University Goal 1: Sustain and Enhance the Quality of Undergraduate Programs.

Subgoal 1: Continuous Improvement of Undergraduate Education.

A major goal of the departments within the College of Engineering is to continuously upgrade and modernize curricula in order to assure the quality of undergraduate programs.

Quality undergraduate education is a strength of the College of Engineering. Alumni comments and feedback from industry tell us that graduates of MTU are known for their technical knowledge and "hands-on" ability, which enables them to contribute to their employers immediately. High placement rates (95% in the College during 1995/6) demonstrate that our students are sought after by industry, and awards at national design competitions (e.g. concrete canoe, Future Car) illustrate how well MTU students compete with engineering students across the country.

Currently, departments within the College use the advice of their Industrial Advisory Boards to guide curricular improvements. For example, based on this advice, Electrical Engineering, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, and Environmental Engineering have instituted major curricular revisions that involve senior-level (capstone) design courses. The capstone courses in Electrical Engineering and Metallurgical and Materials Engineering are year-long courses that engage students in solving realistic engineering problems and require them to integrate knowledge obtained throughout their college careers. Teamwork and hands-on learning, as well as communication skills, are stressed in these and other design courses throughout the College.

Design courses are an important element of the curricula because they enable students to gain experience in solving open-ended problems, in working as members of a team, and in communicating orally and in writing. Recent increase in funding for curricular reform and innovation by the Federal government have provided opportunities to provide even more experiences in design. The College of Engineering needs to develop a College-wide initiative that encourages teaching and curricular reform and innovation to ensure that MTU retains its reputation as an excellent undergraduate, graduate, and research institution. The new, full-time Associate Dean for Academic Programs will spearhead this initiative by coordinating efforts for curricular revision and reform, considering a common first-year program, and promoting innovation in both teaching and research.

Both the departments of Geological Engineering and Sciences and Mechanical Engineering/Engineering Mechanics are currently in the process of curricular reform. College faculty have developed several new courses, including Creative Problem Solving, 3-D Visualizations, and Engineering for the Environment. The College is a lead partner of the University Initiative for the Environment. This initiative includes the development of courses and portions of courses that present environmental issues from a broad perspective that includes economics, social science, communications, and engineering.

The growth of international programs at MTU provides an opportunity for College of Engineering students to gain experience working in another culture and to gain a broader perspective about the role of engineering in society.

One difficulty faced by the College is maintaining excellent undergraduate programs when interest in individual engineering programs fluctuates widely and reasonable student-credit-hour per faculty ratios is difficult to maintain in some programs. The slow process of shifting faculty positions from one department to another makes the adjustment of resources to meet the demands of fluctuating student interest difficult. Table 1 illustrates that departments within the College of Engineering, especially Chemical, Civil and Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering/Engineering Mechanics have had historically high teaching loads, measured by weighted student credit hours (WSCH) per full-time-equivalent faculty (FTEF), that have only recently begun to decrease.

TABLE 1. Faculty Load Comparison WSCH/FTEF (ranked faculty, academic year)

	1989/90	1990/1	1991/2	1992/3	1993/4	1994/5	1995/6	1996/7
University	1091	1141	1211	1187	1087	1010	991	920
Chemical	827	1043	1224	1332	1291	1287	1210	1016
Civil/Env	932	1125	1374	1493	1367	1451	1280	1044
Mechanical	1457	1457	1521	1473	1356	1285	1264	1210

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