Build It And Will They Come? Refurbishing And Restoring An Ecet Curriculum

Since the 1990’s, nationwide enrollment in engineering technology programs has been declining. It has become increasing difficult to attract and retain students. A number of reasons have been attributed to this trend including; outdated curricula, loss of manufacturing jobs, off-shoring of jobs and a weak economy. As a result, competition to enroll students interested in these programs is fierce and has become crucial to maintain a viable and attractive curriculum. The Electronics & Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department at the University of Hartford is completing a major restructuring of its degree programs. We currently offer two Bachelor of Science programs: Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) and Computer Engineering Technology (CET). The restructuring was needed to improve student recruiting and better prepare graduates for industry. The full-time and adjunct faculties of the department with assistance from its industrial advisory board (IAB) worked collaboratively over the past year to develop and implement the changes to the curriculum The restructuring was based on the conclusion that we needed to change both what was being taught and how it was being taught. Leading us was our mission that technology programs, by nature, must equip graduates with “hands-on” skills that make them immediately useful in entrylevel positions in industry. In addition, our curricula must keep pace with the rapidly changing fields within electronics and computer technology. We believe the new curriculum and pedagogy will accomplish that. The restructuring consisted of course deletions, significant course modifications and many new courses. In addition, course tracks were formed within each program. For EET, there are now two tracks: Mechatronics, Communications and Networks, and for CET Programming and Microprocessor tracks are included. This paper describes the details of our curricula restructuring efforts and the key changes designed to improve marketability, retention, and pedagogy. Our goal is to revitalize the programs in electronics and computer engineering technology and reverse declining enrollments. Brief Justification As the world of engineering and technology is an ever changing field, it is an ongoing challenge for higher education programs to keep pace with these changes. Since the 1990’s, nationwide enrollment in engineering technology programs has been declining and as a result it has become increasing difficult to attract and retain quality students. A number of reasons have been attributed to this trend including; outdated curricula, loss of manufacturing jobs, off-shoring of P ge 10278.1 “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005 American Society of Engineering Education” jobs and a weak economy. As a result, competition to enroll students interested in these programs is fierce and has become crucial to maintain a viable and attractive curriculum. The Electronics & Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department has worked to complete a major restructuring of its degree programs to make them more attractive to prospective students while providing the education and skills necessary for graduates compete in the workforce. We plan to continue to offer two Bachelor of Science programs: Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) and Computer Engineering Technology (CET), with the addition of specific tracks within these two programs. Curriculum Changes The first step in our process was to evaluate our current curricula and identify its strengths and shortfalls. This was a very difficult and labor intensive process. Discussion was begun amongst the faculty and our industrial advisory board concurrently. The curricula and the individual courses were evaluated down to the topic level in both the theory and laboratory portions of all courses. Our technology program, as most technology programs are by nature, is designed to equip graduates with “hands-on” skills that make them immediately useful in entry-level positions in industry. This necessitated an evaluation of both the laboratory and theory content of each course. During this portion of our analysis, we pondered many difficult and often philosophical questions regarding the curricula. In discussions amongst ourselves, with employers, graduates, and our IAB, we heard that graduates should be “ well versed in the basics...”, and they should have “ an exposure to a variety of advanced concepts and technologies”. The most difficult question that arose was “what are the basics?”, and “how much of the curriculum should be spent teaching them?.” The only conclusion we were able to definitively agree upon is that as time passes the breadth of knowledge that constitutes “the basics” continues to increase with emerging technologies. The problem is finding sufficient space and time within the curriculum to produce graduates within four years that are well versed in “the basics” and armed with specialized knowledge to make them attractive to industry. The current curriculum in EET is a total of 128-130 credit hours which translates to 161 contact hours of classroom instruction and laboratory exercises. In CET, the totals are 128 credit hours and 158 contact hours. The curriculum of both programs is a mix of general education courses (English, Math, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences), Professional Electives (Economics, business, programming, etc) and Technical classes. We agreed to the pretext that the only portion of the curriculum to be changed would be the technical classes. The reasoning was that various outside constituencies such as accrediting agencies and the university itself has specific general education requirements, and it would be better not to reduce the numbers of credits devoted to these areas. The technical portion of our curricula is 75 credit hours is made up of 128 contact hours. Shown in Figure 1 and 2 are the existing curricula in EET and CET before any changes.