COMMITTEE ON ENGINEERING ACCREDITATION ACTIVITIES (CEAA)
16-17 JANUARY 2009
JW MARRIOTT, STARR PASS RESORT & SPA
TUCSON, ARIZONA
MEETING SUMMARY
This Meeting Summary was approved during the 18-19
July 2009 CEAA Meeting.
1. Call to Order and
Introductions - Tredennick
Nick called the meeting to order at 4:00pm. See
Summary Attachment #1 for attendance listing.
2.
Review and Adoption of Agenda – Tredennick
The agenda was amended to add a few
topics. The revised agenda was approved.
3.
Approval of July 2008 Meeting Summary
/ Action Register – Tredennick
A Motion was made and approved to accept
the July 2008 Meeting Summary, (Agenda
Attachment #2). The committee reviewed the
action register. Vance McCollough reported on
the status of the CEAA website. The site is
currently being revised.
4.
Awards Report – Dugan
Joanne Dugan, Chair of the CEAA Awards
Subcommittee, reported on the Awards winners
for 2008. She said the committee would also develop
nominations for 2009.
5.
Election of CEAA / EAC Appointments
and Re-Appointments – White
Sam White, Chair of the CEAA Nominating
Committee, presented the slate of existing
CEAA members and officers eligible for
reappointment, (Agenda Attachment #3).
A Motion was made to reappoint all eligible CEAA
members for an additional one-year term. The Motion
was approved.
During
Executive Session, the committee elected the
following as new CEAA members, (Action Item
#1):
- Richard Lilley
- H. Bryan Riley
- Noel Schulz
- Victor Nelson (Alternate Member)
The CEAA
Nominations Process will be revised to include the
election of Alternate Members, (Action Item
#2).
6.
Program Evaluator Education Report – Meredith
John Meredith, Chair of the CEAA
Training Subcommittee, gave a presentation on
the responsibilities of that subcommittee,
(Agenda Attachment #6). His
presentation covered:
- Membership of the Training Subcommittee
- Work with the Mentoring Subcommittee
- On-Line PEV Training Program
7.
Program Evaluator Extensions – Daniels
Pat Daniels, CEAA Program Evaluator
Assignment Coordinator, reviewed the list of
existing PEVs whose terms expire in 2009, (Agenda
Attachment #4). A Motion was made and
approved to accept Pat’s recommendations
for PEV term extensions, (Action Item #3).
8.
Selection of IEEE EAC Program
Evaluators – Tredennick
During Executive Session, the committee
discussed and the PEV applicant pool and
selected new IEEE EAC PEVs. The list of selected PEV
applicants will be presented to the APC for
approval during their February 2009 Meeting,
(Combined with above - Action Item #3).
The
meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.
The
meeting reconvened at 8:00am on Saturday morning.
9.
Visit Assignment Report – Daniels
Pat Daniels discussed the Visit
Assignment Report, (Agenda Attachment
#5). She spoke about:
- The number of accreditation visits
expected in 2009-10
- Plans to track institutional history to
better estimate the number of future visits
10.
Continuous Improvement: Mentoring - Review,
Visits and Evaluations for the 2008-09 Cycle -
Rover / Soma
Mani Soma and Diane Rover, Co-Chairs of
the CEAA Mentoring Subcommittee, presented a
Mentoring Report, (Summary Attachment
#2).Their report detailed:
- Statistics for the 2008-09 cycle
- Committee records on the CEAA Yahoo
site
- Process to appoint and pair mentors
- Evaluation of PEV mentees.
The CEAA
Mentoring Report will be provided to the ABET EAC
Training Committee, (Action Item #4).
Mani will collect comments from the mentors
and prepare a report for John Meredith to assist in
training plans for 2009, (Action Item
#5).
11.
Mentoring Report - Rover / Soma
Mani Soma reviewed the mentoring
spreadsheet, (Summary Attachment #3),
where he spoke about specific cases in Executive
Session. The committee discussed cases which
would be flagged to discuss during the EAC
Caucus in July. Mani gave staff a list of Mentors
for the newly selected PEVs. Staff will assign
four new PEVs to each of the five volunteer
mentors, (Action Item #6).
12.
