Departmental Considerations
In this section, the sources of funds, their trends in the past few years and their primary use are discussed. The total Department budget for the past five years is shown in Table 18 and Figure 11. While the total budget has more than doubled between 1998 and 2003, the state-funded portion has decreased from 57% to 30%.
|
98-99 |
99-00 |
00-01 |
01-02 |
02-03 |
|
| State Funding |
$1,373,623 |
$2,023,227 |
$1,889,138 |
$1,870,180 |
$1,714,123 |
| Total Funding |
$2,403,041 |
$3,275,488 |
$4,096,276 |
$6,114,697 |
$5,726,865 |
| State % of entire budget |
57% |
62% |
46% |
31% |
30% |
Table 19 presents the data on the state support for the past 10 years broken down into specific categories. The state support has only increased by 2%. As can be seen, the primary use (currently 93%) of these funds are used for faculty, TA and staff salaries. One area of concern is the essentially flat state budget for the last 10 years. This coupled with the increase in salaries has led to a situation where there are essentially no funds in the state budget for departmental support (supplies, upgrades, temporary faculty, hourly help etc.).
MSE State Biennium Budget by Category *|
93-95 |
95-97 |
97-99 |
99-01 |
01-03 |
|
| Faculty | $1,673,714 | $1,596,416 | $1,636,901 | $ 1,732,175 | $1,600,157 |
| TA & GSA | $ 139,068 | $ 171,648 | $ 171,648 | $ 252,037 | $ 281,142 |
| Class. Staff | $ 296,152 | $ 281,950 | $ 281,950 | $ 382,060 | $ 247,428 |
| Prof. Staff | $ 158,304 | $ 178,368 | $ 178,368 | $ 213,192 | $ 356,820 |
| Equipment | $ 225,652 | $ 28,500 | $ - | $ - | |
| Operations | $ 111,087 | $ 146,224 | $ 105,035 | $ 207,223 | $ 181,138 |
| Total | $2,603,977 | $2,403,106 | $2,373,902 | $ 2,786,687 | $2,666,685 |
| 87% in salaries | 93% in salaries | ||||
| * State budget, allocated on biennium basis. State Budget Increase between 93-95 & 01-03 Biennium’s = $62,708 or 2% | |||||
The total amount spent on research is much harder to quantify because a significant fraction of it is done on budgets housed in other departments. This has been particularly true in the last three years. Figure 12 presents the data on the research expenditure on budgets housed in the MSE Department. It is clear that the research budget has seen a robust growth. It has grown by 219% in the last five years. This coupled with the significant increase in Departmental research supported by other departments and by fellowships from interdisciplinary centers (e.g. Nanotech Center) is a very positive indicator of the status of research in the department. These funds are used to support all aspects of research including salaries and benefits for graduate students, research associates, and summer months for faculty. Other uses include research-related supplies, services, travel and equipment. Expenses on the research budgets are controlled by the P.I. of the research grant.
Figure 12: MSE Research Expenditure
The department is fortunate to have significant support from endowments. The primary sources for the endowment funds are the Kyocera Chair and Campbell Chair. Both of these endowments are earmarked for the Department. These endowments pay roughly half the salary of Prof. Kalonji (Kyocera) and Prof. Krishnan (Campbell). In addition, Prof. Jen is the Boeing-Johnson Chair and about half of his salary comes from this endowment. This Chair is from the College of Engineering and does not have to be in Materials Science and Engineering. These Chairs also provide additional funds for research support. In addition to the endowed Chairs, the department has endowments for student support (e.g. Mueller scholarship). Table 20 presents the data on endowment income for use by the department. The significant increase in 1999 was because Prof. Jen joined the department and the increase in 2001 was due to Prof. Krishnan joining the department.
