Aerospace Engineering Program College of Engineering
Program Planning Committee Letter to the Provost May 14, 2014
The Aerospace Engineering Program offers degree programs at both the undergraduate (Bachelor of Science) and graduate (Master of Science) level in Aerospace Engineering. Its hands-on curriculum and small class sizes give students the best opportunity to learn and interact with its faculty. The program does not offer GE courses. The Aerospace Engineering Program was formally established in 1987 and is accredited through ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). In 1996, the
departments of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering were merged. In August 2013, the two programs split to form the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Aerospace Engineering Program, which reports directly to the Dean of Engineering.
Strengths
The strengths of the Aerospace Engineering Program include the following:
● The split with the Mechanical Engineering Department gives the Aerospace Engineering Program more autonomy.
● Successful hiring of a new tenure-track faculty member to help re-establish ongoing accreditation of the undergraduate degree program.
● Future plans to create a Center for Excellence in Aerospace Design to foster collaborations with institutions in the United States and abroad. The hope is to provide scholarships as a way to attract top students to the BSAE and MSAE programs.
Challenges
The challenges of the Aerospace Engineering Program include the following:
● They currently do not meet guidelines for new graduate programs in the CSU for five tenured/tenure-track faculty.
● As of 2013, the Program needed to reduce the undergraduate program to 120 units. ● Low graduation rates in the degree programs. The number of BS AE degrees awarded is
extremely low compared to the number of majors in the program, and some investigation should be done to see if students are changing majors or stagnating in the program at higher rates than for other departments in the college. The 3-year graduation rates for MS AE degrees appear to be on the low side, but this is inconclusive based on the small cohort sizes.
● One of the undergraduate program learning outcomes was not being met. Graduate program learning outcomes were not current on program website, and should consider the University Learning Goals in future revisions.
Next Steps
The final step in the program planning process is a meeting with Provost Feinstein (or his designee), AVP of Undergraduate Studies Jaehne, AVP of Graduate Studies and Research Stacks, AVP of Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics Sujitparapitaya, Dean Hsu, and Director Mourtos. The faculty members of
the department are also invited to attend. The department should contact staff in the Office of Undergraduate Studies to schedule the final meeting. An Action Plan for the department will be developed and agreed upon during the final meeting. The following topics of discussion are recommended by the Program Planning Committee:
● Investigate the reasons for low graduation rates in the degree programs and remedy, if possible. ● Establish targets for enrollment growth upon collaboration with the dean, director, and
department to justify a recruitment plan and timeline to hire up to 5 full-time faculty in the Aerospace Engineering program to meet CSU guidelines.
● Demonstrate achievement of student learning outcome 3A in the undergraduate program as a result of proposed improvements and changes, and consider updating graduate program outcomes in light of the newly adopted University Learning Goals.
Recommendation from the Program Planning Committee
The Program Planning Committee recommends acceptance of the Program. The Program Plan provided a good examination of current and ongoing issues and an explanation of plans for subsequent reviewers. Spring 2014 PPC Members
Jinny Rhee (Chair), Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Dennis Jaehne, Interim Deputy Provost and AVP of Undergraduate Studies
Pamela Stacks, AVP of Graduate Studies & Research and Interim COO Research Foundation Sutee Sujitparapitaya, AVP of Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics
Amy D’Andrade, Associate Professor, Social Work Mary Calegari, Professor, Accounting and Finance Adrienne Eastwood, Associate Professor, English Colleen Haight, Associate Professor, Economics
Noorein Inamdar, Assistant Professor, School of Management Lili Luo, Associate Professor, Information Science
Anthony Raynsford, Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
Nadia Sorkhabi, Associate Professor, Child and Adolescent Development Wenbin Wei, Associate Professor, Aviation
Brandon White, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences Mary Wilson, Lecturer, History
Diana Wu, Librarian, University Library CC:
Nikos Mourtos, Director, Aerospace Engineering Program Andrew Hsu, Dean, College of Engineering
Ping Hsu, Associate Dean, College of Engineering Stacy Gleixner, Chair, Curriculum and Research Dennis Jaehne, AVP Undergraduate Studies Pam Stacks, AVP Graduate Studies and Research
Appendix: Summary of Program Plan and Recommendations Program Description
The Aerospace Engineering Program offers degree programs at both the undergraduate (Bachelor of Science) and graduate (Master of Science) level in Aerospace Engineering. Its hands-on curriculum and small class sizes give students the best opportunity to learn and interact with its faculty. The program does not offer GE courses. The Aerospace Engineering Program was formally established in 1987 and is accredited through ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). In 1996, the
departments of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering were merged. In August 2013, the two programs split to form the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Aerospace Engineering Program, which reports directly to the Dean of Engineering.
Summary of Changes and Actions
In the 2008 Program Planning Committee Report, the Program Planning Committee did not make any recommendations for the Aerospace Engineering Program because of the dissension between the Mechanical Engineering chair and the Aerospace faculty. This dissension has been resolved by the splitting of the two programs into two different entities in August 2013.
