a holistic approach to transforming undergraduate …pezeshki/pdfs/holisticeducation... · special...

SPECIAL SECTION ON INNOVATIONS IN ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Received October 7, 2016, accepted November 18, 2016, date of publication March 31, 2017, date of current version June 7, 2017.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2690221

A Holistic Approach to TransformingUndergraduate ElectricalEngineering EducationANTHONY A. MACIEJEWSKI1, (Fellow, IEEE), THOMAS W. CHEN1, ZINTA S. BYRNE2,MICHAEL A. DE MIRANDA3, LAURA B. SAMPLE MCMEEKING4,BRANISLAV M. NOTAROS1, (Fellow, IEEE), ALI PEZESHKI1, (Member, IEEE),SOURAJEET ROY1, (Member, IEEE), ANDREA M. LELAND1, (Member, IEEE),MELISSA D. REESE1, ALMA H. ROSALES5, THOMAS J. SILLER6,RICHARD F. TOFTNESS7, (Life Member, IEEE),AND OLIVERA NOTAROS11Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA2Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA3Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 USA4School of Education, STEM Center, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA5Consultant, Professional Skills Development, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA6Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA7Tasterra Consulting, Loveland, CO 80537 USA

Corresponding author: Andrea M. Leland ([email protected])

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and in part by the IUSE/Professional Formation of Engineers,Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED), under Grant EEC-1519438.

ABSTRACT Our diverse team of educators at Colorado State University are redefiningwhat it means to teachand learn in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Supported by a five-year ‘‘RED’’ grantfrom the National Science Foundation, we are, in effect, throwing away courses to overcome the challengesof the current engineering educational system. Approaching the degree from a holistic perspective, we nolonger view our program as a set of disparate courses taught by autonomous (and isolated) faculty, but asan integrated system that fosters collaboration among faculty and students. This paper describes our neworganizational and pedagogical model, which emphasizes knowledge integration and interweaves thematiccontent threads throughout the curriculum. We also share our process for implementing the new approach,along with the successes and challenges that we have experienced along the way. Through this project,we strive to become a catalyst for change in engineering education.

INDEX TERMS Circuits and systems, engineering education, electrical engineering education, electronics,engineering students, electromagnetics, globalization, linear systems, STEM.

I. INTRODUCTION: THE NEED FOR REFORM INELECTRICAL AND COMPUTERENGINEERING EDUCATIONA. BACKGROUNDThe current engineering educational system is failingstudents, alumni, and society in two fundamentally importantways. First, students with the desire and aptitude to becomeproductive engineers are not seeing the relevance of currentcurricula, and, consequently, they are abandoning the disci-pline. This is especially true for electrical and computer engi-neering (ECE) students entering the middle two years of the

core undergraduate program, where an accelerated numberof new concepts are introduced. Second, students who ulti-mately graduate from undergraduate engineering programsmay not fully understand the role of an engineer or the scopeof the field [1]. These problems are evenmore pronounced forwomen and minorities who are still vastly underrepresentedin the profession.Underscoring these failings, the seminal book, The Engi-

neer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century [2],hit the shelves in the mid-2000s and turned the nation’sattention to the critical issues facing engineering education.

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A. A. Maciejewski et al.: Holistic Approach to Transforming Undergraduate Electrical Engineering Education

The authors of the book called for ‘‘thoughtful and concertedaction if engineering in the United States is to retain itsvibrancy and strength.’’ The follow-on book, Educating theEngineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to theNew Century [3], offered recommendations for broadeningengineering education so graduates are better prepared towork in a constantly changing global economy. Resultingfrom a multi-year study of educational practices at U.S.engineering schools, Educating Engineers: Designing for theFuture of the Field [4] also spelled out an opportunity for fac-ulty to becomemore responsive to the needs of the profession.For the past decade, engineering educators have been

working to carry out the visions of engineering in the newcentury, drawing on best practices, research findings, andlessons learned. However, we are still grappling to perfectthe recipe for ensuring students are prepared for the grandchallenges [5] of the profession. Two things we know to betrue: 1) the themes and messages of these books are stillcritically important today, and 2) in order to attract and retainstudents in engineering, we must do a better job of makingeducational experiences more meaningful and relevant in thecontext of a global economy.

B. ECE EDUCATION THROUGH OUR LENS:ENROLLMENT AND RETENTIONOur decision to rethink engineering education did not happenovernight. To give context for our motivations, we providea snapshot of the ECE department at Colorado State Uni-versity (CSU), an environment with enrollment and retentiontrends that mirror the national picture.Historically, it was not uncommon for impressionable first-

year students across the country to receive a cautionary mes-sage from their engineering professors: Look to your left,look to your right, only one of you will graduate. Nationwideretention rates in engineering have been exceptionally lowfor decades [6], and the same challenges persist today. Withsix-year graduation rates hovering around 35% year afteryear [7], our department is no exception. Currently home to26 full-time faculty, 433 undergraduates, and 212 graduatestudents, we represent a small portion of the 33,200 studentsat CSU. Our high achieving students, whether straight fromhigh school or transferring from a two-year institution, enterthe program with exceptional academic records. We arelike many ECE departments in the U.S. in that male stu-dents make up 85% of our undergraduate population. As thestate’s land-grant institution, most of our undergraduates areColorado residents, and we attract an impressive share offirst-generation students, i.e., those who do not have a parentwho has attained a bachelor’s degree [8]. Adding furthercomplexity to our retention efforts, statistics show that first-generation students are retained at lower rates even whenadjusting for socioeconomic factors [8].There are undoubtedly a wide variety of causes for the

attrition trend in ECE education, such as the need for strongersocial support systems and a lack of preparation for thedemands of the program [9]–[12]. However, we believe the

crux of the problem lies in the failings of the traditionalcourse-centric structure wherein faculty function indepen-dently without demonstrating the connections between fun-damental topics throughout the ECE curriculum. Much likethe systems engineering process, students need to masterindividual topics in order to solve real-world problems, butthey must also have a big picture understanding of howcore concepts fit together to form the basis of engineeringinnovation. When difficult-to-grasp subjects continue to betaught in isolation, or silos, using the same rigid curricularstructure and lecture-style learning environment, students arenot able to see the relationships between topics, nor thesocietal relevance of their new knowledge. It is no surprisethat retention remains a serious concern. The problem is exac-erbated for ECE students because a holistic understanding ishighly dependent on their grasp of key foundational conceptsin mathematics and science, which are traditionally taughtoutside the ECE department, leaving it up to the studentsto understand, and make linkages between, ECE topics andfoundational content. To add further challenges, many facultymembers recognize the failings of the current system andsee the value in transformational change, but they are notincentivized to act because the deeply embedded assessmentprocess emphasizes student and faculty performance in indi-vidual courses, rather than measuring students’ mastery ofcore competencies and overall understanding.

FIGURE 1. Enrollments: ECE vs Mechanical Engineering.

These issues are particularly acute in ECE because itis perceived as inherently more abstract than its partnerdiscipline, mechanical engineering, where enrollments aresoaring. Twenty-five years ago, EE enrollments far outpacedmechanical engineering, but the tides turned a decade ago.After dipping around The Great Recession, ECE enrollmentsare rebounding at a steady pace, as shown in Fig. 1. Mean-while, mechanical engineering enrollments have surpassedECE and continue to grow. With nearly 1,100 mechanical

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engineering undergraduates at CSU compared to less than 450in ECE this trend holds true at our institution andhas triggered a first-ever cap on mechanical engineeringadmissions.Academic leaders involved with the ECE Department

Heads Association (ECEDHA) are working to unravel thisproblem and change perceptions about electrical and com-puter engineering. As part of its initiative, ‘‘The StrategicShaping of ECE,’’ ECEDHA’s goal is to synthesize and artic-ulate a collective vision of an exciting and attractive future forECE for the next 50 years that is highly relevant and importantto scientific, technological, and societal progress [13].

C. RELATED WORKPrevious attempts to improve undergraduate engineering edu-cation have been largely course- or project-based efforts.Successful first-year course reforms range from one-credit,voluntary introduction to engineering courses, e.g., at theUniversity of Florida [14] to fully integrated first-year blockcurricula, such as Drexels E4 program [15], the IMPULSEprogram at Massachusetts-Dartmouth [16], the Engage pro-gram at Tennessee [17], and the NSF-sponsored Engineer-ing Education Coalition program [18]. Many ECE programshave adopted separate courses/modules that include morehands-on projects for freshmen to enhance their learningexperience.An additional theme in pedagogical interventions is that of

knowledge integration. An idea that is central to our project,knowledge integration has a long history in engineering edu-cation with a growing body of literature touting the posi-tive impacts to retention and learning [4], [19]–[27]. Fromconcurrent scheduling of related courses to elicit ‘‘integra-tion by chance’’ [21] to Rose Hulman’s concept of supercourses [24], a wide range of prototypes have been imple-mented to facilitate knowledge integration. In the early 1990s,Bordogna et al. [19] advocated for a paradigm shift in engi-neering education to amore holistic approach to learning. Ourteam shares the authors’ concerns about curricula taught in‘‘unconnected pieces.’’ In 2005, Heywood published a syn-thesis of nearly 2,000 articles focused on making engineersbetter educators [23]. Providing a comprehensive overviewof attempts to integrate topics in engineering curricula, hisbook considers the correlations and similarities between sub-jects being integrated. He also discusses the popularity ofproblem-based learning, the most commonly used pedagogi-cal approach to enable knowledge integration.Olin College of Engineering serves as a success story

of a true integrated academic experience [25]. Guidedby the philosophy that ‘‘engineering starts and ends withpeople,’’ [25] Olin faculty work together across disciplinesto engage students in projects connected to real-world chal-lenges. While inspiring wide interest and recognition in theengineering community, a limitation of Olin’s approach isthat it can be challenging to imitate within the structuralbarriers of a typical public university. Borrowing from themainstays of Olin’s innovative philosophy, we believe our

vision is unique because it can be realized and sustainedwithin the constraints of most organizational structures inhigher education.

D. TIME FOR A CHANGEWe know that to fundamentally change misconceptions aboutelectrical and computer engineering and reverse the alarmingtrend of losing students interests in the discipline, whilecarrying out the visions of engineering in the 21st century,a radically new approach to teaching and learning is needed.We believe it is on us, as educators, to help students connectthe dots between topics and understand why they are learningmaterial. Our ultimate goal is to show students the relevanceof their knowledge, how it relates to the world outside theirclassroom, and how it will help them shape the future.The remainder of this paper describes our efforts to achieve

this goal and transform the educational landscape in theDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Col-orado State University. Section II provides an overview of ourapproach and the components of our pedagogical and organi-zational changes. Section III explains howwe are implement-ing the new approach, along with specific examples of howwe are interweaving and integrating content to help studentsconnect the dots between topics and see how their knowledgerelates to the profession and society as a whole. Section IVoutlines our strategy for testing the efficacy of our teachingand learning model. Section V shares early successes andchallenges of our work (hint: it has not been easy). Finally,section VI offers early conclusions and plans for sharing ourproject with the engineering community.

II. REVOLUTIONIZING ENGINEERING AND COMPUTERSCIENCE DEPARTMENTS (‘‘RED’’): A HOLISTICAPPROACH TO TEACHING AND LEARNINGA. MOTIVATION AND VISIONMotivated by our desire to overcome the existing challengesin engineering education and make the learning experiencemore meaningful and relevant for students, our diverse teamof educators at Colorado State University are redefining whatit means to teach and learn in the ECE department, alongwith the processes and value systems through which peoplebecome engineers. In 2015, we received a five-year ‘‘RED’’grant from the National Science Foundation [28] to performresearch that leads to scalable and sustainable change inengineering and computer science education for the nation.As part of the RED initiative, we are paving the way tochange through organizational and pedagogical innovationsthat incentivize and empower our faculty to work in teamsto deliver integrated content. Even though our educationalmodel represents a new direction for engineering pedagogy,it is not a controversial idea [19]. Our vision is novel becauseit can exist within, and provides a solution to the failuresassociated with, the traditional course structure inherent inhigher education. Our work looks at the undergraduate engi-neering degree as a complex system, enabling a holistic viewof the discipline that gives consideration to the intercon-

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FIGURE 2. CSU’s new organizational structure in which faculty roles areexpanded to include responsibilities as integration specialists andthread champions.

nectivity and integration of fundamental components acrosscourses. To further engage students, we are moving beyondthe typical lecture- and lab-based delivery modes and assess-ments to develop a culture that embraces active learning andstudent collaboration. With ABET’s accreditation criteria inmind, the new model allows us to evaluate and improve ourefforts through fine-grained assessments based on learningoutcomes and student mastery of content.

B. NEW ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE REIMAGINESFACULTY ROLES AND WEAVES THREADSTHROUGHOUT THE CURRICULUMMoving from the traditional course-centric structure to ateaching and learning environment where faculty collabora-tion is essential for success, our new organizational structurereimagines the roles of the faculty. Instead of teaching coursesin silos, multifaceted faculty teams are working collabora-tively to show how concepts connect across topics and toprofessional practice, without compromising students’ depthand breadth of knowledge known as ‘‘T-shaped skills.’’As shown in Fig. 2, key faculty members have been

assigned new roles as ‘‘thread champions’’ and ‘‘integrationspecialists’’ to interweave foundations, creativity, and profes-sionalism threads throughout the curriculum and deliver fullyintegrated content. Their efforts span the entire undergraduateexperience, with special attention to the critical technicalcore of the middle two years. Serving as an incentive toelicit participation in the cultural shift, evaluations and annualraises have been adjusted to measure faculty performance inthese new roles:

• Integration specialists work with fellow faculty to syn-thesize content and identify touch points for knowledgeintegration, taking the form of horizontal threads thatillustrate how fundamental concepts are interrelated.

• Thread champions are held accountable to a systemsway of thinking and are evaluated on their ability to ver-tically weave and integrate knowledge threads through-out the curriculum.

Many central concepts and skills impact a student’s abilityto become a well-rounded engineer, and these subjects mustpermeate the curriculum instead of being taught in individualcourses:

• Foundations thread (math and science) Key mathemat-ical concepts lay the foundation for understanding theanchoring concepts in courses throughout the ECE cur-riculum. The foundations thread unpacks mathematicsand physics concepts to help students learn fundamen-tals in ECE topics like circuits, signals and systems,and electromagnetics. The foundations thread championspearheads the collaboration between the math and ECEdepartments to introduce and promote the value andutility of mathematics in ECE courses, as well as theimportance of mathematical thinking.

• Creativity thread (research, design, and optimizationtools) The creativity thread is intended to integrateresearch and design throughout the undergraduate expe-rience. By showing the impact of research, studentswill see the practical applications and potential break-throughs of fundamental ECE concepts. Likewise,exposing students to design at every level of the under-graduate experience allows them to experience theexcitement of engineering by applying their founda-tional knowledge to a tangible product.

• Professional formation thread (communications, cul-tural adaptability, ethics, leadership, and teamwork)Partnering with faculty and industry leaders to ensurestudents develop professional skills meaningfully andeffectively, a former IBM executive spearheads theprofessional formation thread, which is designed todemonstrate the importance of professional skills in theworkplace and enhance student-industry interactions.Rather than saving professional skills development forthe senior year, this thread reinforces professionalism atmultiple points throughout the curriculum.

C. PEDAGOGICAL CHANGES EMPHASIZEKNOWLEDGE INTEGRATIONAs described in our papers, ‘‘Weaving ProfessionalismThroughout the Engineering Curriculum [29],’’ and ‘‘Master-ing the Core Competencies of Electrical Engineering throughKnowledge Integration [1],’’ our new organizational structureis accompanied by a pedagogical model that builds on theconcept of ‘‘nanocourses’’ [30], [31], and emphasizes knowl-edge integration, a learning model grounded in educationpedagogy and supported by research [32].In the pre-RED pedagogical structure, technical courses

in the middle two years represented significant challengesto students enrolled in the ECE program. The amount ofcontent covered increased significantly over time, and manystudents found it difficult to grasp the concepts because theyare extremely abstract andmathematically intense.Moreover,students were not seeing the connections between technicalcourses and how the material fits into the big picture, causingthem to lose confidence and motivation. Combining rigor and

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FIGURE 3. Snapsnot of new pedagogical model for a portion of the technical core.

flexibility to improve student understanding and efficacy, ourfaculty are working in teams to dissect, rearrange, and syn-chronize fundamental course concepts into cohesive LearningStudio Modules (LSMs) that culminate in knowledge inte-gration (KI) activities. While area-specific learning moduleshave been in existence for years, such modules are usuallysupplements to the core curriculum and do not typically coverfundamental subjects vital to comprehending abstract topics,nor do they stitch together anchoring concepts to lay thegroundwork for real-world applications. By properly aligningLSMs from different core competency areas, a set of KIactivities are created to illustrate how the topics fit togetherto solve real-world engineering problems [29].