Endowment Income for Academic Years 1994-1995 Through 2002-2003| Kyocera Chair | Campbell Chair | Boeing-Johnson Chair | Mueller Endowed Op |
Totals |
|
|
94-95 |
$ 163,926 | $ 169,831 | $ 1,900 | $ 335,657 | |
|
95-96 |
$ 88,117 | $ (85,110) | $ 2,112 | $ 5,119 | |
|
96-97 |
$ 92,293 | $ 81,922 | $ 2,302 | $ 176,517 | |
|
97-98 |
$ 96,675 | $ 88,358 | $ 2,476 | $ 187,509 | |
|
98-99 |
$ 100,721 | $ 87,036 | $ 2,522 | $ 190,279 | |
|
99-00 |
$ 105,757 | $ 91,388 | $ 122,114 | $ 2,640 | $ 321,899 |
|
00-01 |
$ 139,570 | $ 110,606 | $ 161,204 | $ 3,515 | $ 414,895 |
|
01-02 |
$ 155,360 | $ 144,251 | $ 179,388 | $ 3,916 | $ 482,915 |
|
02-03 |
$ 153,627 | $ 132,767 | $ 177,386 | $ 3,903 | $ 467,683 |
| Note: In 1995-96, we took income out of Campbell Chair and put it in the endowment source budget | |||||
The department has strong support from alumni, corporations and foundations. This part of the budget is shown in Table 21. Some of this support is targeted for specific programs (e.g. research in a particular area). The large increase in this budget last year was because we received $ 480,000 from the Murdoch Foundation for a new SEM. The other uses of this fund include support for the department, scholarships and fellowships, alumni relations and development activities, publicity of the department, and maintenance and upgrade of the equipment.
Development Support|
|
94-95 |
95-96 |
96-97 |
97-98 |
98-99 |
99-00 |
00-01 |
01-02 |
02-03 |
|
Research Gift Accts |
$ 232,851 |
$ 327,042 |
$ 274,282 |
$ 39,107 |
$ 12,500 |
$ 34,000 |
$ (52,584) |
$ 9,000 |
$ 80,000 |
|
Gifts |
$ 111,603 |
$ 96,352 |
$ 81,269 |
$ 87,748 |
$ 52,971 |
$ 95,160 |
$ 133,396 |
$ 105,162 |
$ 604,941 |
|
TOTAL |
$344,454 |
$423,394 |
$ 355,551 |
$ 126,855 |
$ 65,471 |
$ 129,160 |
$ 80,812 |
$ 114,162 |
$ 684,941 |
A portion of the indirect cost paid by the research funds of the Department is returned back to the department to support the research infrastructure. In Table 22 this part of the budget is shown. The significant increase in this support in the last three years is both due to a significant increase in the department’s research expenditure and also because of the change in the formula used by the University and the College to calculate the indirect cost returned to the Department. This change occurred in 2001. These funds are used to support research including upgrade of research equipment and matching support for federal grants. A portion of these funds (currently 20%) is returned back to the PIs of the research for them to use at their discretion to support research. Please refer to Appendix L for the Indirect Cost Return Policy.
Indirect Cost Return (RSA)|
96-97 |
97-98 |
98-99 |
99-00 |
00-01 |
01-02 |
02-03 |
|
$ 10,327 |
$ 8,936 |
$ 11,579 |
$ 13,716 |
$ 25,922 |
$ 62,940 |
$ 89,271 |
Due to the nature of the field, the research and education in MS&E is very equipment intensive. The department has two categories of equipment. The first category is research equipment in individual faculty member’s research labs. This category is the largest and most sophisticated. It covers a very broad range of processing, analysis and characterization equipment. This equipment has been acquired from external funding or from start-up funding. It is maintained using funds from research grants. The decision to acquire a particular piece of equipment is made by the faculty in charge of that research. This equipment is used for research by faculty, research associates, graduate students and undergraduate students engaged in research. Due to extensive collaborations within and outside the department, there is extensive equipment sharing between research groups. On an occasional basis, this equipment is also used for teaching the laboratory component of certain courses.
The second category of equipment is the research equipment maintained by the department. This category consists of equipment that is commonly used by many research groups and is considered to be basic for materials research. This equipment is available for users both within and outside the department. This equipment has been acquired by the department using a combination of funding mechanisms including external funding, internal university funding and donations from industrial partners. It is maintained and upgraded using departmental funding. In the past few years, we have used funding from indirect cost return to maintain and upgrade these facilities. Members of our technical staff maintain and upgrade these facilities and they also train and qualify users for specific pieces of equipment. Once users have been qualified, they can use these facilities. This category of equipment is used by all researchers and is also used in teaching laboratory component of courses. The department prides in its ability and desire to provide hands-on educational opportunities to undergraduate students. Table 23 lists the equipment that is available in this category.
