Download School-wide-def-96 - UConn School of Engineering

A.3 Actions to Correct Previous Deficiencies
School-wide
“Further use of this [career counseling] service to provide additional feedback to the
engineering faculty regarding alumni would be useful.”
Over the last two years, the School of Engineering (SOE) has significantly enhanced its
interaction with the SOE alumni, allowing the school to track the alumni much more
effectively. Examples of these interactions include the annual SOE awards banquet,
regular newsletters, and visits by the Dean to various cities in the Northeast to meet with
alumni groups. In addition, the Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department
maintains its own alumni database, which is also useful for our Objectives and Outcomes
Assessment process.
“There seems to be great variation in the thoroughness and quality of feedback provided
to students on writing [in W courses].”
Following the last ABET visit, the ECE dept. established a task force to investigate the
departmental W courses (EE 209W and EE 262W laboratories). The recommendations of
the task force were presented to the faculty. It was decided that the faculty (rather than
the graduate teaching assistants) in charge of the W labs would take a more direct role in
assessing the quality of the writing and this additional responsibility would be recognized
by the department head in assigning workload. For example, the EE 262W lab now uses a
quantifiable approach to evaluate the writing component of the lab reports. (Ayers:
details?)
[The following observation in the last ABET report “does not pertain to the current
accreditation action, but is offered to assist the institution in its continuing efforts to
improve the quality of its engineering programs.”]
“A better sense of ‘community’ could be produced by co-locating engineering classrooms
in the engineering buildings.”
With the renovations of the engineering buildings completed and with relatively small
class sizes, much of the engineering lecture and laboratory instruction takes place in
engineering buildings. The engineering facilities include several “high-tech” lecture
rooms as well as general-purpose computer laboratories, e.g., the “learning center” in
Engineering II. In addition, the ECE Dept. has dedicated space within the department
building (ABB) for a student study lounge to foster a sense of community. The study
lounge has computers, vending machines, and study tables. It is in almost continuous use
during the semester and has proved to be a good facilitator of team-work