Minutes of the EEE Graduate Committee – 9/9/05

Present: Ramesh, Kumar, Heedley, Pang, Oldenburg, Vaziri

1. The good news is that the EEE Graduate Program continues to have in excess of 200 graduate students. FTES enrollment is down to around 50 from a peak of about 85 two years ago. The graduate student population appears to be changing with more part-time, domestic students and fewer full-time international students.

2. As scheduled in the meeting last May, Kumar presented the restructuring of EEE 211, 212, and 213. New course outlines were reviewed for EEE 211 and 213. EEE 211 was substantially changed to include important topics from EEE 212 and remove less important ones from EEE 211. EEE 213 was updated with only minor changes in content. The Committee agreed that Kumar should precede with preparation of formal Form A course change proposals for this sequence. (Post-meeting Note: Kumar will provide those course change proposals at the 9/16 EEE Department Meeting and seek approval so that they may make the upcoming deadline for the 2006-08 university catalog. Although it was suggested to change the EEE 211 to EEE 210, it was decided to maintain the EEE 211 number, since it is still the first course in the 210 sequence.)

3. Oldenburg presented a second draft of Project Guidelines for consideration by the committee. It included several changes suggested at the May meeting and during the summer. There was general agreement that the draft guidelines were significantly improved and could serve as a useful baseline for both faculty project chairpersons and graduate students. A third draft will be prepared to incorporate some additional suggested changes (it will be posted on the Committee web site) and it will be scheduled for final review at the next meeting.

4. The list of elective area graduate advisors was reviewed. They are: Control Systems – Setlur; Communication Systems – Kumar; Power Systems – Gonen; Microelectronic Design – Heedley; Computer Architecture & Digital Systems – Vadhva. Beginning with the class entering in this fall, students will be required to follow the new Graduate Program in the on-line CSUS Catalog. Under the new requirements, elective area advisors are required to approve an elective plan of study for graduate students by the end of the students’ first semester. (Week 13 of the semester has been specified as the “advising week”.) A notice to this effect will be posted on the M. S. Degree Program web page.

5. Agenda items for the October meeting of the Committee were sought. Heedley asked that the issue of a Project/Thesis Contract for graduate students be placed on the agenda for discussion.