November 13, 2008

James Conrad, President
James Bowen, President Elect
Ertunga Ozelkan, Secretary
Stuart Smith, Parliamentarian

M I N U T E S
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FACULTY ORGANIZATION (CEFO)
Thursday, November 13, 2008, 12:30 PM
CARC, Room 101

Regular Meeting

The following individuals signed the attendance sheet:
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING: R. Johnson, R. Smelser, W. Heybruck, D. Rowe, T. Rufty
OFFICE of STUDENT DEVELOPMENT & SUCCESS: P. Tolley, J. Braganza, L. Thurman
ENGINEERING COMPUTING SERVICES: J. Stein
CIVIL ENGINEERING: J. Amburgey, J. Anderson, D. Boyajian, S. Chen, J. Gergely, J. Graham, H. Hilger, R. Janardhanam, M. Kane, V. Ogunro, P. Pulugurtha, K. Warren, D. Weggel, J. Wu, D. Young
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING: R. Adams, D. Binkley, N. Bousaba, J. Conrad, M. Hasan, I. Howitt, J. Hudak, B. Joshi, Y. Kakad, G. Lotharp, M. Miri, A. Nasipuri, F. Tranjan, T. Weldon, A. Willis, J. Xie
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT: S. Green, C. Lim, E. Ozelkan, Y. Sireli, S. G. Teng,
ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY: A. Brizendine, R. Coowar, D. Cottrell, C-S. Cho, D. Cotrell, J. Gresser, J. Hildreth, J. Kimble, A. Kitts, S. Kuyath, D. Murphy, C. Orozco, R. Priebe, P. Schmidt, B. Sherlock, J. Urbas, A. Zhou
MECHANICAL ENGR & ENGR SCIENCE: R. Coger, A. El-Ghannam, H. Fang, E. Morse, B. Mullany, E. Munday, Stuart Smith, A. Soliman, P. Tkacik, M. Uddin, N. Zheng
GUESTS: Travis Sinclair
Documented attendance: 77 total
Documented attendance of voting faculty: 63
Total Voting Faculty: 95
Quorum of voting faculty: 48

Agenda:

1. Welcome and Call to order (CEFO president, Jim Conrad)
Jim called the meeting to order (approx.) at 12:35 PM.

2. Approval of past minutes (from September 11, 2008 meeting) (CEFO Secretary, Ertunga Ozelkan)
A motion to approve was made by Ertunga, and seconded, then passed on a voice vote.

3. Nomination and Election of Alternates for three committees (Ozelkan/Conrad – 5 min)
Ertunga informed the faculty about the three alternate vacant positions. A motion was called to approve the process of electing officers for these positions during the CEFO meeting. The motion was seconded then was approved on a voice vote.
Faculty Executive Committee – FEC (alternate was Ed Braun)
Ertunga nominated Jim Bowen who has been already voluntarily helping with this position. The nomination was seconded then was approved on a voice vote.
Faculty Advisory Library Committee – FALC (alternate was Donald Liou)
T. Xu and J. Hildreth were nominated for this position. A hand vote was done for each candidate. T. Xu received 28 votes and J. Hildreth 22 votes. Thus, the new FALC Alternate for 2008-2009 has been elected as T. Xu.
Faculty Advisory Summer Sessions Committee – FASSC (alternate was Donald Liou)
J. Hildreth was nominated for this position. The nomination was approved on a voice vote and J. Hildreth is elected as the new FASSC Alternate for 2008-2009.

4. Presentation of staff awards (Dean Johnson – 10 min)
Dean Johnson mentioned that Sept 29-Oct 3 week was a Staff recognition week and recognized staff for 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years of service to the State of North Carolina. Here is a list of individuals who were recognized: 25 years of service: S. Mahaffey; 20 years of service: T. Rhodes; 15 years of service: M. Moss; 10 years of service: S. Green, G. Lotharp, W. Meier, E. Scott; 5 years of service: M. Blye, R. Smelser. Dean also mentioned that L. Lawson was a nominee for the 2008 Staff Employee of the year.

5. Quick Announcements: (5 min)
Smith/Conrad College Documentation and processes
Stuart Smith indicated that we are in the process of creating a documentation library working with Ron Smelser for the COE committees and processes and asked faculty to contact him if they own any of the process documentation.
Tolley/Smelser IRB and class data
Ron Smelser indicated that Internal Review Board approval is required for any human subject experiments including surveys in and outside of the classroom. Pat Tolley mentioned that she will be glad to help people for questions on the process.
Brizendine/Conrad New ET programs and comments
It was mentioned that a separate meeting will be called to discuss the new ET programs.
Bowen Nominations for CEFO and committees 2009-2010
Jim Bowen mentioned that based on previous year s feedback (by Jay Raja), CEFO has decided to create Nomination Officer for the Annual Elections. This new process will not only enable the identification of good candidates for the COE and university committees but also will help the secretary to complete the elections efficiently. It was decided to have the President Elect (Jim for 2008-2009) to take this new role.
6. Research presentations: (10 min, 5 min each)
During this meeting CEFO has initiated individual faculty presentations to educate other CEO faculty on different research activities within the college.
The two presentations during this meeting were delivered by Dr. Andrew Willis (ECE) and Dr. Churlzu Lim (SEEM).
Andrew shared his research on signal processing and applications in bone puzzle solving, archeology pottery and 3D sensors. Churlzu talked about network games, continuous optimization and Markov decision processes and applications in defense industry.
7. College update (Dean Johnson 15 minutes)
Dean Johnson mentioned that reversions in budget were expected. He also added that he does not expect cuts. He indicated that out of the $15M money allocated to the campus, $8M will need to be given back. The Dean indicated that the top priority for the COE is new faculty and startup funds. Another priority is EPIC initiative. He shared some slides on the EPIC design and mentioned that thanks to Steve Patterson $6M has been initially raised. Dean Johnson accepted some questions regarding EPIC. David Young asked when the next round of faculty input will be sought. The answer was week after Thanksgiving . Ivan Howitt inquired about the progress of lab designs. The Dean mentioned maximum flexibility for the labs are being planned. Another question was about when it was expected to break ground. The answer was next summer site work would start and construction would be bid next Fall. The Dean also mentioned that 1) the status of the new building for Bioinformatics Center is on track, 2) still need space to accommodate things in Cameron, and 3) due to code requirements stairwell outside of Cameron will need to be redone which will mean losing two office spaces. Similar code issues are being addressed in Smith Bldg. as well.
8. Grad Faculty membership (J. Ingalls – 25 minutes)
Jerry Ingalls did not show up. Instead, Tom Reynolds from Graduate School informed the faculty on the subject. Tom Reynolds indicated that the Graduate Council defined general guidelines (based on degree, teaching, scholarly activities) for the campus and sent to each unit to revise/update based on the template. Several faculty provided feedback and asked questions: David Young: Tenured/Tenure-Track Associate membership would be valuable. Robin Coger: indicated that appeals process does not exist. Mehdi Miri: also agreed that lack of appeals takes power from the college/departments. Ed Munday: objected that having a PhD should be enough to be included in graduate faculty. Jim Conrad indicated that for future discussions/concerns on the subject Harish Cherikuri is the point of contact for CEO.

9. Adjourn (CEFO president, Jim Conrad)
Dr. Conrad asked the attendees if there were any other items of interest to be discussed or other announcements to be made. A silence indicated that no more items remained for discussion. The meeting was then adjourned by Dr. Conrad at (approx.) 1:40 PM.

Please submit additions or corrections to Ertunga C. Ozelkan, CEFO Secretary at ecozelka AT uncc DOT edu