ECE Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes for February 8, 2008

1. The Minutes of the January 25, 2008 meeting were approved.
2. The proposal to cross-list ECE 313 with Math was approved.
3. The ECE498JM course proposal was approved.
4. The Committee requested a number of clarifications about the ECE498LEE proposal by Andy Singer, and tasked the Chair to request additional information before further discussion.
5. The Committee found the ECE498LG proposal from Lynford Goddard very interesting and thought-provoking; since it is rather different from most existing courses, we decided to ask the proposer to meet with us to discuss the proposal, its philosophy, and to answer various questions about content, intent, and overlap with other courses.
6. The PURE (early undergraduate research) proposal was discussed. Erhan Kudeki stated that the undergraduates would like some kind of course credit for participating, and suggested various options, such as increasing the total credit hours allowed for research and independent study from 6 to 8, and/or the creation of a lower-level (e.g., ECE 297) rubric, or not offering additional credit for the first two years. Donna Brown suggested capping the "ECE 297" hours at 1 total; Jones suggested a maximum of one per semester, capped at 2. The Committee seemed to be moving toward some kind of consensus in this general direction, but decided that we needed another week to consider it.

   The Curriculum Committee agreed that it is the purview of the Graduate Committee to consider the incentive offered to graduate students to participate, but we suggest that some kind of externally usable recognition of the teaching experience will be of more interest and value to participating graduate students than course credit. Jones suggested that they could be credited as ECE 297 instructors.

7. The Committee adjourned at 11:55 AM.