Table 23: Departmental Equipment Available for Research & Teaching
|
PREPARATION & PROCESSING EQUIPMENT Heat treat facility 14 furnaces, various --- 6 salt pot furnaces --- Atmosphere furnace --- 12 lab tube furnaces Induction melting unit Wes'house 15 KW --- Power Trak 15 KW High T nitriding furnace Brew High T furnace Astro 2570 High T rapid rise furnace Keith Ion mill Gatan Duo Isostatic press National Forge Rolling mill Fenn Metallographic prep lab various Ceramic processing lab various Powder preparation facil various Polymer preparation facil various Molec Beam Epitaxy unit Perkin Elmer 425* Chem. Vapor Dep'n units Crystal Spec. 430* --- custom built unit Arc melting units (2) Centorr/home made Sputtering units(3) Techniques --- SPI --- MRC MOCVD units (2) Fabricated (A1N) --- Crystal 425 Hot platen press Tetrahedron MPT-14 Hot melt prepreg. machine Reasearch Tool 35 Ultramicrothome B. L. CBE Unit Fisions Instru. MA0035 X MECHANICAL TESTING FACILITIES Mechanical testing equipment Instron 10000kg --- Instron 1000kg --- Instron 10000kg --- MTS 810 Sys. Hardness testing facility 3 Rockwell testors --- Shimadzu microhard Impact tester Satec Systems BLI COMPUTER FACILITIES PCs w/peripherals 65 various Computer workstations 10 various |
SUPPORT FACILITIES Slicing/dicing/grinding Doall Grinder Machining facilities various Service and Maint Equip various ANALYSIS EQUIPMENT Optical microscope facil 16 bench top units --- 4 metallographs Photographic labs various Helium leak detector Alcatel 110T Quadraple mass spec Amtek Dycor M LCR meters (3) HP 4263 --- HP 4274 --- HP 4284A Dilatometer (3) Orton 1000D --- Anter Labs --- Orton ES-1 Image Analysis System Optimas Infrared spectrometer Nicolet 5PXB FTIR Vis/UV Spectrophotometer Beckman DU Sedigraph Micromeritics Particle counter HIAC/ROYCO Surface area analsis 1 Hg porosimeters Liquid chromatograph IBM 9560 Gas chromatograph IBM 9630 Photoluminescence system Fabricated Thermoluminescence lab Fabricated Thermal analysis system Netzsch DSC 200 Galvanostat EG & G 273 Radiometer Molectron Auger Spectrometer Physical Electronics Impedance Analyzer Solartron Simultaneous DTA/TGA Netzsch High Temp. Dilatometer Netzsch X-RAY & ELECTRON MICROSCOPY FAC. X-ray diffraction facilities Philips --- Philips Scanning electron 'scopes Joel 5200 --- ISI CL-8 Image analyser Quantimet --- Quantimet Trans. electron micros. Philips 400 --- Philips 430 --- Joel 4000 --- Topcon Atomic force microscope Nanoscope IIIA |
Recently, the department has completed a thorough review of the available equipment and the need to upgrade the facilities. This has been done using feedback from graduate students, faculty and staff members responsible for these facilities. The report of this review is presented in Appendix M-1. The process to upgrade these facilities has already begun. Included in this report is a list of the upgrades that have been done in the last year (02-03) and those planned for the current year (03-04). The department will continue to use indirect cost return to upgrade the facilities. In addition, we will aggressively pursue internal and external funding opportunities to upgrade these facilities. Finally, equipment upgrade is a very high development priority for the Department.
6.3 Electron Microscopy Center
The Electron Microscopy Center (EMC) is an important and significant part of the departmental facilities. For almost forty years (starting in 1964), the department has maintained an electron microscopy facility. In 2001, we acquired funding for a staff position to manage this facility. The role of the manager is to maintain, upgrade and train users on the equipment. The goal now is to develop this into a state-of-the-art, multi-user facility as an important regional resource. The recruitment of the manager (in August 2002) has resulted in a significant increase in the number of users from different departments and the equipment usage has risen significantly. Finally, Prof. Sarikaya is the PI (with four Co-PIs from four departments) on a recently funded grant to acquire new Scanning Electron Microscope and Nano-lithography facilities. We are currently in the process of acquiring these pieces of equipment. Further details on this facility are presented in Appendix M-2.
