Newsletter Archives; Winter 1999

Visting Committee Discusses the Future

The Department Visiting Committee met on campus Monday, October 19, 1998, to discuss a number of issues of critical importance to the future of the department. The meeting was opened by Professor James Riley, Acting Chair of the department. After welcoming the committee, Professor Riley gave them an update on the following items: status of the search for a new department chair; new programs and new laboratories in the department; status of items raised at the previous Visiting Committee meeting; administrative restructuring in the College of Engineering; legislative items; development; and continuing education.

Following lunch, the committee received a presentation from Assistant Professor Ann Mescher on the new undergraduate design curriculum. Professor John Kramlich then presented the status of the department's preparations for ABET 2000. This is one of the most significant items on the committees agenda.

The College of Engineering and the department are scheduled for a periodic accreditation review by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, (ABET) in the fall of 2001. The criteria for this evaluation, referred to as ABET 2000, has changed significantly from that of past evaluations. Instead of prescribing specific features in the curriculm, ABET now looks for measures of outcome success, e.g., graduate competencies.

By the year 2000 the department will be expected to have a clearly defined set of goals and outcomes for undergraduate education and measures of effectiveness by which to gauge success in achieving these goals. The members of the Visiting Committee are all practicing mechanical engineers or work for companies which employ mechanical engineers. They represent an important constituent group with a vital interest in the department's "product" - the graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering who is seeking employment as a mechanical engineer.

In the future the members of the committee will be working closely with the faculty to help define goals and desired outcomes of the educational process, to devise metrics for determining sucess in acheiving educational goals and in setting up a system for obtaining data on these metrics. The feedback from this process will then be used to modify the systemwhere required. The input and expertise of the committee members is crucial to this process.

Following a discussion of action items and some closing comments from Professor Riley, the committee adjourned. The members ended the day meeting with individual faculty and with tours of the new Electronic Packaging Laboratory, headed by Professor Minoru Taya, and of the Rapid Prototyping Laboratory, headed by Associate Professors Duane Storti and Mark Ganter.

The Visiting Committee is composed of twenty-one members representing private and public sector organizations which employ mechanical engineers.

Visiting Committee Members Are:

Carlos Aguirre
Aguirre Industries

Bruce Baker
Endosonics Corp.

Gary Graham
Contemporary Design Co.

Mohamed Hashish, Ph.D.
Flow International

Roderick Kirkwood, P.E.
Consultant

Derek LaFramboise
Shields Bag and Printing Co.

Andre Letourneau
Fluke Corp.

Colin Macedo
Sverdrup Civil, Inc.

Thomas McGaw
Chevron Overseas Petroleum, Inc.

Hamid Mortazavi, Ph.D.
3M Corp.

Myron Ko
Procter and Gamble Oleochemical Co.

Steve Radons
Physio-Control Corp.

Chris Rasmussen
Hewlett Packard

James Reichman, Ph.D
PACCAR, Inc.

Richard Sandaas
CH2M Hill

Peter Schmidt
Marine Construction and Design Co.

Robert Schneider, P.E.
D. Hittle and Assoc., Inc.

Eldred Smith, P.E.
U.S. Coast Guard

Joe Van Dyke
SAS Engineering

Kathryn Whiting
The Boeing Co.

Alec Willis
Consultant