EEF Presentation and Discussion
Willie Payne, EEF Committee Chair gave an overview of the Engineering Excellence Fund and noted that mini proposals (up to $3000) are due 2/11/2015 and major proposals are due 3/11/2015. For the latter, departments and programs are urged to develop multi-year strategies for improving their educational offerings with support of EEF. The major proposals are typically about 7 pages, request $5 – 50K from EEF, have cost sharing in the range of 20 – 30% (sometimes more, for larger and high-priority projects), and impact many students and sometimes multiple departments and programs. There has been a shortage of good proposals overall, and especially at the graduate level with broad impact.
Admissions Update
Rob reported that undergraduate applications are up 5% and that admissions offers are 32% ahead of the same time last year. There is also an increase in diversity and quality measures. OPEN is down slightly and CS is flat, whereas most other programs are up. We do not have data on graduate applicants, but chairs indicated a small increase.
Grant and Proposal Update
Grant awards of $47 million for the first six months of this fiscal year are up from $36 million at the same time a year ago. ChBE and CEAE have each already brought in over $11 million. However, proposals are down slightly from the same time last year.
Retirement Incentives
The two-year payout incentive for faculty retirements is not available for the foreseeable future. However, other incentives described on the web include phased retirement, differentiated workload in the final semester or year, post-retirement employment, and a possible salary bump in the final two years. Normal retirement may occur for faculty of age 55+ and with 75+ of years of service + age.
Other Business
Rob encouraged aggressive recruiting for graduate students and will provide support to help with visits to campus of prospective students (separate email to come soon). He also encouraged the development of professional master’s degrees, which can be a source of revenue for departments and programs. The campus model recommendation is that we charge $800 – 1000 per credit hour and with only a small differential for nonresident students. The campus then keeps $300 per student credit hour and returns to the rest to the unit. A preference by students and employers for MS vs ME degrees was expressed. We may be able to start professional master’s programs right away using our ME degrees and then switch to MS degrees in the near future. This new opportunity may be particularly attractive to international students.
In Attendance
Rob Davis, Penny Axelrad, Dan Schwartz, Balaji Rajagopalan, Jim Martin, Bob Erickson, Clayton Lewis