Growing ECS Graduate Research Programs

Board of Advocates Workshop September 19, 2014 Facilitator: Dr Ken Van Treuren

Growing ECS Research

• Summary/Status of PhD Programs • Potential Challenges for Growth • Possible Topic Areas of Interest • Brainstorming Future Paths – Present background information first – Then spend majority of time on this topic

Computer Science

• PhD proposal is being finalized 10 year plan • Current: 18 faculty (4 lecturers) • Proposed: 5 new tenure-track (23 total) • Degree: 75 hours past BS • All Big 12 schools have PhD in CS except TCU and Baylor • 42 PhD students (at least 6 grads per year) • 5 year enrollment for degree • One core area: Informatics

Year

2013 2012

Computer Science Funding (ASEE) Fed/Nat

$278,374 $122,000

Industry

$392,747 $0

Priv/Non

$0 $231,000

TOTAL

$671,121 $353,000 10 Year Target: $1.8 million annually ($112,500 per research faculty)

Computer Science

• Informatics – Data Mining, Machine Learning, Big Data (Data Scientist)

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• PhD: Began Fall 2010 10 year plan • Current: 14 faculty (2 lecturers) • Proposed: 10 new tenure-track (24 total) • Degree: 60 hours past BS (minimum) • 30 PhD students – graduate 5/year • 3 year enrollment for degree (minimum) • Two core areas – Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) – Power and Energy Systems (PES)

Year

2013 2012

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ASEE) Fed/Nat

$124,689 $164,000

Industry

$271,277 $0

Priv/Non

$12,669 $47,000

TOTAL

$408,635 $211,000 5 Year Target: $2.0 million annually ($100,000 per research faculty)

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

• PhD: Began Fall 2014 10 year plan • Current: 17 faculty (4 lecturers) • Proposed: 7 new tenure-track (24 total) • Degree: 78 hours past BS (minimum) • 22 PhD students – 45 MS students • 3 year enrollment for degree (minimum) • Three core areas – Thermophysics and Energy Engineering (TEE) – Natural and Advanced Materials Engineering (NAME) – Biomechanics Experiment Design Simulation (BEDS)

Year

2013 2012

Mechanical Engineering (ASEE) Fed/Nat

$63,357 $394,000

Industry

$290,601 $0

Priv/Non

$21,583 $175,000

TOTAL

$375,541 $569,000 10 Year Target: $3.737million annually ($196,000 per research faculty)

Comparison Group Total Research Funding (ME, ECE, CS) School

Baylor University Notre Dame Rice Duke Vanderbilt SMU Texas Tech

2012

$1,133,00 $21,515,755 $23,736,556 $30,769,440 $34,822,000 $4,720,658 $7,005,005

2013

$1,455,297 $24,595,589 $25,064,485 $42,481,334 $39,160,000 $5,079,692 $6,033,272

Mechanical Engineering

Challenges for Growth

• Faculty Size – Necessity to teach required courses • Core gradate courses must be taught independent of size • Undergraduate courses only offered one semester – Student teacher ratio • CS desired 16.4:1 (peer group 11.9:1) • ME desired below 20:1 (current 30:1) • ECE desired below 20:1

Challenges for Growth

• Enrollment Management – Undergraduate Enrollment • CS – below 230 • ME – below 400 • ECE – below 250 or so • Teaching Loads (Research Faculty) – Currently 2/2 (two courses per semester) – Interim 2/1 – Desired 1/1 • Space – BRIC is helping

Challenges for Growth

• Continue to Hire Outstanding Research Faculty • Undergraduate Involvement in Research • Diversion from Undergraduate Teaching Excellence – Use of RA/TA to teach courses/labs • Finding Qualified Graduate Students – Many students from our program – Nationally 60% of graduates students are international – Much higher international percentage in engineering

Topic Areas of Interest

• Size of Graduate Program? (Peer Institutions) – Faculty?

– Students?

– Funding?

– Space?

• Marketing • Online Courses • University Engineering Alliance