Assessment of Student Learning
The undergraduate student learning assessment was evaluated from the 2011 self-study for ABET accreditation. The undergraduate program articulates three Program Educational Objectives (PEOs) describing expectations for their graduates 3-5 years after graduation, as well as nine Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) describing skills students should have upon graduation. The skills covered by SLOs are dictated by ABET, and thus all undergraduate engineering programs will have similar lists. The SLOs for engineering programs are equivalent to the Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) terminology used by WASC for institutional accreditation. According to the WASC rubric for Program Learning Outcomes, the quality of the SLOs falls between the Developed and Highly Developed categories. The SLOs consider national disciplinary standards and addresses general expectations for baccalaureate degrees. Each outcome specifies multiple clear and assessable performance criteria. There is a clear alignment with curriculum, and there is a reasonable multi-year assessment plan until Fall 2011. The assessment plan could indicate where data is analyzed and improvements implemented, in addition to simply
assessed. Both the PEOs and SLOs are posted on the program website and easily found, but the PEOs do not match the list in the ABET report.
The PEOs were assessed using student exit interviews, alumni surveys, and input from an Advisory Board. The feedback indicated that the PEOs were valued and were being achieved. The SLOs were all assessed using direct assessment of student work. Results indicated that at the time of the report, Outcome 3A (ability to apply math, science, and engineering principles to identify, formulate, and solve AE problems) was not meeting its performance targets. Proposed changes to remedy this include addition of linear algebra, vector calculus, and targeted review/assignments to address shortcomings. Demonstrated improvements to the other outcomes based on assessment were strong and included strengthening of the BSAE core and replacement of fluid mechanics with an aerodynamics course. The graduate program student learning assessment was evaluated from the 2013 Program Planning Report submitted by the then Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. The MS AE program
is not externally accredited and simply lists seven educational objectives for the program. The list is generally appropriate for a graduate program but should be evaluated in the context of the newly-adopted University Learning Goals (S09-2) for degree programs on campus. The assessment schedule is to examine rubrics assessing the master’s project/thesis requirement for two of the educational
objectives every year. However, due to workload issues, MS AE assessment has not occurred on a regular basis between 2007-2011. The MS AE PEO’s are readily found on the program website, and they also do not match the list provided in the 2013 report.
Required Data Elements
The following analysis is based on required data elements for the department from the university dated Fall 2011 submitted as part of the undergraduate accreditation self-study report. The committee acknowledges that there has been growth in the department since that time, and updates to this analysis should be made during the action plan meeting.
In Fall 2011, The department offered 7 courses/sections of undergraduate classes and 7
courses/sections of graduate classes. The average headcount per section for all courses was 13.4 which was well below that for the college (24.8) and university (24.5). The SFR (13.6) was far below that for the college (20.5) and university (21.5). The department’s fall 2011 FTES was 41.6 and its FTEF was 3.1 for all courses. The induced load matrix shows that the only other majors who take aerospace engineering courses are aviation and mechanical engineering.
The number of applicants to the programs varied between 300-400 between Fall 2007 and Fall 2011, with the vast majority of them applying to the undergraduate program. First-year freshmen between 2007 and 2011 fluctuated between 59 to 30 students and were usually in the mid-forties. In Fall 2011, there were 219 majors in the program, 38 of whom were graduate students. In the 2010/2011 AY, there were 18 BS AE degrees awarded which represents a decline over time, and 11 MS AE degrees awarded which represents an increase over time. The number of BS AE degrees awarded is extremely low compared to the number of majors in the program, and some investigation should be done to see if students are changing majors or stagnating in the program at higher rates than for other departments in the college.
The first-year retention rate for first-time-freshmen was 93.5% for the Fall 2010 cohort, which
represents a steady increase over time. Generally the retention rate was approximately 84%, which is within the college (87.6%) and university (87.1%) norms for the Fall 2010 cohort. The number of first-year transfer students between 2006 and 2010 fluctuated between 7 and 17. These numbers are very low, making the retention rates based on them statistically insignificant; however, they appear to be within the range of the college (91.5%) and university (88%) norms for the Fall 2010 cohort. The number of entering graduate students between 2006 and 2010 fluctuated between 6 in 2006 and 12 in 2010. Again, these numbers are too low to draw make meaningful comparisons based on first-year retention rates, but they appear to increase over time and are comparable to college (86.1%) and university (85.2%) norms for the Fall 2010 cohort.
the college (40.6%) and university (46.6%) norms. The 3-year graduation rates for the Fall 2008 cohorts are 46.7% and 50%, for transfer students and graduate students, respectively. However, the cohort sizes vary between 5 and 17 and are generally too small to draw meaningful comparison to college and university averages. A large fraction of part-time students in the program was offered as an explanation for low graduation rates. According to the IEA website, in Fall 2001, aerospace engineering had 187 full-time and 32 part-full-time majors in the program, or 85% full-full-time students.
According to the 2013 program planning report for both the ME and AE programs, the BSAE Program consists of general education courses, 33 units of math/chemistry/physics, 63 units of required major courses, and six units of electives. Students may focus in Aircraft Design or Space Transportation and Exploration. The MSAE Program has five required courses. It offers the same focus areas as the BSAE program with one required elective in each focus area. In Fall 2012 there were 201 BSAE majors and 40 MSAE students for a total of 59.2 FTES in AE courses. A plan to manage growth in the department should be in place.
