college of engineering annual academic report …...advisors to serve approximately 600 of our...

S. Woods September 1, 2013

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL ACADEMIC REPORT FOR 2012-13 The College of Engineering underwent several changes during the 2013 fiscal year. The college appointed two individuals into senior leadership roles; Christine Kelly, Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs and Irem Tumer, Associate Dean for Research and Economic Development. The college successfully hired twenty-one faculty, awarded a record number of degrees, admitted increasing numbers of students to the professional program, and increased research productivity.

The College remains committed to delivering outstanding engineering talent and ideas that will lead to prosperity for Oregon and the nation. Our goal is closely aligned with and complementary to the University’s strategic focus on a healthy planet, healthy people, and healthy economies and it is consistent with our land grant mission.

Although not yet finalized, the preliminary number of 2013 degrees awarded is 940 indicating an overall increase of 18 percent, with increases of 18, 6, and 55 percent for baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral degrees, respectively over 2011 values. Research expenditures data will be finalized in February 2014, but preliminary estimates suggest an increase of about 10 percent over 2011. New grants and contracts decreased over the last two years; in part reflecting two large NERHP infrastructure grants from 2010. The number of faculty has grown over the last two years and several successful searches will bring 21 additional faculty to the college in FY 2014; eleven replacement hires and 10 new faculty lines.

The college experienced continued success in private fundraising, reaching $196 million, which is more than 98 percent of our new $200 million “Campaign for OSU” goal. The development team, including college leaders and foundation staff, added $16.5million in new private support, which exceeded the target of $13 million for the year.

2010-11 PROGRAMMATIC ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Examples of key initiatives undertaken and noteworthy outcomes achieved by the college in several areas of focus: student engagement and success, research and its impact, outreach and engagement, and community and diversity initiatives.

a. Student Engagement and Success

Engagement and success activities were directed towards both undergraduate and graduate students. Broadly our activities have focused on recruitment, retention and degree completion through increasing student engagement. Whenever possible, we have worked to partner with appropriate units on campus for broader impact and leverage of other OSU assets. The majority of our engagement and success initiatives fall under five themes 1) integration (i.e., social and academic), 2) exposure (e.g., majors within engineering, 3) services, how things work), 4) involvement (e.g., clubs, internships), and 5) support (e.g., academic, coaching).

Key initiatives and outcomes for 2012-2013:

ENGINEERING “HUB” – A comprehensive student resource and leadership center was opened in 2012, housing academic coaching, international programs, student leadership


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development, career development, and student support services. In FY 13 over 2,300 students visited the “Hub”, a nearly 400 percent utilization increase from FY 12.

INTERNATIONAL/INTO Partnerships – The College continues to strengthen partnerships with the International Programs units and INTO OSU to improve the transition experience for students. Specialized orientation programs are now offered for INTO OSU pathway “progressors” and newly admitted CAP students to improve the student experience in their first term. The College, in collaboration with New Student Programs and Family Outreach, spearheaded the first comprehensive summer online orientation for international students with the goal of increasing fall term matriculation.

STUDY ABROAD – The College is one of the newest members of the Global Engineering Education Exchange, a consortium of universities across the globe who partner for student exchange. The college is awaiting approval of a minor in international engineering, which will allow students to combine international experience with related coursework on campus to earn this international credential.

COE VOLUNTEERS – We continued the popular volunteer program enabling COE students to engage in a wide variety of recruitment and outreach events including Engineering at OMSI, Beaver Open House, and Engineering Expo. For 2012-2013 we had over 300 student volunteers in our programs.

FIRST-YEAR STUDENT SUCCESS – The College is focused on reforming the first-year advising experience. The workgroup has developed learning outcomes, advising content, and an advising delivery structure that will provide proactive advising to students based upon their developmental needs the first year. We have hired two new advisors to serve approximately 600 of our incoming first-year students with all first-year engineering students following a prescribed advising curriculum developed by the first-year advising workgroup.

STAR (Students Taking Academic Responsibility) pilot was fully supported by the College of Engineering during the 2012-2013 academic year. An initiative from the Provost, the goal of the pilot was to reduce the number of first-year students who move from Academic Warning or Academic Probation to Academic Suspension within participating Colleges (College of Engineering and College of Liberal Arts). Based on the first year success, the program is being expanded to a campus-wide initiative for the 2013-2014 academic year.

