ECE Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes for September 15, 2008

1. The Minutes of the September 8, 2008 meeting were approved.
2. A proposal for an ECE Minor was presented by Erhan Kudeki. He informed us that he often gets queries from students interested in an ECE minor. He thought it would be good for the Department to offer one, and so Marie-Christine Brunet, Umberto Ravaioli, Sarah McDougal, and he drafted a proposal. The proposed minor has in essence two tracks, which are more or less an electrical engineering (systems) track and a computer engineering track; he asked whether we should consider an ECE minor, or separate EE and CompE minors. The Curriculum Committee responded favorably to the idea of departmental minor(s), and concluded that separate EE and CompE minors is the better choice. In part, this is because the CompE minor should not be open to Computer Science majors, and it is easier to manage such rules if the minors are separate. Since CS already has a minor that is likely easier than a CompE minor, it was suggested that the interest in a CompE minor might be limited, but that we should still propose one.

   The question was raised as to whether the already-large introductory courses could support the additional enrollment. Kudeki estimated that perhaps 20 students per year might take advantage of it, and perhaps a few more once it became well established, but suggested that many of the students who would be interested are already taking these courses anyway. The Committee concluded that the additional load is unlikely to be unbearable by the department.

   The Committee's response to the proposed EE minor was positive and that the proposed course requirements sounded reasonable. The Committee agreed with the proposal not to include ECE 340 in the select-one-advanced-core course list, because many physics and materials science students cover similar material in their major. (Students can still select it as an advanced elective.) The Committee encouraged Erhan Kudeki to draft a complete, formal proposal along those lines for careful consideration. Erhan promised to check into the University's rules on minors and to confirm that the proposal satisfies them. Donna Brown agreed to discuss the Computer Engineering minor and requirements with the Computer Engineering Area Committee and to report back on their recommendations.

3. The Chair reported the status of our review and revision of the EE Technical Electives list. For those areas not yet reviewed by the full committee, the Chair promised to locate any outstanding recommendations from Committee members from the prior year for consideration this year. The Chair had mistakenly designated K.-C. Hsieh to review both Physics (completed last year) and Materials Science, but K-C. generously agreed to do Materials Science as well.
4. The Committee adjourned at 3:43 PM.