Program Resources
The Aerospace Engineering Program has two regular full-time faculty members and one probationary faculty member. The hire of the probationary faculty cleared the deficiency resulting from the
accreditation visit in 2012 which originally accredited the undergraduate program only until September 30, 2014. The outside evaluator found problems with administrative and technical support of the Program. As of Fall 2013, the Program was working with the College of Engineering and has committees working on these issues.
According to the IEA website, in Fall 2013, there were 1.7 instructional FTEF from tenured faculty, 0.6 instructional FTEF from probationary faculty, and 0.8 instructional FTEF from temporary lecturers in the program. This corresponds to 74% of instruction taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty in this semester. This is above the college (58.5%) and university (51.6%).
Other Strengths and Weaknesses
According to the 2013 Program Planning Report covering both the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering programs and the self-study report of the undergraduate degree program in Aerospace Engineering written in 2011, strengths and weaknesses of the Aerospace Engineering programs not previously covered in this letter include the following:
The strengths of the Aerospace Engineering Program include the following:
● The multitude of learning methodologies used in the program and the quality of the hands-on program in the undergraduate program were stated as a strength by the ABET evaluator.
● The split with the Mechanical Engineering Department gives the Aerospace Engineering Program more autonomy.
● Successful hiring of a new tenure-track faculty member to help re-establish ongoing accreditation.
institutions in the United States and abroad. The hope is to provide scholarships as a way to attract top students to the BSAE and MSAE programs.
The weaknesses of the Aerospace Engineering Program include the following:
● There are only three faculty members (2 full-time and 1 probationary) in the department, which currently does not meet the guidelines for new graduate programs in the CSU. The guidelines for new CSU graduate programs dictates sufficient enrollment to justify five full-time faculty members; the program should strive to meet this standard.
● As of 2013, the Program needed to reduce the undergraduate program to 120 units. Recommendations from the Department
● Hire two more tenure-track faculty members. ● Reduce units in the undergraduate program to 120. Recommendations from External Evaluator
The recommendations from the ABET evaluator for the undergraduate program included the following: ● ABET was concerned that the program operated without a technician for several years.
● ABET was concerned that the AE faculty did not have sufficient responsibility and authority to define, revise, implement, and achieve program objectives. This concern should not be an issue following the setup of AE as a separate program.
● ABET noted a continuing weakness in that there were only two regular FT faculty members in the program. As a result, the AE program was only accredited until September 30, 2014. However, a third probationary faculty member was hired in Fall 2013, and accreditation was then established until 2018.
The graduate program was reviewed by Dr. Rakesh Goel, the Associate Dean of Engineering from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. His recommendations were the following: ● The program should continue its strengths in strong fundamentals but examine options to
provide students electives in related but outside of aerospace department courses such as control theory and implementation in electrical engineering and computer engineering, and composite materials in mechanical engineering.
● The program should immediately implement a plan to hire additional T/TT faculty to bring the faculty size to at least 5 to be in compliance with the new CSU requirement for graduate programs.
● Establish targets for enrollment in the two focus areas based on a recruitment plan to hire additional full-time faculty.
● Study the causes that might contribute to further improve the 3-year graduation rates, and develop strategies to improve this rate within the next 5-years.
● Develop and introduce assessment methods to measure student perception of attainment of the Program Objectives. Seeking student/alumni input in the attainment of Program Objectives is critical to the assessment process. The College and various graduate programs should develop consistent assessment practices.
Recommendations from Dean
The dean recommended that the entire College of Engineering expand on its recent success but also address the critical shortage of faculty, leading to high student-faculty ratios; the lack of space; and the
need for more elective courses in the curriculum. These recommendations were not specific to Aerospace Engineering.
Recommendations from the Program Planning Committee
● Take steps to advance assessment of student learning in both degree programs. In the undergraduate program, improvements to achievement of Outcome 3A should be
demonstrated. In the graduate program, assessment activities should commence as dictated by the schedule ASAP. For both programs, the PEOs on the website should correspond to the latest set.
● Graduation rates appear to be lower than college and university averages for first-time freshmen (6-yr graduation rate), undergraduate transfer students (3-yr graduation rate), and graduate students (3-yr graduation rates). The number of undergraduate students graduating compared to the number of majors appears abnormally low. Reasons for this should be investigated and remedied, if possible.
● Establish targets for enrollment growth upon collaboration with the dean, chair, and department to justify a recruitment plan and timeline to hire up to 5 full-time faculty in the Aerospace Engineering program. The Chancellor’s office has the following standards for new graduate programs to which continuing graduate programs should also aspire:
(1) 5 full-time faculty
(2) Sufficient enrollment to offer at least 4 courses per year, (3) Appropriate level of research for a graduate program, and (4) At least half of the units for the degree at the graduate level.
In addition, the department should be well-established and have achieved a level of quality demonstrated by program review and/or annual assessment.
