Teaching and Learning

Significant new student admissions and registrations enabled the school to reverse a downward trend in enrollments that began in 2005-06. Total student credit hours for the academic year 2007-08 (44,676) exceeded those for 2006-07 (43,768) by 2.07 percent. Student headcount also increased by 4.68 percent, from 2,287 in Fall 2006 to 2,394 in Fall 2007. Here are some of the highlights in the teaching and learning area:

• The school awarded 114 AS degrees in technology, 378 BS degrees, and 77 MS degrees—a total of 569 degrees, excluding the 102 certificates awarded, and including the first cohort of Biomedical Engineering (BME) graduates.

• A new degree program, Motorsports Engineering-BS, was approved by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. This new program has great potential for recruiting out-of-state students.
• The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering obtained approval for a new combined five-year BS/MS program and a dual BSEE/BS in Physics program.

• An agreement between HELP International College of Technology (HICT), Malaysia, and IUPUI was signed to facilitate the transfer of HICT students to IUPUI to complete electrical or mechanical engineering degrees.
• Articulation agreements with Ivy Tech State College were approved in Construction Engineering Management Technology and Mechanical Engineering Technology.

• A new agreement with Franklin College will facilitate dual degree programs in mathematics and electrical, mechanical or computer engineering, or in chemistry and BME. 
• An agreement of General Academic Cooperation between IU East and the school will provide a track for IU East students transferring to IUPUI engineering programs after the freshman year.
• An online Facilities Management master’s option in technology was introduced in the Fall semester.  Four courses for the program were developed, put online, and taught during the 2007-08 academic year.
• Hazim El-Mounayri has developed a course titled Discovering Advanced Manufacturing that uses a virtual reality CNC machining system, AVML. This online course serves not only for our engineering curriculum, but also  work-force development in Indiana. El-Mounayri was interviewed on the Inside Indiana TV program on August 31, 2007.
• Sohel Anwar’s new graduate level course, Automotive Control, has been accepted as a Professional Education (EPE) course at Purdue University- West Lafayette Engineering and delivered to wide audiences through video streaming.  
• Charlie Feldhaus and David Nickolich created a consortium of three state universities (IUPUI, Ball State University, and Indiana State University) to deliver Occupational Specialist Teacher Training for Career and Technical Education (CTE) to secondary school faculty. Nine professors collaborated to develop this 45-hour professional development experience, delivered over a nine-month period.  The Indiana Department of Education is funding this consortium with a $95,345 grant.
• The Department of Computer, Information, and Leadership Technology hosted the January 2008 ePortfolio Symposium.  The department also received a 2008-10 Integrative Department Grant to implement ePort within the Organizational Leadership and Supervision degree curriculum.  ePort will be used for assessment and to provide future students with a mechanism for understanding IUPUI’s Principles of Undergraduate Learning and how they integrate with the OLS curriculum:
• Based on the 2007 ASEE Engineering and Technology Colleges Profile, IUPUI is third nationally in the number of Engineering Technology bachelor’s degrees awarded (284). IUPUI remains first nationally in the number of Engineering Technology bachelor’s degrees awarded to women (62).  The school has the third largest Engineering Technology enrollment (1,457) in the USA.  

Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity
School faculty submitted 116 external proposals during the 2007-08 academic year (compared to 107 the previous year)  for over $60M ($35M last year).  Forty-nine (42 last year) awards, totaling $6,189,436 were received ($5,515,222 last year). The school also received a record amount of internal awards, totaling $241K. Major grants received include:

• Ghassan Kassab, NIH-NHLBI, “The Role of Shear Stress in Heart Failure.”  This is a five-year R01 grant from NIH totaling $1.8M.
• Ghassan Kassab, FlowCo, Inc., “Impedance Planimetry Device Pre-Clinical Validation,” $233,500.
• Razi Nalim, Rolls Royce Corporation, “Wave Rotor Combustion Rig Design and Analysis,” $200,000.
• Sohel Anwar, Indiana Office of Energy, “Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Development,” $132,392.

Additional highlights in this area are:

• The school received three-year $600K funding from the campus to establish two new Signature Centers, in addition to the Lugar Center for Renewable Energy established last year. These new centers include the Transportation Safety Institute TASI , headed by Yaobin Chen and the Biomechanics and Biomaterials Research Center, headed by Charles Turner.

• Sohel Anwar’ s Plug-in-Hybrid vehicle project, funded by the Indiana Office of Energy and Defense Development, was highlighted at a recent press conference held by the Lieutenant Governor on April 25, 2008. His research was also featured in the Indianapolis Star-News. This project is a partnership with the Indiana Power and Light Company.
• Charles Turner was one of three IUPUI faculty members appointed as  Chancellor’s Professor in 2007-2008.