The department provides state-of-the-art computing facilities for all the students, faculty and staff. The faculty and staff members have computers available on their desktops. The department maintains four student computing laboratories: 2 undergraduate computing labs, a computing lab for our service course (MSE 170) and a computing lab for graduate students. In addition, there are Linux computers available for student use in the department server room. All students and faculty members have access to these laboratories. The designations are only indicative of the primary users and those who have priority. Using funding from Student Technology Fees, departmental funding and donations from Intel, Microsoft and HP, these labs are continuously upgraded and maintained. Further details of the computing resources are provided in Appendix N.
6.5 Space
Classroom space is available in Mueller Hall, with two 40-student classrooms and one 99-student auditorium. Additional classrooms in More and other nearby buildings are used as needed. Classroom space is officially operated by the Registrar’s Time Schedule Office and the department does not have a voice in assigning this space.
The department has assignable space available in Roberts Hall, Mueller Hall, Wilcox Hall, Wilson Annex and Wilson Ceramic Laboratory. Of these, Roberts and Mueller are entirely for the Department, the remaining buildings are shared with other departments and units. Mueller is primarily used for undergraduate laboratories, a lounge for undergraduate students and an office for student professional society offices. Roberts Hall is the headquarters of the department. It is used for research laboratories (both departmental and research groups), and faculty, staff, postdoc, visitor and graduate student offices. It also has two conference rooms. Wilcox and Wilson Annex are for research group laboratories. Wilson Ceramic Laboratory houses the department’s machine shop. Table 24 lists the breakdown of the space available to the department in the different buildings.
With the rapid expansion of the research activity, the department is facing a severe space problem. Further expansion of the research activity and the hiring of new faculty members will require additional space in the department.
|
BUILDING |
Mueller ** |
Roberts |
Wilcox |
Wilson |
Wilson Annex |
Sub-Totals |
|
Research Labs |
1763 |
4662 |
6709 |
0 |
1288 |
14,422 |
|
Teaching Labs |
3803 |
1750 |
1206* |
0 |
0 |
6759 |
|
Faculty Offices |
0 |
3034 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3034 |
|
Staff Offices |
256 |
1439 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1695 |
|
Grad/Post Doc Offices |
0 |
2816 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2816 |
|
Lounges |
258 |
402 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
660 |
|
Shops |
0 |
129 (M) |
0 |
1366 |
0 |
1495 |
|
Storage |
0 |
913 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
913 |
|
Computer Labs |
618 |
347 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
965 |
|
Common Shared |
0 |
428 (CR) |
462 (CR) |
0 |
0 |
890 |
|
TOTALS |
6698 |
15920 |
7171 |
1366 |
1288 |
32443 |
|
* Transitional stage; being converted from teaching to research labs ** In addition to these totals, Mueller Hall has 2,629 SF dedicated to the University Classroom Pool. M Mechanical Room for research lab CR Conference Room |
||||||
The department has a dedicated and professional staff. The staff members are committed to the department’s mission and provide a high level of professional service to the students and faculty. State funding is provided for four administrative staff positions (administrator, academic counselor, assistant to the chair, and fiscal specialist) and four technical staff positions (2 scientific instructional technician II’s, 1 senior computer specialist, and 1 research scientist/engineer III). Changing funding patterns are affecting the staff. Increased research funding and student enrollment has not been met with a corresponding increase in administrative staff. The department is using other funds to support a half time program assistant, and hourly students and professional helpers. In addition, three of the large multidisciplinary programs have their own staff support.
Starting in 1998, the technical and then the administrative staff of the department were reorganized to better serve the needs of the department. The process used for these two reorganizations and their outcomes are presented in Appendix O-1. One reason for the reorganizations was feedback from the students (exit interviews) indicating that the advising, computing support and laboratory support were not very good. Recent exit interviews have indicated that the students are very satisfied with the advising and computing support in the Department. In Appendix O-2, we present a few examples of how feedback from students has been used to improve the program, specifically in the area of staff support.
The four technical staff members and the three professional administrative staff members report directly to the Chair. The Chair has weekly individual meetings with each one of them. In addition, the staff meets on a regular basis (nominally once a month and as needed on special projects). Since 1999, an annual staff retreat has been held for all staff members just prior to the beginning of autumn quarter. Productivity is encouraged through clear and complete job descriptions with specific and detailed performance criteria for each position. The job descriptions and performance criteria are presented in Appendices P-1, P-2, P-3, P-4. Yearly performance evaluations are conducted by the supervisor with input from all the constituents. During the 360-degree evaluation process, comments are shared anonymously with individual staff. Regular job description revisions and position reclassifications are done in response to changing responsibilities.
