Program Review for

Electrical Engineering (M.S.)

2005-2006 Recommendations

 

 

1)   Strengths

 

      a)   Large graduate program in an important engineering discipline - with nine graduate faculty and 114 graduate majors in 2005.

 

      b)   The program has made a real effort to increase/sustain the number and quality of its

            graduate students.

 

      c)   Graduate program includes breadth and depth emphasis in electrical engineering.  This helps in recruiting quality students who can go on to well-paying jobs in industry and/or Ph.D. programs offering significant research support.

 

 

2)   Weaknesses

 

      a)   Report indicates that externally funded research levels are low.

 

      b)   Externally funded research/development support of graduate students appears to

be low.

 

 

      3)   Recommendations

 

            a)   Continue work to increase/maintain the number and quality of graduate students.     

 

      b)   Graduate faculty seek external sources of funding to support students, provide release/ summer support for faculty, and allow the faculty to conduct research and development activities in appropriate areas of electrical engineering.

 

 

Program Recommendation:      Program recommended for continuation.

 

 

Dean’s Comments:  No comments were made by the Dean of Engineering.

 

 

Outcome/Assessment Report

Master’s Program in Electrical Engineering

Spring 2007

 

 

 

Dean’s Comments:

 

1.      The following table shows the number of EE graduate students in the recent four semesters.  The enrollment has been steadily growing.

 

Semester

Fall 2005

Spring 2006

Fall 2006

Spring 2007

Number (EE graduate students)

113

93

139

147

 

 

2.      During the 2006-2007 academic year, the department saw a large increase in terms of number of research proposals submitted.  The faculty submitted over 10 proposals to NSF, DOD and ONR, etc.  The total funding requested was over $3M.  Dr. Amit Verma who joined the faculty in fall 2006 has been instrumental in this increase of proposal submissions.  We are in the process of hiring two new EE faculty members and the priority is to hire ones with great research potential.