Civic Engagement

• Fourteen of the 2007 IUPUI Top 100 students were from our school this year. Biomedical Engineering senior Rachel Meyer was selected as the Top Female Student.
• A grant from the IUPUI Commitment to Excellence in Civic Engagement  Project funded opportunities for Engineering and Technology students to participate in service learning in Marseille, France and Cuernavaca, Mexico. Tim Diemer collaborated with the Offices of Campus and Community Life and International Affairs as part of the Center for Service and Learning’s To Mexico with Love trip from mid-May until mid-June 2008. The service learning immersion program is open to all majors at IUPUI:

• The Computer Graphics Technology (CGT) study abroad program with UITM (Rzeszow, Poland) and UCM (Poznan, Poland) was expanded to include a workshop for high school teachers as well as eight CGT course offerings on site in spring and summer.  Ninety-four students participated.

• The Annual Joint Boards of Advisors Meeting brought together over 100 industry partners and friends for a half-day session highlighting Innovation and Diversity in a Global Economy. IPS Superintendent Eugene White and Executive Vice Chancellor Uday Sukhatme were speakers.
• The school formed and hosted an all-female FIRST Robotics team in conjunction with Rolls-Royce.  This was a direct result of the 2nd annual POWER (Preparing Outstanding Women for Engineering Roles) Camp for high school girls interested in increasing their knowledge of math, science, engineering and technology.  The team earned a $6,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development and competed in two events.  The goal is to continue this team.
• The 3rd Annual POWER camp was held in June 2008.  For the first time, the camp was 100 percent residential.  Sponsors included Rolls-Royce, Cummins, the Society of Mechanical Engineers Educational Foundation, and Midwest ISO. Twenty-nine girls attended from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Alabama.
• The school collaborated with the IUPUI Alumni Association, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the School of Continuing Studies, and the Kelley School of Business Alumni Association to host a symposium on Going Green on April 24.
• Six Construction Engineering Management Technology students served as members of a 23-person IUPUI delegation that volunteered in the Katrina -damaged neighborhood of Broadmoor in New Orleans during Spring Break.
• Barbara Christe worked with five implementation sites around the country and 34 hospitals to assess the implementation and effectiveness of educational materials for prevention of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections (BSI), infections from chest tube insertions, and central line Infections.
• Pat Fox and Stephen Hundley sponsored the June 2008 Go Green Experience (OLS 423), which brought 12 students to study sustainable business practices in and around Mannheim, Germany. Sites visited by the group included the Mercedes-Benz Werk Rastatt.

Diversity

• The School created a standing Diversity committee, which developed the following mission statement:

The overarching purpose of this Committee will be to focus upon a select set of objectives intended to advance the ethnic and gender diversity of the Engineering and Technology student body. Each of these objectives and all subcomponents will have definitive and measurable outcomes. School resources will initially focus upon improving and empowering the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), IUPUI student organizations.  With full recognition of and resolve to fulfill the broader objectives of the IUPUI Diversity Plan, this Mission Statement will guide the Diversity Committee over the next 3-5 years.  It is the steadfast opinion of Committee members that progress made in this regard has the greatest potential for effecting positive, far-reaching and long-term improvements in the diversity of our faculty, staff and students.

• Julie Ji was hired as Assistant Professor of BME, using funds provided by the campus Support for Recruiting Under-Represented Faculty initiative.
• The Indiana Summer Transportation Institute (ISTI) was held at IUPUI for IPS high school students on June 9-13, 2008.  With funding from the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, the institute focused on exciting developments in transportation and related college and career information.  
• A three-day, fun-filled camp experience promoting engineering ideas, computer skills, critical thinking, and teamwork for Engineering Magnet- bound sixth-grade IPS students from four selected elementary schools  held in June 2007. This is the part of the Pathways to Engineering Program, a collaboration among IPS, IUPUI, Rolls Royce, and Viola.

Best Practices

• Based on the recommendations of the Action Groups of faculty, students, alumni, and industry advisors formed the previous year, administrative realignment took place, effective July 1, 2007, to consolidate the technology programs into three large departments. The school now has three engineering and three technology departments.
• The Interior Design Technology-BS Program received a full six years of accreditation by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA), as a result of the initial evaluation visit. This is a remarkable achievement for a relatively young program.
• The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET, Inc.) approved full six-year accreditation for both the BS in Electrical Engineering and the BS in Computer Engineering programs.

External Awards and Appointments

• Ken Rennels has been appointed to serve on the ABET, Inc. Board of Directors.
• Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten) of Malaysia appointed Ali Jafari as External Examiner for its Information Technology Program and Hasan Akay as External Examiner for its Mechanical Engineering Program for two years.
• Pat Fox became the first woman to receive the prestigious American Society for Engineering Education McGraw Award in its 59-year history. The award recognizes service and contributions to the Engineering Technology division of ASEE.  Fox is also the Vice President of ASEE for External Relations.
• Yaobin Chen has been elected to the Board of Directors of the American Red Cross-Greater Indianapolis after serving on its advisory board for one-and-a-half years.