The Department encourages, provides release time and pays for administrative staff to attend Training and Development Courses and for technical staff to attend special training in their area of expertise. In addition, the department encourages continuing education. Staff members are recognized for good performance in a variety of ways. Special events are held to acknowledge University-recognized events in a staff career: the 10-year, 15-year, etc. service awards. Each year the department nominates outstanding staff members for the COE Outstanding Staff Award. Personal letters of commendation, department wide e-mails noting particular accomplishments, and acknowledgement at the retreats, graduation and departmental newsletter occur regularly. The Chair takes the staff to lunch once or twice a year and many team-building events are held to acknowledge special events in staff’s lives. Retiring staff are also acknowledged with events well-attended by faculty, staff, undergraduates and graduate students. Participation in College and University committees is encouraged to allow staff members to network and receive exposure to a wider variety of experiences.
The department is committed to providing a supportive environment for all members of its community and ensuring that each is included in the life of the Department and the University. We value diversity and actively work to ensure participation of underrepresented groups in the department.
The department takes considerable pride in being able to recruit and retain a diverse group of students. A number of national studies have indicated the crucial need to focus on the training of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering to address the future technical workforce needs of the country. In addition, our recruiters have consistently given us the message that they desire a diverse work force. As a result, we have aligned some of our recruitment efforts with programs focused on enhancing the diversity (ethnic, gender and people with disabilities) of students in science and engineering. The University of Washington is a leader nationally in such programs. In particular, we have worked closely with Math, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), The Minority Science and Engineering Program (MSEP) and the Disabilities, Opportunity, Internetworking and Technology (DO-IT). Three of these programs (MESA, WISE and DO-IT) have received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.
A measurable result of these interactions is that our student body is highly diverse. For the year 2002-03, 23% of our undergraduate degrees were awarded to women. The College average was 27% for the same year. The national average for women receiving engineering degrees during 2001-02 (the latest ASEE data available) was 21%. Currently, 17% of our undergraduate students are underrepresented minorities. This is very impressive considering that only 7% of the College undergraduates are underrepresented minorities (based on Sept. 2002 enrollment data). The Department has the highest percentage of minority students in the College.
At the graduate level, in the last three years, 26% of our MS and 33% of Doctoral degrees have been awarded to women. Currently, 33% of our graduate students are women. The department uses prestigious scholarships (e.g. Marsh, ARCS, Go-MAP and Nanotech Early Bird) to recruit women and underrepresented minority graduate students. For a variety of reasons, we have not been very successful in recruiting underrepresented ethnic minorities to the graduate program. We are developing a coordinated strategy, with other College of Engineering departments, to improve this aspect. Currently, 8% of our grad students are under-represented minorities.
The department is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty. In our recent faculty searches (since 1998), we have used the Toolkit developed by the College of Engineering to ensure a diverse pool of candidates. In addition, we work closely with the University Materials Council (Chairs of other MSE Departments) to identify potential faculty candidates particularly from underrepresented groups. Most recently we have also worked with the NSF-funded ADVANCE program (a collaboration between the Colleges of Engineering and Arts and Sciences). This program has the goal of enhancing the recruitment and retention of women faculty members. Currently, 2 of our 10 tenure-track faculty members are women, a rate of 20% compared to a College average of 16% and a national engineering average of 10% (per ASEE 2003 statistics). One of the female faculty members holds the prestigious Kyocera Chair in the Department. There are only three Kyocera Chairs in the entire country and it is considered one of the most prestigious chairs in materials science and engineering.
Our administrative staff of 4.5 is comprised of 2 women and 2.5 men. None of them are ethnic minorities. However, men comprise a minority in the UW administrative staff ranks and the department staff is more than 50% male (for the College, 38% of the administrative staff is male). Our technical staff is composed of three men. One is an ethnic minority. Currently, our staff also includes 1.5 positions funded by research. One full position is occupied by an ethnic minority woman.
