2009 Program Educational Objectives Review

 

The Advisory Board met on October 16, 2009 to review the department’s mission:

·    Provide a quality program leading to the degree B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering

·    Participate in multi-disciplinary programs leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs in materials engineering and science

·    Contribute to the expansion of knowledge in the area of materials and metallurgical engineering through scholarly activities

·    Help local, regional, national and international materials and metallurgical industries through research and development activities

 

As part of the first mission statement the board reviewed progress towards meeting the B.S. Metallurgical Engineering program educational objectives:

·    Successfully apply metallurgical engineering principles in their employment

·    Meet societal needs through science and technology

·    Grow professionally and personally

·    Serve their profession and community

 

The board concluded:

The program educational objectives remain current and appropriate.  Alumni surveys and feedback from board members on the program’s alumni performance in the workplace indicate that the objectives are being met and that no specific changes in curriculum beyond the suggestions below are needed.

·          The department should consider offering one or two survey classes on the larger materials topics such as ceramics, biomaterials, polymers, electronic materials, composites, etc. and

·          It is critical that the proper replacement be found for Dr. Howard as he nears retirement and that this transition proceeds as smoothly as possible.

·          Some class space, laboratories, and offices need infrastructure upgrades and repair to meet current standards.  There have been some new additions of equipment to the Departmental laboratories in recent years, but not a lot of change.  While expensive and difficult to do, the faculty and school need to ensure that laboratories are current so the students can be adequately prepared for future jobs or additional training at research universities.

·          The Department should continue to emphasize and expand opportunities for students to work in summer or co-op jobs to gain experience.

·          The department should work to obtain another funded faculty position. Faculty numbers are still low for the number of enrolled students and the level of research funding being performed.  Many MSE departments have student to faculty ratios of about 12 : 1.  This department is approximately  16:1.  With five faculty members, the department is always just one step away from a dilemma should a member be lost.  Adding another faculty member with the correct skill set could also be a method to broaden the department’s range of abilities and class offerings.

 

The program faculty reviewed the Advisory Board Report, the 2008 Alumni Survey (attached), and the feedback from the 2010 Constituent Focus Group.

 

Loop closure on the 2007 Actions is summarized here.

 

2007 Evaluation Process Actions Completed

·          The best means of obtaining input from employers of our program alumni is to sit the employers on our Advisory Board.  This eliminates violation confidentiality of personnel matters (for their employees – our alumni) while maintaining a direct link to our alumni performance.  This is working well and will continue.

·          Alumni survey questions using Survey Monkey were aligned directly with the program objectives in the 2008 survey as shown below.  This allows excellent evaluation of program objectives.  This survey procedure will continue unchanged.

·          The Student Satisfaction-Importance Survey (SSI) results were reviewed by the program faculty and found to be of no significant use in the evaluation of program educational objectives.  The survey will be used to formulate a program-created survey of program students to better assess student satisfaction.  The SSI will no longer be considered for use in program objective assessment.

 

2007 Objective Improvement Actions Completed

·          The new administration and faculty have completed a review and restatement of the university mission and objectives.  The remapping of program objectives to the newly-stated university objections has been completed.

·          Communication skills were correctly identified as an area that was going to require special attention during turnover of the program faculty.  The retirements of Drs. Stone and Han were particularly significant since they were heavily involved in supporting writing skill improvements.  The new faculty has been trained in program expectations and procedures to assure the continued writing competence of program graduates. Instructional documents have been created and shared among program faculty to improve uniformity in expectations.  Writing and oral communication instruction is discussed at least monthly at departmental meetings.  All program faculty members sit in the every design reports meeting where they offer presentation criticism and instruction.  

·          The senior exit exam and survey now provide satisfactory feedback to assess ethics, professionalism, and global issues.  (The alumni survey continues to be useful in evaluating program educational objectives.)

 

 

Actions for 2009

Evaluation Process

                The evaluation process is working well and requires no modification except for some question about the consistency in alumni survey responses on profession service.  Only 5/51 report serving a professional society, while 15/51 report belonging to a professional society.  This and other similar analysis indicate that some additional work might be warranted to assure the meaningfulness of the survey questions in these areas.

 

Objective Improvement

Program graduates appear to meeting all program objectives according to their self-assessment reporting largely either a satisfied or very satisfied on all items except those involving design and computational.  Of additional concern was that 8/51 respondents reported no significant professional or community service.  The low self appraisal for design ability is needs to be tracked to determine if the new design experience being offered since 2008 will, as expected, result in improvement.  It is decided that the following actions items be set:

·          A determination of the effectiveness of the Samurai Sword Design Project and current other design projects  is leading to improved design skills for the graduates.

·          Consideration should be given to specifically addressing computational skills in the curriculum.

·          The program should include additional discussion in the classroom on the importance of and means of identifying areas of meaningful professional and community service.