ECE Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes for February 4, 2010

1. The Committee resumed its discussion related to the Computer Engineering Curriculum. Steve Levinson stated that there should be no major divisions between computer and electrical engineering, and that we should avoid over-professionalization or a "trade-school" approach to computer engineering. There was general agreement on this. There was also a substantial sentiment that the core courses in both our curricula should be identical, although others argued that we must examine the educational needs of computer engineers carefully before concluding this.
   
   Doug Jones expressed his opinion (based on comments from advisees and other students) that the workload in several core courses (including ECE 190, 391, and 385) exceeds the 3-4 total hours per week per credit hour typically expected of students. Lynford Goddard pointed out that most professors assume their course warrants the maximum 4 hours, and at the average 16-credit-hours-per-semester courseload required to complete the curriculum in eight semesters, this corresponds to 64 hours per week, which he believes is excessive. Donna Brown stated that, from her experiences, most students have poor study habits, make very inefficient use of their study times, and have many other distractions like part-time jobs; she does not feel that the workload is in fact excessive. Jones suggested that we have to work with the students we have; Donna suggested they can be motivated and taught better study habits. Doug Jones advocated that we adopt an expectation of 3-4 total hours per credit hour per week for all courses in our curricula. Steve Levinson argued that focusing on time spent is not helpful, and that we should instead look at the material and needs of each course. The Committee decided not to give mandates for courses, but that workload and educational efficiency in terms of student learning per time spent should be an important consideration for all courses.
   
   Sanjay Patel advocated taking a fresh look at the content of our Computer Engineering curriculum; that is, that everything should be on the table and that we should decide what is fundamental and also unique for a computer engineering curriculum. Kudeki and others noted that fundamental computer engineering knowledge is just as essential for modern electrical engineers as well, as most electical devices now have embedded computers. Kudeki noted that scientific/numerical computing is included in CS 101 and suggested that it should appear in our computer engineering curriculum. Nitin Vaidya suggested that a bit of quantitative analysis should be embedded in every course. He noted that many students have difficulty applying analytical concepts learned in one course to novel applications encountered in others. Steve Levinson noted that integrating material is the most challenging form of learning, and that we should expect that the students will acquire this skill last.
   
   The Curriculum Committee agreed that our major issues to address with respect to revision of the Computer Engineering Curriculum are to define the core fundamentals, to consider workload and learning efficiency as we address revisions, and to explore the idea of a core/advanced core approach as in the Electrical Engineering Curriculum. There was a strong consensus that the entire department, not just the computer engineering faculty, should be engaged in this process. Steve Levinson suggested, and the Committee agreed, that we should perform the exercise of developing a consensus list of fundamental material for computer engineering as we did for electrical engineering.
2. The Committee adjourned at 3:02 PM.