The State Legislature has established accountability measures and set targets for the University of Washington. The first measure is the graduation efficiency index. The index is the percentage of classes that a student takes that apply towards the degree requirement. The goal is 95 % for students entering as freshmen and 90 % for transfer students. This measure is difficult to assess within the Department, since some students enter the Department with more than the required courses. The role that the Department can play is to clearly identify the required courses for graduation and offer the needed classes. The Department has done this consistently.
The second accountability criteria set by the Legislature is the retention rate. We have recently conducted a study to quantify this. Of the 33 students who entered the Department as juniors in 2001, 30 graduated with a degree from the department for a retention rate of 90%. We believe that the retention rate in the Department is very high and these numbers are representative. We plan to continue to monitor this rate.
A third measure of accountability is the time to degree. The Legislature target is that 65% of the students should graduate within five years. For the Department, this would translate that 65% of the students should graduate in 7.5 quarters after entering the department as juniors. For the group of 33 students who entered the Department in 2001, we find that 55% took 6 quarters to complete their degrees, 33% took 7 quarters, and 3% took 8 quarters. Thus, the Department clearly meets this accountability criterion.
We have taken further steps to improve our performance in these measures. In particular, we have designed the new single degree curriculum in a way that it will improve the graduation rate of students. Two aspects are particularly noteworthy. One is the very few required courses in the senior year. This will give the students scheduling flexibility to take all the needed courses for graduation. The second aspect is that the courses offered during the autumn quarter of the senior year are not pre-requisites for the required courses in the winter and the spring quarter. Therefore, students have the flexibility to go for a six month Co-op (June through December after the junior year) and still graduate in December after the senior year.
The faculty, staff and students of the Department are members of several committees that are key to the governance and operation of the Department. These committees and their memberships for 2003-04 are shown in Table 25.
|
Department Committees |
|||
|
ABET Tom Stoebe, Chair Raj Bordia Kathy Elkins Jerry Schutzler Bill Coats Brian Smith Graduate Alex Jen, Chair Lucien Brush Brian Flinn Mehmet Sarikaya Miqin Zhang |
170 Oversight Brian Flinn Fumio Ohuchi Miqin Zhang Operations Raj Bordia Lucien Brush Brian Flinn Alex Jen Fumio Ohuchi Development Advisory Daniel Albrecht Tom Delimitros Clare Nordquist |
Undergraduate Fumio Ohuchi, Chair Lucien Brush Brian Flinn Kannan Krishnan Miqin Zhang Faculty Search Alex Jen, Chair Scott Dunham Gretchen Kalonji Fumio Ohuchi Space Fumio Ohuchi, Chair Raj Bordia Guozhong Cao Bob Smith |
Safety Kevin Soderlund Dan Heidel David Wood Dustin Frame Hanson Fong Kunakorn Poochinda Mark Wiegman Mike Beerman Nathan Kohler Noriaki Suzuki Petra Herguth Tammy Chou Yue Huang |
|
College Committees Executive Committee Raj Bordia College Council (3-yr term) Mehmet Sarikaya (2nd term exp. 7/15/05) Accreditation & Continuous Improvement (ACI) Guozhong Cao (1st term exp.7/15/04) Engineering Library Liaison Committee Guozhong Cao
Council on Educational Policy (3-yr term) Miqin Zhang (Appointed 9/29/03; completing Ohuchi 1st term exp. 7/15/04) Council on Promotions and Tenure (3-yr term) Kannan Krishnan (2nd term exp. 7/15/06) College Space Council (3-yr term) Fumio Ohuchi |
University Committees Faculty Council on Research Mehmet Sarikaya (exp. spring 2005) Faculty Council on University Relations George Mayer (exp. spring 2006) Faculty Senate Guozhong Cao (exp. Sep 2004)
Royalty Research Fund Review Fumio Ohuchi (exp. autumn 2004) Program on Environment Governing Board Gretchen Kalonji Graduate & Professional Student Senate (GPSS) Nathan Kohler, Dustin Frame (exp. autumn 2003) Nanotech Center Director Search Committee Kannan Krishnan Nanotech PhD Steering Committee (3-yr term) Kannan Krishnan (1st term exp. 7/15/05) |
||
6.10 Outreach and K-12 Educational Activities
The Department is a national leader in developing innovative outreach and K-12 educational programs. The twin themes of these activities has been educating the broader community about our field and recruiting students to science and engineering in general and to materials science and engineering in particular. This is particularly important for our field due to the lack of awareness among young students and the general public about the materials science and engineering discipline. The Department has led these activities for over fifteen years. Finally, in the last few years, we have started to see tangible evidence of the effect of these activities on recruitment. In a recent survey of our undergraduate students, the number one reason they cited for choosing MS&E was "intensive exposure to MS&E in school or first two years in college" The intensive experience was defined as a science class with materials focus or a materials-related internship or a materials camp. The Department had the foresight several years ago to recognize that these programs would be important for recruiting and should be developed.
