Outstanding faculty and students require an outstanding learning and research environment. The academic process cannot function effectively without the best human resources to support it and the physical facilities to implement it.
Strategy A: Establish a plan for refurbishing common-use research laboratory and classroom equipment and facilities that allows continual planned modernization.
To have the best engineering program in the country, our teaching facilities and teaching and research laboratories must represent the most advanced technology our graduates will be expected to find in professional practice. Because of rapid change, plans and resources for systematically upgrading equipment should be provided. Specifically, the college should:
Action 1: Lay out a procedure, timeline, and the resources needed to provide facility and equipment upgrade and replacement on a coordinated and continuing basis. Secure funding necessary to support the plan.
The College and Departments presently have limited resources for replacing laboratory equipment for teaching and research. University funding is often out of phase with the needs. A plan should be in place so departments can look ahead with some confidence that resources will be available at a defined level. The most return for investments should be sought.
Responsibility: Associate Dean for Research, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Department Chairmen, Research Advisory Committee
Resources: Student fees, increased special equipment fund allocation, college matching fund pool, and industrial donations of equipment
Timeline: One year planning, phased in implementation by year three
Success Metric: Resources allocated and firm program in place by year three; outstanding laboratories for teaching and research supported by firm funding commitments.
Progress: Student fees are a source of funding for teaching laboratory equipment just as they are for Learning Resource Center personnel, computer hardware and software, and associated equipment. Currently, fees for this equipment is charged on a course by course basis, but consideration is being given to a non-course-related fee such as that charged by the Colleges of Fine Arts and Communication. Such a fee would replace the course-related incidental and laboratory fees. The urgency of this action item was highlighted during the Fall 1998 ABET accreditation review when three of our programs were cited as deficient due to the lack of adequate funding for teaching laboratory equipment.
The Chemical Engineering Department has done this for the undergraduate teaching laboratories. The Department has not yet done this for the graduate teaching laboratories. Faculty tire of generating the lists if there is no expectation something will be done with the information. These lists used to be generated and acted upon regularly. It has been at least five years and probably more like ten years since there were meaningful resources from the College to address research needs in a substantive way.
The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, along with the other departments in the College, has developed a plan for the maintenance and replacement of the laboratory equipment. This will be used as the basis for a request to the central administration to approve a new student fee that will provide the necessary funds.
Action 2: Upgrade necessary multimedia capability by purchasing, upgrading, and providing access to the facilities and advanced teaching equipment needed in the modern classroom. Provide the staff and/or TA resources to facilitate use.
The modern classroom should have excellent overhead projectors, laptop linkages to permanently installed video projectors, links to the web, laptop connections for students, etc. Not all of these are necessary in every classroom, but the College is woefully short in most respects.
Responsibility: Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, departments
Resources: Capital equipment funds, donated funds and equipment
Timeline: Immediate start, implement as funds are available
Success Metric: Fraction of classrooms with complete facilities
Progress: This past spring, the Board of Regents approved an increase in the Instructional Technology Fee to enable Technology Classroom installations throughout the College and the staff to support these systems. In order to leverage this funding and ensure standardization for all faculty and students throughout the University, the College of Engineering joined the partnership that already existed between with the Colleges of Natural Sciences and Liberal Arts. Thirteen classrooms throughout the College are being outfitted with a state of the art system that permits faculty to present multimedia and web-based materials easily to their classes. ECJ 1.202 and the Faculty Innovation Center have been accomplished already.
In the past, the College used ITF and Vision Plan funds to install simpler installations. In addition, two classrooms in ETC and ECJ have been equipped with computers donated by Hewlett Packard to support a studio classroom concept. A master plan for equipping classrooms with I/T equipment is being developed for the College, so that internal and external funding and donations may be used to the best advantage to support the learning experience in the College.
The Chemical Engineering Department is doing this now in coordination with the College effort. Much of this is funded by the student fees (Informational Technology Fee, Instructional Technology Fee and the Learning Resources Center Fee). Staff and TA resources are also provided from Department excellence funds.
Electrical and Computer Engineering completed a renovation project that created four new classrooms on the first floor of ENS. These new classrooms replaced four smaller classrooms on the upper floors of the building. The new classrooms have computer projection equipment installed along with the necessary audio systems and internet access. The ECE technical staff are maintaining this equipment.
Strategy B: Provide fair and competitive salary and benefits to maintain a top-quality administrative and research support staff.
The College of Engineering should be perceived as one of the best places to work in Austin. For this, it must have a progressive salary and promotion policy. Staff must be certain that they are highly regarded and well compensated. The people hired must be the best qualified consistent with the required experience level. The careful filtering of incoming staff who are then competitively paid should provide the basis for their job security.
The College has needs for staff capabilities that differ from the campus-wide norm, and should be free from campus-wide policies that limit the ability to hire at industrially competitive salary levels. The needs of the College in this regard should be established so that the case for policy change can be made to the administration.
Action: A plan should be established to provide competitive salaries for the special staff needs of the College of Engineering within three to five years. The position titles peculiar to the needs of this College should be examined for adequacy of salary range, and the issue of salary differential between soft money and State line positions needs to be carefully examined.
