Faculty Development

A great deal has been said and written about the engineering student of the 21st century, and what industry and the engineering curriculum of the next 20 years will look like, but very little has appeared about the engineering faculty member of 2010.

It is safe to say that the lone ranger operational model of the post WW II era will be replaced by a team concept among engineering faculty of the future. The faculty member of the 21st century will have to be familiar with advanced manufacturing processes, understand the global marketplace, be intimately familiar with environmental issues that confront society and be able to integrate and refine the design concept in the curriculum at all levels. Faculty development and faculty re-education are probably the greatest challenges that engineering colleges have to deal with.

A fairly large percentage of faculty members will be unable and unwilling to adapt to a new mode of operation, and will not share in the excitement of building a new era in engineering education. At SDSU we should, however, make every effort to build a broader sense of community and instill a team spirit amongst our faculty. The following simple measures could help promote such a spirit:

• Establish a coffee-lunch room for faculty and staff.
• Redirect most of our funded research activities to the research institutes as discussed in the previous section.
• Involve all faculty in curriculum development and coordinate by assigning at least three faculty members as owners of each course or laboratory.
• Assign responsibility for senior design projects to a larger number of faculty members in a structured group format.
• Assign groups of faculty members to develop proposals for new graduate and undergraduate programs, curriculum development or laboratory equipment acquisitions.
• Encourage the team development and team teaching of courses.

Measures that would help faculty acquire or develop the knowledge and skills needed to effectively operate in the new era include:

• Develop one new course per year per faculty member.
• Develop or re-structure at least one instructional laboratory course every other year.
• Encourage faculty to take sabbatical leave as soon as he or she becomes eligible and spend the time constructively in either industry or at another university.
• Strongly encourage faculty to use the one day per week consulting opportunity in industry, to stay current with practices and design methods.
• Encourage faculty to get involved in professional societies at the student, regional and national levels.
• Develop at least one course for remote or alternative technology delivery, and reinstitute Prof Net if possible.
• Encourage the use of new groups, the Internet and other computational methods in all courses.

To integrate design into the curriculum at all levels (freshman through graduate programs) would require continuous and extensive student faculty interaction. With a predominately commuter student population, this close interaction will be particularly demanding of full time faculty, for this task cannot be performed by graduate assistants or part time faculty. Faculty members who currently spend two days per week on campus to teach their courses might have some difficulty adapting to the interactive student learning model which would require a weekly time commitment of at least 25 hours.

The greatest challenge is perhaps that of creating an environment in which every faculty member can function at his or her full potential, and be rewarded for their efforts. A load assignment-reward policy should be formulated and refined to improve faculty morale.