ECE Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes for September 17, 2009

1. The Minutes of the April 17, 2009 meeting were approved.
2. The Charges to the Committee from the ECE Department Head Andreas Cangellaris were discussed.

   The Chair reported on the status of the advanced core revisions: ECE 340 and 310 are nearly complete and await completion of the paperwork; ECE 342 is far along, although questions regarding merging it with ECE 343 remain open. ECE 330 is ready for submission to the College. ECE 391 was developed recently in line with our objectives. Kent Choquette suggested that we need a way to monitor the actual implementation and success of our revisions if the curricular revision process is to be effective in practice.

   The ECE Minor proposal was discussed and approved in principle last year, and awaits drafting of a formal proposal document by Erhan Kudeki along the lines of those discussions.

   Committee members shared whatever information they had about the Masters of Electrical Engineering proposal; we agreed to await further information from the Graduate Committee as it develops the proposal.

3. The Committee discussed whether we should add additional longer-term major initiatives to our agenda this year.
   • Following Kent Choquette's suggestion, we agreed that we should develop processes for ongoing monitoring of the curricula and particularly the core courses. Suggestions included tracking the evolution of content in light of our consensus list of topics regarded as essential; involving alumni in the process (perhaps through a specifically curriculum-focused session as part of the departmental Alumni Advisory Board meetings); and inserting relevant questions into the ICES forms or developing other student surveys.
   • Sanjay Patel suggested, and the Committee agreed, that we should begin a comprehensive review of the Computer Engineering curriculum. He suggested, for example, that an advanced core "M of N" list might now serve this ever-broadening field better.
   • Sanjay Patel suggested that we should consider the issue of open educational materials, along the lines of MIT's Open Courseware initiative. We agreed to discuss this at a future meeting and decide after that whether further follow-up is warranted.
4. Sanjay Patel, Steve Lumetta, Donna Brown, and Doug Jones volunteered to serve on the ECE/CS Curriculum Coordination Subcommittee.
5. The Committee approved the number change of ECE 280 to ECE 380, subject to the inclusion of prerequisites in the document to be forwarded to the College.
6. The Committee adjourned at 1:50 PM.