Standards – Dodd
Curtis Dodd, CEAA Liaison to the EAB
Standards Committee, reported on current
standards committee activities. He spoke about the
ways that schools can use IEEE standards and
the grant program for students. It was decided
that since Standards is a permanent EAB committee,
it is no longer necessary to report on
standards activities at CEAA meetings.
13.
Non-Domestic Program Evaluators
The committee discussed the issue of
non-domestic PEVs and the following issues
were raised:
- Newly selected non-domestic PEVs must
be informed that all their travel
expenses may not be covered by ABET, (Action
Item #7)
- Some CEAA members voiced concerns about
supporting visits to non-domestic
institutions that do not support human rights
issues
- APC needs to develop a mutually
acceptable solution for visits in
2009-10, (this will be discussed during the
February 2009 APC Meeting). The APC will
also examine the CEAA / CGAA Charters and the
possible overlap of duties within both
committees, (Action Item #8)
14.
Replacement of Ken Cooper on ABET Criteria Committee
This past year, Chairs of the ABET EAC
Subcommittees invited new commission members
to decide which EAC committee they would like to
work on. It was suggested that the Ken Cooper
contact the Chair of the ABET EAC Criteria
Committee, suggesting John Orr as a replacement for
Ken as a member of the ABET Criteria
Committee, (Action Item #9).
15.
Questions for ECEDHA Open Forum
During a discussion on this topic, the
committee agreed to continue the practice of
providing ECEDHA with questions to poll their
members on during their open forum session.
Chuck Hickman will work with John Meredith to
develop questions for this year’s ECEDHA
meeting, (Action Item #10).
16.
Software Engineering Criteria “Basic
Science and Math” – Dugan
Joanne Dugan suggested this topic and
gave a presentation, (Summary Attachment
#5). She explained that the criteria are not
clear with respect to the requirement for
"basic science" in Criteria 5. It's not
clear what "basic science" means and how a PEV
will interpret it. That means that an
institution/program can be surprised during a
visit to learn that their interpretation of "basic
science" differs from the PEV interpretation.
Joanne
will write a note to Ken Cooper and Don Bagert (who
serve on the EAC criteria committee) asking
them to solve this problem in the general
criteria. She will also work with the newly
constituted "CEAA criteria committee" to
suggest changes to the program criteria for
electrical & computer engineering program
criteria and software engineering
criteria. These changes will be unnecessary if
the EAC Criteria Committee solves this
problem, (Action Item #11).
The
members of the CEAA criteria committee are Joanne
Dugan, Joe Hughes, Jim McDonald (who is also
on CSAB), John Orr, John Vian and Curtis Dodd.
17.
Should IEEE Modify its Program
Criteria to Require Calculus-Based Physics
in EE and CpE Programs?
The
committee discussed this agenda topic, (Agenda
Attachment #10), which was submitted
by Ed Jones. The definition of physics needs
to be expanded, but the committee decided that no
action would be taken on this topic.
18.
Dual Level Accreditation Issues – Processes
The committee discussed how a dual-level
accreditation visit would be handled. Many
questions were brought up on this topics and it was
decided that ABET needs to develop the
process.
19.
Miscellaneous
The following topics were briefly discussed:
- CEAA Processes and Process
Documentation – the committee discussed
CEAA processes and areas that could be
improved and streamlined. Important
functions of the CEAA that need to be examined
further are the selection and mentoring
of PEVs and the program criteria.
- Recruitment of PEVs from Industry and
Government – John Meredith
suggested that someone in the group write an
article for publication which extols the
virtues of becoming a program evaluator. It was
decided that an “elevator speech”
be developed and Chuck Hickman, Ken
Cooper, John Meredith and others will work on
this topic.
- Harmonized Criteria – the
harmonized criteria is out for comment and
will be reviewed in July. For the second set of
changes to the criteria, there is a
2-year review period. This topic needs to be
discussed further before the July summer
commission meetings. The group will have
a conference call before July to see if the CEAA
wants to make a formal response, which
would need APC and EAB approval.
- Boeing’s Ranking of Engineering
Colleges – John Vian brought up this
topic and advised that institutions on
Boeing’s list have the option of
sharing their findings or not.
The
meeting was adjourned at 3:21PM.