Capstone Projects – As part of this year-long senior design course, students learn vital “soft skills” (e.g. project management, documentation, etc.) as they design, build and test a product for their sponsor. Senior projects are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and have often resulted in successful products often with collaboration with College of Business students, for example:

o Business students Ryan Connolly and Hannah Vincent, along with computer science partners Andy Miller and Zack Anderson, launched the startup PlayPulse, which takes a scientific approach to video-game testing by using a comprehensive suite of biometric sensors to measure where, when and how a user is most engaged in a video game.

o Computer science student Darren Marshall together with Lyndsay Toll, a Business Administration student created a new web-based business named BuyBott - an easy-to-use website that searches multiple sites at once for you.

MIME works to engage students in a variety of ways including; an annual convocation to welcome new professional school students, a graduate student-faculty interaction


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group (GS4) to assist new graduate transition, and a professional series presented by practicing professionals to assist students understand real-world engineering issues and practices.

b. Research and its impact

The growth in research expenditures have also grown graduate student enrollment at both the master’s and Ph.D. levels. The growth in Ph.D. students again outpaced the growth in master’s students, which reflects our focus on doctoral enrollment. One theme of our research is to move the new ideas from the laboratory to the world through new products or new companies.

The development and implementation of pre-award staff support has been very successful.

Key initiatives and outcomes:

The 3 original OSU patents related to the NuScale design have grown to 44 OSU patents pending or granted in 15 countries. These 44 patents are currently licensed to NuScale by OSU and are separate from new patents developed at NuScale.

Computer science professor Bechir Hamdaoui and Doug Johnson, an OSU professor of rangeland ecology and management, have helped develop new environmental monitoring technology that will allow farmers in west and central Asia to save millions of dollars while more effectively combatting a pest that is threatening their wheat crops.

Distinguished professor Tom Dietterich’s research in machine learning is helping scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology study bird abundance and distribution. Tens of thousands of volunteer birdwatchers (citizen scientists) all over the world contribute data to the study by submitting their bird sightings to the eBird website. Dietterich and the team use the data and apply machine learning techniques to convert them into accurate models for prediction and recognition.

Associate professor Patrick Chiang developed a new technology to monitor medical vital signs, with sophisticated sensors so small and cheap they could fit onto a bandage, be manufactured in high volumes and cost less than a quarter. The monitoring system and is ready for clinical trials.

The Cascadia Lifelines Program (CLiP) research consortium, led by Scott Ashford, was established to collectively conduct research for Oregon’s lifeline providers in order to implement value- and cost-informed decisions to mitigate the seismic risk facing Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. The goal is to save lives and to shorten the time it will take for the state and the nation to recover.

NERHP faculty and students successfully moved their research to applications. Examples include;

o Professor David Hamby & Assistant Professor Abi Farsoni delivered two of their newly patented beta/gamma spectrometers to CH2MHill in Richland, WA.

o Professor David Hamby & Assistant Professor Abi Farsoni were awarded a patent for their hot-particle skin dosimeter;

o Graduate student Colby Mangini is completing a new beta dosimetry model for shallow skin depths that will potentially replace models used for the past 40 years.


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A new startup in Corvallis based on research developed at OSU is working to break into the flat-panel TV industry. Amorphyx, headed by alumnus Bill Cowell, uses amorphus metals, which are less expensive and simpler than materials currently used to create backplanes in televisions and displays. He worked closely with ECE professor John Wager and chemistry professor Douglas Keszler in the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry at OSU.

Professor John Conley discovered that resistive random access memory (RRAM), or “memristors,” could make products even smaller, faster and cheaper than the silicon transistors that have revolutionized modern electronics – and transparent as well.

c. Outreach and engagement, including international-level activities

The college continued its strong focus on outreach and engagement at local, regional, national, and international levels.

Key initiatives and outcomes:

The COE Beaver Open House saw roughly 700 prospective students and their parents in attendance this year in a new format that provided participants with more detailed information on available options in the college.

The College focuses on recruitment of high achieving students using a variety of approaches.

Breakfasts at Spring Preview events designed to engage high achieving students and their parents visiting campus.

Student ambassadors were involved in a phone campaign during winter and spring terms involving high achieving, women, and underrepresented students interested in engineering.

With Admissions, the college created a new recruiting event called “Destination Orange” directed at high-achieving students in STEM fields from the Portland area.

The COE Engineering EXPO showcases the senior design projects of engineering students across all disciplines. This year over 350 students showcased more than 100 projects. More than 1200 visitors including industry leaders, legislators, high school classes, the general public and the OSU campus joined the College in celebrating the success of our graduating seniors.

The College sponsors a yearly drive-in conference and workshop for our community college faculty and advising partners to strengthen relationships and to better communicated changes in College policy to these important groups. Participating institutions for the 2012-2013 year represented over 80% of the students that transfer to the COE.