A. Professional Education and Continuing Education
Materials Technology Institute: Materials Aspects of Manufacturing Technology, An NSF Advanced Technology Education (ATE) Program. The Materials Aspects of Manufacturing Technology Institute (MTI) is aimed at developing a set of instructors with sufficient background and understanding of manufacturing technology who will serve as leaders in the effort of enhancing technology education in the U.S. It is also aimed at providing a model interactive program involving high school and community college instructors and students to assist in program articulation and to assist in the transition for technology students across the high school-community college boundary. This Institute has been developed by the University of Washington and Edmonds Community College in partnership with high schools, community colleges and industry in the Pacific Northwest. The Institute provides instructors at the high school and community college level an understanding of the principles and applications of materials as they are used in the manufacturing technology field in a highly interactive, laboratory-oriented format, introduces them to available curricula in materials technology, provides them with the broad perspective of materials and manufacturing as fields of study and as a potential career for their students, and aids them in adapting available curricular modules for introduction directly into their courses. The institute is also designed to enhance cooperation between high schools and community colleges through the development of interactive curricula and joint student projects with industrial mentors to provide a natural linkage between high school and community college for the students. Students will also be involved in interactive laboratory activities, field trips and internships, and as demonstrators to other students in open houses and related activities. This program is the outgrowth of 20 years of interaction between the University of Washington and local schools and community colleges, and with Pacific Northwest National Labs, in the areas of curriculum development, teacher training and student programs. In particular, the academic portion of the program is built on a successful Faculty Enhancement Program (1993-95) for community and 4-year college teachers in the materials area, and on successful teacher enhancement programs developed through the Washington Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement program. Program funding is provided through the National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education (ATE) Program under grant DUE ATE 9602360. Additional and in-kind funding has been provided by the University of Washington, The Boeing Company, Fluke Manufacturing, K2 Ski Co. and Primex Corporation.
International Council of Materials Education: ICME is a group of educators interested in materials education the broader sense. It is international with members from all around the globe. Professor Tom Stoebe has been a member for about 10 years.
Materials Science & Technology Program; MST is material science and technology, a curriculum for high school materials science and materials technology courses. It is used by the teachers who take our MTI or EMTECH institute program. MST was developed at PNNL and we took over training in the mid-1990s when their funding ran out.
Materials Science for Kids is a web site that we are developing to complement MTI. That is, kids who are taking the MST course can use the web site to check out specifics and to do research on materials, as well as to find other references on materials. This web site is being developed by senior project students interested in education. Each of the main sites is a senior project.
The Department is closely involved with a variety of programs designed to reach out to students in the K-12 schools and community colleges, both regionally and nationally. These programs are described briefly below.
MSE High school Visitation program. Students from the Materials Science and Engineering program visit middle and high schools with an exciting 45 min program that introduces materials to the students.
Engineering Open House. This program is held each spring and provides demonstrations, lectures and hands-on activities for students of all ages. All Engineering departments participate.
EMTECH Materials Technology programs for teachers. EMTECH is an extension of MTI. It has the same goals with a broader impact. Teachers in middle and high schools, and in community colleges, attend institute programs, workshops and conferences to learn how to teach Materials Science and Materials Technology as a hands-on science. A full curriculum is presented which may be used as a stand-alone course or as supplements to existing courses in the physical sciences. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, this program is now sponsored jointly with Edmonds Community College.
Materials Camp for high school students. This program, sponsored by ASM International, provides a one-week experience for high school juniors and seniors in which they study and learn about Materials Science and Engineering as a hands-on science. Students learn about metals, ceramics, polymers and composite materials and their applications in structural and electronic applications. They also solve failure analysis problems provided by the materials industry. Students are selected through nominations from their local ASM chapters, with selection being made nationally by ASM International.
In addition to these programs, the Department actively participates in the outreach programs led by other organizations including Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), Minorities in Science and Engineering Program (MSEP), and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE).