Dear ECEDHA Members, Industry Partners, and Colleagues,

Welcome to the Fall 2011 issue of The ECEDHA Source. With the hard work of our editorial committee, ECEDHA, and IEC staff we are bringing to you, we hope, a very useful piece of electronic communication. We invite contributions from all our ECEDHA regions, so please share your articles and announcements with us for inclusion in future issues.

In talks with ECEDHA Annual Conference participants (both past and present) we have discovered that because of the intensity and compressed nature of our Annual Conference, it is better to focus on several items in each issue of The ECEDHA Source (published three time a year: Fall, Winter, and Spring/Summer).

The newsletter is structured to showcase highlights of our ECEDHA Annual Conference and Regional Meetings. We invite you to look to this publication as your source for this information.

I'd like to thank our ECE department chairs/heads as well as our industry sponsors for their continued support and contributions to this newsletter. Please enjoy reading these articles, columns, and extended papers and again send us your thoughts and areas of needed improvement.

I look forward to our online visit again early in 2012 when we will begin to focus on the development of our 2012 ECEDHA Annual Conference. In the meantime, any comments regarding the ECEDHA Annual Conference should be forwarded to program chair, Dr. Stephen Phillips at information@ecedha.org.

Best regards,

Hossein Mousavinezhad
Professor and Chair, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Idaho State University
2010-2011 Editor, The ECEDHA Source

Dear ECEDHA Members,

Welcome to this edition of The ECEDHA SOURCE, the publication for our ECEDHA organization. We intend to publish three editions each year that are relevant to your interests and solicit suggestions and contributions from you our members and from invited sources as well.

Dr. Stephen Phillips (our newly elected Secretary-Treasurer) has been asked to become this year's Vice President and has graciously accepted this assignment. This is due to a vacancy caused by Gary May's new position as the Dean of Engineering at Georgia Tech. Our congratulations and warmest wishes for a successful tenure to Gary. We will miss his leadership in ECEDHA. In Stephen's place as Secretary-Treasurer, we will hold a special run-off election by electronic ballot. We have two candidates for the vacant position. They are Tsuhan Chen of Cornell University and Pritpal "Pali" Singh of Villanova. Bios and a statement can be found below.

Stephen Phillips, Barry Sullivan, and the ECEDHA regional chairs are putting together what I believe will be an exciting annual meeting which is set for next March 23rd - 27th in Austin, Texas. This new model for organizing our annual meetings will bring a greater level of participation. As you attend your regional meetings, we would encourage you to suggest topics and/or speakers for this and future annual meetings. John Janowiak and the IEC staff reported success at recruiting corporate sponsors for the Austin meeting.

At the invitation of Andre Ivanov (Univ. British Columbia, Vancouver) who chairs the Canadian Heads of Electrical and Computer Engineering organization, I was able to attend their meeting this spring and came away with lessons learned regarding the Canadian model for funding ECE departments. With a nearly 70-75% funding success rate for their faculty I would like to see if part of that model can be imported to the "lower 48" to support the education oriented and/or smaller ECE departments within ECEDHA.

I wish you all a successful fall semester and look forward to seeing you in Austin next March.

Best wishes,
Bing Chen
2011-2012 ECEDHA President

They Will Build Our Dreams: capstone design in E&CE at Rutgers
By Christopher Rose, Chair, Capstone Design Committee

In a state of intellectual bliss that probably dates back to the dawn of the university system, under-graduates don't know what they don't know, are unconstrained by "wisdom," and are consequently bold and fearless. Thus, the Rutgers E&CE Capstone Design program, initially an ABET-inspired requirement, has grown into one of the most vibrant and exciting programs we offer. This success prompted a reassessment of Capstone Design's role in our department. It seems likely that Capstone Design will form the basis of a broad curriculum reform geared toward getting our students to think big early, acquire necessary skills along the way to build their dreams.

View the full article >>

Deaning: A View from the Other Side
By Gary S. May, Dean of Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

This time last year I was the Chair of the School of ECE at Georgia Tech, as well as a proud and active member of the ECEDHA Executive Board. In fact, I was the incoming Vice President, and I fully expected to be spending this year planning the agenda for the ECEDHA Annual Conference in Austin, Texas next March. Well, something unexpected happened on the road to Austin. I was appointed Dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech on July 1, 2011 and officially kicked out of ECEDHA. Now that I have a view from the dark(er) side, my good friend Hossein Mousavinezhad, EECS Chair at Idaho State and editor of this year's ECEDHA newsletter, asked me to share some thoughts about some issues that might be of interest to ECE chairs and department heads.

View the full article >>

Research and Education Opportunities in Power Systems
By Mehdi Etezadi-Amoli, Ph.D., P.E., Professor and Chair, Department of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno

The electric power system is one of the most important engineering accomplishments of the 20th century. Initially developed in the late 1800s, the power system started as a series of relatively small regional utilities, each serving a limited population. Under this structure, each utility company had to have excess generation capacity to meet the seasonal load variations. Later, due to customer and public service commission demand for increased efficiency and reliability, these grids were connected using "tie lines" to allow electric energy transactions between the regions. Consequently, the system was never designed to take into account the high level of interconnection that characterizes it today.

View the full article >>

Southeast Region: SECEDHA

The Southeastern ECE Department Head Association (SECEDHA) fall meeting will be held November 3 and 4, 2011 at the Georgia Tech Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information, contact John Peeples at peeplesj@citadel.edu.

Southwest Region: SWECEDHA

The Southwest ECEDHA will meet on October 22, 2011 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. Contact Chuck Cone for more information, conec@erau.edu.

Western Region: WECEDHA

WECEDHA will meet at San Diego State University November 11-13, 2011. For more information contact Hossein Mousavinezhad at mousseye@isu.edu.

WECEDHA Regional Leader: Hossein Mousavinezhad, Professor & Chair, Idaho State University

Meeting Host: Dr. Lal Tummala, Professor & Chair, San Diego State University

Co-Chair: Dr. Kimon Valavanis, Professor & Chair, Denver University

Looking for more information about your region? Contact your regional leader.

Central States Region: CSECEDHA

CSECEDHA held its last meeting September 12, 2011 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). View full meeting summary

ECEDHA announces a special election for 2011-2012 Secretary/Treasurer.

Dr. Stephen Phillips (ECEDHA's newly elected Secretary-Treasurer) has been asked to become this year's Vice President and has graciously accepted this assignment. This is due to a vacancy caused by Gary May's new position as the Dean of Engineering at Georgia Tech.

A special run-off election will be held by electronic ballot to fill Stephen's place as Secretary-Treasurer.

Please cast your vote no later than November 10, 2011!

2011-2012 Secretary/Treasurer Candidates:

In April 2011 the IEEE Power & Energy Society launched the Scholarship Plus Initiative^™. Over 150 applications from more than 70 U.S. schools were received in June 2011 and this fall the Initiative expects to award over $100,000 in scholarships.

The Initiative's goal for 2012 is to increase the applicant pool further by reaching more students, particularly freshmen and sophomores, at more institutions. To help raise awareness of the scholarship opportunity, ECEDHA members are encouraged to add a link to http://www.ee-scholarship.org on their school's scholarship website or department's website as well as College of Engineering or School of Engineering website.

For more information on this scholarship, click here.

ECEDHA is pleased to announce that we are about to open the ECEDHA survey portal for our new interactive data system.

The ECEHDA survey has been and continues to be an important service we provide to our members. The data collected and shared can be very helpful for general benchmarking, reporting to your dean, documentation for reports and accreditation visits, and so on.

Your login information will be sent out very soon - and we encourage your participation. If you find it convenient to have an administrative assistant or secretary enter your school's data and plan to do that, please send that person's name and email address to michelle@ecedha.org.

Survey participants with current ECEDHA membership status will be provided access to this valuable data. If you have not yet renewed your 2011 membership, please do so today so that you do not miss out on this important member benefit!

If you have not yet renewed your 2011 ECEDHA Membership, it is imperative that this be done immediately in order to remain a member in good standing. Members can renew their membership online at www.ecedha.org or by contacting Sarah Kim at +1-312-283-8461 or sjkim@iec.org.

Membership runs on a calendar year (January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011) and must be renewed each year in order to remain an ECEDHA member.

Using ECEDHA's online system, department heads can easily download invoices and pay membership renewal fees online with a credit card. You may also choose to pay by check. Act now to take advantage of membership benefits including regional meetings, job postings, access to the ECEDHA Annual Survey results, and much more!

Nominations for the Robert M. Janowiak Outstanding Leadership and Service Award and the Innovative Program Award are now being accepted. We encourage all of our members to nominate their outstanding colleagues for one of these prestigious awards.

For more information on these awards as well as the nomination guidelines, visit: http://www.ecedha.org//awards/index.asp.

Burns & McDonnell is hosting a SmartGrid Contest entitled "Why Is the Smart Grid Good for Me?" Entrants are asked to create a short 5-minute video that explains "Why Is the Smart Grid Good for Me?" The winner will receive a $5,000 grand prize. If you have a student that may be interested in creating a video, you may find additional details here.

Captured live at the 2011 ECEDHA Annual Conference, ECE Spotlight Sessions offer the opportunity to view short corporate presentations and to learn more about what these companies can offer you.

Featured ECE Spotlight Sessions:

     Corporate Perspectives