COE Ambassadors led daily tours of the College, led WAVE lab tours, and visited K12 schools throughout the state, reaching over 10,000 K12 students.

The O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory is probably the most popular destination on campus for international and domestic visitors. More than 2,000 visitors pass through the lab each year. The annual spring tsunami challenge and open house on hosted 2,000 K-8 students in the structure challenge.


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d. Community and diversity enhancement initiatives Through the Women and Minority in Engineering (WME) Program, the College supports a number of activities to recruit and retain women and underrepresented minorities. WME strives to improve the sense of community and to promote diversity among current and prospective students. Initiatives include:

COE Ambassador Program: Leadership and communication skill development for COE undergraduate students. Presentations at 60 high schools throughout state, daily tours of the COE, collaboration with Wave Lab and PreCollege Programs to offer school field trip tours and activities. (148 K12 classes visited).

Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM (LSAMP): financial, academic, social, and professional support for URM.

Industry funded summer Bridge Program for 60 URM first year STEM students.

Women in Engineering Orientation Program: Pre-fall term community building program for incoming first year women. In 2012 50 women participated, in 2013 80 women are enrolled

Collaborations with University Housing and Dining Service: o LSAMP fall term orientation class in engineering residence hall: 2 sections o Women in engineering fall term orientation class in engineering residence

hall: 2 sections o Weekly “Dine with Mentors” : Each Tues evening of fall term the WME

Director and student mentors dined at residence halls for informal meetings/discussions

o Facilitated students tables at the Engineering residence hall two evenings/week

National Transportation Summer Institute: residential summer transportation engineering camp for female URM HS students, funded by the Civil Rights Division of the Federal Highway Administration

Support for diverse student groups: NSBE, SHPE, SWE. Provided funding for conference attendance.

Recruiting and outreach events for diverse students including: o Weekly engineering and computer science activities at Boys and Girls Club

through NSF funded STARS CS Leadership Corp o SHPE members led weekly study tables at local middle school for Spanish

speaking students o Scholarships targeting underrepresented COE students

The College plays a significant role in INTO OSU program with roughly one-third of the total population of INTO students in the college. As noted above we have initiated several programs to help these students successfully transition to OSU. In addition, the college has welcomed several Iraqi students, particularly in CCE.

In addition to adding highly-skilled, in-demand workers into the workforce, the online post-baccalaureate degree in computer science attracts a significant number of women (23% of all students are female).

National Transportation Summer Institute: residential summer transportation engineering camp for URM HS students, funded by the Civil Rights Division of the Federal Highway Administration


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e. Other Initiatives

EECS started its online post-baccalaureate degree in computer science, the only program of its type in the nation, allowing students with an accredited bachelor’s degree in any field to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science degree in only 12 months. The program supports high tech companies in Oregon and around the nation by providing employees. Twenty-three students graduated from the program in June and enrollment is steadily increasing.

In September 2012, we completed the first significant renovation in Rogers Hall since building's construction in 1967. The southeast portion of the second (main) floor has been renovated to house our new undergraduate student advising center -- known as The Fulcrum -- a new state-of-the-art boardroom, a floor-to-ceiling display case to show off MIME student and faculty project work, and a small kitchen/staff room.

2. A brief assessment of the efforts in these areas is included below.

Student Engagement and Success

Works Well

Ambassadors, M&Ms, and volunteers successfully support a wide variety of activities.

The Post-Bac CS degree is in high demand and has graduated the first class of 23.

Supplemental instruction and academic coaching programs are helping students become more engaged and, in turn, more successful.

Growth in usage of Engineering HUB success resources

Success tools for international students in the COE

Needs Improvement

CEM, NE, RHP and EcoE programs continue to have low enrollments

Continuing to increase graduate enrollment will require competitive stipends and additional fellowship funding.

Major Barriers

Our UG student/faculty ratio impacts class sizes and program quality.

We need to find ways to allocate more resources to undergraduate advising.

High enrollment and the success of pre-engineering students resulted in more qualified pro-school applicants than can be accommodated given current resources.

Physical space limitations have hindered expansion of student success programming

Space to house faculty, their associated labs and students (graduate offices, project space for all levels and informal meeting space) is a critical issue at this point.

Research Impacts

Works Well

The Pre-Award staff support is very successful with faculty.

Commercialization is increasingly a part of the culture of COE.

Needs Improvement

Major Barriers

Continued growth of the research enterprise will require competitive start up packages and improved quality and amount of facilities.


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Outreach and Engagement

Works Well

Improvements to Beaver Open House, Engineering Expo, and our communication plan have significantly increased our community outreach and engagement.

