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Overview of Merrimack College and the Department of Electrical Engineering

Overview of Merrimack College and the Department of Electrical Engineering. Jack Adams, Chair Dept. of EE Merrimack College Presented to the 2008 Annual AIDC Meeting October 15, 2008. Merrimack College - History.

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Overview of Merrimack College and the Department of Electrical Engineering

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  1. Overview of Merrimack College and the Department of Electrical Engineering Jack Adams, ChairDept. of EEMerrimack College Presented to the 2008 Annual AIDC MeetingOctober 15, 2008

  2. Merrimack College - History • Merrimack College was founded in 1947 in North Andover, Massachusetts, by the Order of St. Augustine O.S.A. • The Augustinians, at the invitation of Richard Cushing, then Archbishop of Boston, established the College as a direct response to the needs and aspirations of local G.I.'s returning home from World War II.

  3. More history Since its inception, the now 220-acre Merrimack College has graduated nearly 22,000 students and has grown to nearly 40 buildings including the 130,000 square foot Sakowich Center, the Mendel Science, Engineering and Technology Center, and the Rogers Center for the Arts.

  4. Merrimack College - Present • Merrimack College is a selective, independent, four-year Catholic college offering liberal arts, business, and also science and engineering programs within a residential campus setting. • Approximately 2,000 students, mostly FT, almost all undergraduate. The students hail from 26 states and 14 countries

  5. Merrimack College - Present • More than 30 major areas of study • 13-to-1 student-teacher ratio • Strong cooperative education program for all majors, study abroad, internships and career services programs. • Approximately eighty percent of students reside on campus

  6. Merrimack College - Present • In terms of its academic focus, Merrimack College emphasizes both liberal arts and the professions. There are three divisions: • Liberal Arts • The Girard School of Business • Science and Engineering Just five years ago, half the majors were in liberal arts: today, each division has roughly a third of the entering freshmen

  7. Merrimack Electrical Engineering • Unique: the only EE program in an undergraduate, Catholic college in the United States. • 8 full time and adjunct faculty • Approximately 100 EE students, including FT, PT, and EE minors. • Only accredited PT program in New England

  8. EE Departmental Mission • To prepare students to become outstanding electrical engineers within a challenging and inspiring learning environment while actively contributing to the broader Merrimack and professional communities.

  9. Faculty in alignment with mission • EE Professors have on average over 10 years experience in industry • Merrimack EE is unique in that over half of its professors have Master’s degrees rather than PhDs. While this doesn’t happen in a research University, professors with industry experience are highly valuable in “graduating outstanding electrical engineers”.

  10. ABET Accreditation • EE Department accredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). • ABETs approach is modeled on ISO 9000 • ABET requires demonstration of “continuous program improvement”. Achieved through establishment of goals, assessment, and actions to bring about improvement. • Major review every 6 years.

  11. Challenges • Meeting ABET requirements for Continuous Program Improvement • Keeping curriculum “fresh”, and also meeting ABET “depth” requirement • Core teaching requirements make offering new electives a challenge • It has turned out that adding RFID to our curriculum has been a major help in addressing these challenges – will discuss further shortly

  12. Opportunities • Small faculty and teaching-oriented environment, allows for flexibility in trying out new courses. • Small faculty also makes 100% buy-in for curricular changes feasible, a plus from ABET’s perspective.

  13. Resource: Mike Ohanian • 1961 EE Alum • Retired CEO of Intermec, and a pioneer in the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) arena. • Passionate about bringing RFID to Merrimack. • Mike is still active: board of directors of TagSys, a French company that recently landed the Beijing Library, with 40 million titles, as a client. • Opportunity for speakers, and lab donations from, as well as partnerships with many RFID companies.

  14. Resource: Charlie Kochakian • 1961 EE Alum • Lifetime RF engineer (Draper Labs) with RFID expertise • Like Mike O, passionate about RFID, and bringing it to Merrimack.

  15. Background – Seminar Series • Decided to “get feet wet” by offering seminar series, held fall 2004 • Topics included: • RFID: Past, Present and Future (Sanjay Sarma MIT) • Supply Chain Logistics (Rohit Verma VP of Savi technologies) • As measured by attendance and enthusiasm, highly successful

  16. Background – short course • Building on experience of seminar series by offering short course in conjunction with Boston Section of IEEE, in Spring 2006 • Similar topics, speakers as the seminar series • Approximately 60 attendees, with about half from local industry

  17. Offered as 3-credit elective, spring 2007 • Lead instructor: Charlie Kochakian • Visits from industry experts throughout the semester • Lab component – mostly demos for starters • Final “project” a reading/research project

  18. Topics included • RFID Basics • Manufacturing considerations • Standards • Role in supply chain – how to make money with RFID

  19. antenna Siliconchip Various Inlays Example topic – RFID tags

  20. Intermec’s IA33A Circularly Polarized Antenna Dimensions:10.2 x 10.2 x 1.5 inWeight: 20 oz Symbol’s MC9000-G RFID handheld Dimensions:10.75 in. L x 4.7 in. W x 7.7 in. H Weight:35.4 oz./1 kg (includes battery, scanner and radio) Keyboard:53-key Symbol’s XR400 Fixed Reader Dimensions:8.75 in. L x 11.75 in. W x 2.0 in. H Weight:4.85 lbs. Base Material: Die-cast aluminum Example topic: Antennas and Readers

  21. Example Industry Speaker - Scott Cobb • Scott Cobb is SVP Federal & Healthcare Systems – Shipcom Wireless. • Scott brought a business perspective to the class. “People don’t buy technology – they buy solutions”. • This type of message and presentation MUCH appreciated by the students.

  22. Fall 2006 Evaluation of Assessment Results • Carried out in conjunction with curricular review • Although data indicated “passing” grades for all outcomes, three ABET outcomes had arguably scanty data • 3 (d) an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams • 3 (f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility • 3 (h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context (*)

  23. Decision to require RFID of all EE students • Coursework in RFID offers the opportunity to directly assess the concerns raised during the Outcomes assessment • RFID is somewhat famous for ethical concerns (real or imagined) due to potential privacy invasion • RFID is highly multidisciplinary • Global aspects include EPCGlobal and the global supply chain among others

  24. Format of RFID course • 2-credit course taken at the end of the junior year by all EE majors • Highly unique prereqs: E&M+Electronics (Junior EE), OR CS major with junior standing, OR business major with junior standing. Encourages multidisciplinary teams. • Requires three sets of learning outcomes, one for each major • Assuming enough business and CS students (likely), we can have ALL EE students working in a multi-disciplinary team

  25. Multiple wins (1) • Course in RFID offers opportunity to directly address a number of ABET requirements • RFID is an exploding technology, and coursework can help students land a position – have already seen this.

  26. Multiple wins (2) • Offers direct, valuable experience in multidisciplinary teamwork. • RFID lab, with significant donations from industry, is benefit for students. • Exposure during the course to industry experts with real-world technical and business experience is very positive.

  27. Thanks • Thanks to AIDC for choosing Merrimack to host this year’s conference. • Thanks to you for making the effort to join us • Thanks to IEEE Boston for helping get the word out about this event • Thanks to Mike Ohanien and Charlie Kochakian for their hard work

  28. More thanks….. • Thanks to our partners in industry • We thank Tagsys, Shipcom Wireless, Symbol Technologies, Zebra, Fluke, Metrologic, Identec, and Lairdtech among others for their generous donations of equipment. Ours may well be the best equipped undergrad lab in the US. • Many of the companies have also provided expertise in the form of technical support as well as speakers for our lecture series and courses

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