Responsibility: Department Chairmen, Associate Dean for Research with ORU Directors
Resources: OHR, in-place survey of staff salary levels
Timeline: In place within one year
Success Metric: Retention of existing well-qualified staff and success in new hiring of top candidates
Progress: Most of the technical staff in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) are electronic or computer technicians. People with these skills are also in high demand by the high tech industry in Austin. The competition from industry has caused a significant rise in the salary levels of these skilled technical people. This has put pressure on us to raise the salary levels of the department’s technical staff. Two years ago when one of our electronic technicians died from leukemia, we decided to eliminate the vacant position and distribute the associated salary among the remaining technical staff positions. This action eased the problem of providing competitive salaries but it appears that the solution is only temporary. Other sources of funds to provide competitive salaries for the technical staff would be student fees and endowments or gifts.
The ECE Department has not made a study of the difference in salary levels of the staff paid by research funds and the staff paid from State lines. The only action that can be taken here is to see that the faculty who make salary recommendations for the research staff are made aware of the salary levels of the faculty who are paid from State funds, and to encourage those faculty to maintain comparable wage levels. The Dean’s office has had policies on salary increases that have helped to maintain equity in the salary increases for both categories of employees.
Strategy C: Provide the mechanisms to encourage innovative research and teaching programs.
The technology of the 21st Century will not recognize traditional boundaries. Successful production of a high performance computer chip is as much a problem in thermal and mechanical design and chemical process engineering as one of solid-state electronics. Mechanisms are needed which will allow rapid response to emerging teaching and research needs and opportunities. To accomplish this, the College should:
Action 1: Allocate space for faculty working together on collaborative research and academic interests.
Departmental, interdepartmental and intercollege programs may be augmented if engaged faculty can be provided with space that enhances the potential for collaboration.
Responsibility: Department Chairmen, Research Advisory Committee
Resources: Chiefly faculty time to relocate
Timeline: Study of feasibility within one year; if agreed, phase in space allocation according to common interest
Success Metric: New collaborative (cross-discipline, cross-department, cross-college, multi-University) research programs proposed and number awarded; number of publications involving collaboration
Progress: The allocation of space to Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty will, in the near future, undergo major changes. This is caused by the fact that a significant number (approx. 15) of the computer engineering faculty will move into new office and laboratory space in the ACES building. That new building is scheduled for occupancy during the summer of 2000. The space in the ACES building is ideally suited to collaborative research and academic interests.
Once the computer engineering faculty move to the ACES building there will be a considerable amount of space vacated in ENS. That space is available for a variety of purposes. Some of it will be reassigned to the faculty remaining in ENS for research purposes. Collaborative projects would be high on the priority list to receive additional space allocations. Additional space is also needed for instructional labs and for student-faculty interactive areas. Some portion of the vacated space will be designated for these purposes also.
Action 2: Office and laboratory location should be examined periodically to assure consistency with changing collaborative efforts.
Responsibility: Associate Dean for Research, Department Chairmen
Resources: Faculty input, space inventory and assignment database
Timeline: Continuing
Success Metric: Difficult to measure success
Progress: This is an ongoing action item. So far, additional space has been provided to accommodate a large program at the Center for Space Research. Additional buildings for various interdisciplinary research programs have been proposed, and funding sources are being explored.
The Chemical Engineering Department has a long history of collaboration and already does this. Faculty need to make their case for space allocations.
As stated in Action 1, all of the Electrical and Computer Engineering space allocations are scheduled for review in the near future. Periodic review is planned after that.
Strategy D: Use the College's resources to optimize and increase the total support available for teaching and research, and move to remove barriers to innovation.
State funding for direct support of higher education is not expected to grow significantly over the next decade. To provide adequate resources for innovative programs of teaching and research, we must leverage our internal resources to the maximum extent possible and act to maximize the “bang” we can achieve for the buck. Specifically, we should:
Action 1: Strive to increase the rate of indirect cost return to the College from the University administration, and thus to the Departments, Centers and PIs to allow greater support to the research enterprise.
This will require a continuing effort on the part of the Dean in concert with the President. The effort should begin at once.
Responsibility: Dean
Resources: Dean's good will with the administration
Timeline: Immediate start
Success Metric: Achievement of 50% match of earned overhead returned to the College within five years
Progress: The University asked the legislature to change the fraction of UT overhead taken by the state from 50% to 25%. This would allow more flexibility for The University to provide support to colleges based on research funds brought in. Until such legislation change is made, our goal is to prevent erosion of the 25% we now receive.
Action 2: Increase funds for routine lab equipment replacement (“Special Equipment Allocation”) and matching equipment grants from the current level to a stable and continuing commitment level that is commensurate with a flagship university.
Responsibility: Dean for increasing University allocation, Associate Dean for Research for administration
Resources: University matching funds, donated funds and equipment, EFAC
Timeline: Immediate start, implement as funds are available
Success Metric: Funds available for matching at end of five-year period
Progress: Planning is underway for provision of a steady funding source. A general course fee on a student credit hour basis is under consideration to provide for laboratory renewal and upgrades.
We have had considerable success in supporting departmental equipment through the Center of Excellence programs and gifts of unrestricted funds to departments. We have also received numerous gifts of equipment, particularly computer-related equipment, as well as reduced pricing. We are studying an increase in student equipment fees to put teaching labs on a more reasonable replacement schedule.
Action 3: Establish a standing committee or charge an existing committee with recommending structural and/or procedural changes that will increase the efficiency of College operations and University operations that affect the College. This committee may recommend changes in University operations through the Dean where appropriate.
Responsibility: Dean to establish committee or assign responsibility
Resources: Faculty time
Timeline: Immediate
Success Metric: Removal of barriers, frustrations and irritations and provision of an improved quality of faculty, staff and student life
Progress: This committee has not been established yet.