - -

Investigate the possibility of offering practically oriented M.Eng. courses through Con-

tinuing Studies.

In consultation with the Computer Committee, develop a policy to ensure the availabil-

ity of 0.25 publically available workstations, with Sparc 5 performance or better, per

graduate student.

10.

The Graduate Committee will investigate ways to develop sources of funding for new

graduate students that will support them while they are doing courses.

11.

The Graduate Committee should look into the problem of many graduate students having

poor English skills. Possible actions are to increase the

TOEFL

threshold for admission

into our program, or to set up a separate TOEFL threshold for those students who will

be acting as TAs.

Hi g

h-School Liaison Committee

To become more actively involved in recruiting, both by organizing school visits and by

using student projects in demos and tours.

To involve faculty and staff in high-school liaison work.

To investigate the possibility of a promotional video, perhaps based on the existing 10th

anniversary video.

Workloa.d Committee

1. To develop a formal workload policy, consistent with University policy and the goals

proposed in this document.

Lab Committee

1. To plan for scheduled labs at which guaranteed help will be available from lab staff and

with the Chair of the Lab Committee, to study and report on the wori-

load and workload balance for office and lab staff.

Research Group Representatives

Each research group will develop a. policy for dealing with intended graduate students

who lack background in the area, or whose skills have become rusty ihfough lack of use.

Each research group will develop one or more Ph.D.-Ievel courses in its research area.

Scholarship and Progress Review Committee

Monitor the attrition rate, conduct exit interviews, and prepare an annual report on the

results.

Monitor the rate at which undergraduates pass through the program, with the goal that

90% of the graduating class should graduate in 10 academic semesters or fewer.

ace Committee

1. To find ways of obtaining more space.

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee

To develop 'workshops', as used by other departments, such as Mathematics, at which

qualified grad students will be available to consult on all lower-division courses.

To arrange for on-line newsgroups associated with each .undérgraduaté course.

To initiate discussions with the School of Business Administration on the development

of a stream or program in the Management of Technological Innovation by the end of

1996.

To study the Biomedical Engineering stream and to present a plan for re-vitalising it by

January 31, 1997.

To continue to study the possibility of a software engineering option, to be offeredjointly

with Computing Science.

To investigate the possibility of offering a minor in Computer Engineering'.

To investigate the possibility of a new course on biomedical instrumentation targetted

at Kinesiology students (together with Andrew Rawicz).

TO coordinate more entrepr'eneuria

'l speakers together with Susan Stevenson and Steve

Whitmore.