Targeted recruitment initiatives are improving the number of high achieving students choosing the COE.

Continued successes of student teams in national/international competitions bring notoriety and recruitment opportunities.

Needs Improvement

Additional, focused conversations with Community College engineering advisors and faculty would be beneficial.

High achiever recruitment events need retooling for improved success

Major Barriers

The growth in staff has not kept pace with the growth in students and faculty.

Some units have inadequate marketing support to tell their stories.

Community and Diversity

Works Well

The LSAMP provides an increased opportunity for underrepresented minorities to succeed in STEM fields.

Needs Improvement

COE must continue to improve efforts to recruit more underrepresented minorities and women to our programs.

Major Barriers

Attracting underrepresented minorities to Corvallis is sometimes difficult (for both students and faculty). Additionally, our facilities and start-up packages are often not competitive with offers made to URM faculty.

3. Below is a brief summary of major faculty and student awards received during the academic year.

3a. Faculty Awards:

Wade Marcum serves as a member of the editorial board for both the World Journal of Engineering and Technology as well as the Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Power Generation Technology

Todd Palmer serves as Editor-in-Chief, Transport Theory and Statistical Physics, and as Associate Editor, Transport Theory and Statistical Physics.

Alena Paulenova is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry

Glencora Borradaile, Raviv Raich received NSF CAREER awards, bringing the total number of CAREER Award recipients to 20, or half of the current EECS research faculty.

Bob Schultz was recognized by the Oregon State University 25 year Club President’s Medal for 50 years of service to OSU, 2013.

Jonathan Hurst was recognized by Popular Mechanics as one of the year’s “Breakthrough Innovators.” Hurst conducts research on bi-pedal locomotion for robots.

Tom Miller received the ASCE Region 8 Faculty Advisor of the Year (Region 8 includes AK, AZ, HI, MT, NV, OR, WA, UT). This is Tom’s fifth consecutive year to receive this top honor.

http://mime.oregonstate.edu/people/hurst


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Adam Higgins and Jeff Nason in CBEE received NSF CAREER Awards.

David Trejo was honored with the rank of Fellow of the American Concrete Institute for outstanding contributions.

3b. Student Awards:

Jordan Machtelinckz was awarded the Clara L. Simerville Award for his leadership in Engineers without Borders

Marsha Lampi, graduating senior in bioengineering (June 2012) was a four-year Cross Country and Track and Field Scholarship athlete. She was also a four year PAC-12 First Team All-Academic, and in 2012 graduated with the highest GPA (4.0/4.0) in the athletic department.

The OSU Solar Vehicle Team took first place in the 2013 Formula Sun Grand Prix competition in Austin, Texas – 193 laps, or 661 miles, around the Circuit of the Americas raceway. The team also received the sportsmanship award for assistance to other teams.

Computer science junior Hannah Adams was recently awarded the Google Anita Borg Award, a prestigious scholarship that supports women in technology. An active member in the College of Engineering as an ambassador, peer adviser, and mentor to 14 women in engineering, Adams is the fourth OSU woman in computer science to win the award.

THE OSU Global Formula Racing competed in the 2013 Michigan FSAE event in May 2013. The team had 1st-place finishes in the design and autocross events and 2nd-place finishes for business presentation and skid pad.

Alexandria Moseley, BS 2013 IE, BS 2013 ME, has been named to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' 30 Under 30 list.

4. Included here is a brief summary of key initiatives to leverage Education & General (E&G) and other base resources and to improve administrative efficiencies.

The activation of touchscreen feature on the digital kiosk in the Radiation Center main hallway has put a wealth of information at the fingertips of RC visitors, students, and staff. Phasing out bulletin board content, the kiosk can now display on-demand and automated content while being managed from a desktop by one staff member on a time budget of roughly one hour per week.

NERHP is moving towards a paperless office with regards to management of student and faculty records.

A comprehensive report was produced that summarizes the smart grid efforts on US campus. This report informs the newly formed OSU Next Generation Electrical Grid Task Force that includes OSU IT, Facilities and Research. The task force will help create a plan for upgrading the electrical infrastructure for the next couple decades while including our IT needs and research opportunities.

The major accomplishment this past year was launching and successfully delivering the nation’s first post bacc on-line BS degree program. Nearly 40 students have graduated since starting the program 15 months ago. In the next year, the program will continue to expand, we will continue to develop new and innovative program delivery and we will expand our marketing so that OSU benefits from this entrepreneurial effort.

Efforts are underway to automate the collection of student appointment information to lessen the HR burden on term-by-term TA and RA appointments.


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college of engineering annual academic report …...advisors to serve approximately 600 of our...

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