D. IMPORTANCE OF INSTRUCTIONAL INNOVATIONAND STUDENT ENGAGEMENTAnother aim of the RED project is to revolutionize ourinstructional methods and assessments. We know that thelecture-style format does not go far enough to capture stu-dents’ interest and show the relevance of content to the realworld. To help us innovate in the classroom and implementactive learning methods and assessments that more directlyinvolve students in the learning process, we paired our facultywith instructional designers at The Institute for Teaching andLearning (TILT), an on-campus resource that provides directsupport to faculty to enhance learning, teaching, and studentsuccess. We are also making available to students the latesttools and technology to bring their ideas to life, includingARM processors and USB-powered multifunction instru-ments, which turn any PC into a powerful design laboratoryenvironment to build and test circuits. Such advancementsare transformational because they make hands-on learningavailable 24/7.

III. THROWING AWAY COURSES: IMPLEMENTINGORGANIZATIONAL AND PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATIONSA. LEARNING STUDIO MODULES LAY FOUNDATIONFOR KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION ACTIVITIESStill in the early stage of our five-year project, we are cur-rently launching phase one of the new organizational and

pedagogical approach and the cultural shift is already inprogress. Multifaceted faculty teams, led by thread champi-ons and integration specialists, worked together to break apartseven ECE courses in the technical core of the junior year tocreate the first set of learning studio modules (LSMs). EachLSM is self-contained and addresses one anchoring conceptand a set of sub-topics in a given core competency area [1].Although a departure from the traditional course structure,LSMs still provide a path for students to learn all the intendedtopics in a rigorous fashion.To begin, the faculty team selected five anchoring con-

cepts for each of the seven technical core courses, andthen rearranged and synchronized the topics into 35 LSMs.When the team compared anchoring concepts of the tra-ditional junior-level course sequence, they were able tosee how topics connect across the curriculum and wherethe knowledge integration could occur. Instead of viewingeach course in isolation, this process prompted each fac-ulty member to think about the curriculum from a holis-tic perspective [29]. Considering pre-requisite material andcorrelations between topics, the faculty then determined theoptimal ordering of content, and verified that all anchor-ing concepts are covered without undesirable overlap. Oncethe LSMs were established, integration specialists helpeddetermine the timing of knowledge integration activities.While LSMs represent multiple modules across a givensemester, knowledge integration activities occur less fre-quently but go a step further to make overall learning morecoherent.

B. A CLOSER LOOK AT NEW PEDAGOGICAL MODELProviding a snapshot of the new pedagogical model, Fig. 3illustrates how content from what were three core coursesin the first semester of the junior year—electronic princi-ples, linear systems analysis, and electromagnetics—are rear-ranged and synthesized into LSMs across multiple weeks,setting the stage for a week of knowledge integration activ-ities. In addition to working with the thread champions todevise a strategy for weaving foundations (shown in blue),

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TABLE 1. Anchoring concepts of LSMs for the first semester of the technical core.

TABLE 2. Example of subtopics in LSM 2.

professional formation (shown in green), and creativity(shown in orange) throughout the LSMs and the KI activ-ities, instructors of the core courses collaborated to aligntopics and discuss how each LSM would be taught usingcommon terminology, notations, and shared examples. Fig. 3highlights the micro-integration that occurs between theLSMs, illustrated using the horizontal arrows, to show cross-correlations among anchoring concepts and subtopics in thetechnical core. Providing a framework for implementingnew active learning methods, competency-based evaluationsare conducted upon completion of each set of LSMs toevaluate student mastery of fundamental concepts. In thefifth week, the six fundamental concepts introduced in thefirst four weeks are integrated into a team-based designexperience, thus incorporating the three vertical threadsas well.To provide an example of the range of topics cov-

ered throughout the technical core, Table 1 shows thefundamental anchoring concepts in each LSM for thefall semester of the junior year. Each of these LSManchoring concepts is subdivided further into finer grainsubtopics to ensure depth, breadth, and alignment of con-tent across the LSMs. As an example, Table 2 showsthe subtopics within LSM 2 for what used to be thethree required junior-level courses. Note that the timingof the discussion of linearity in the linear signals/systemsmodule aligns with the discussion of the non-linear I-V

characteristics of a diode, and its subsequent piece-wise linearapproximation. This reinforces the utility of these funda-mental signals/systems concepts for electronic design, andvice versa.

C. IMPLEMENTING ACTIVE LEARNING ANDFORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS INTO THE LSMsIn addition to laying the foundation for knowledge integra-tion, the new pedagogical structure allows faculty to imple-ment teaching and learning approaches that more directlyengage students. As an example, one of our faculty membershas developed a set of 888 concept-level questions to helpstudents comprehend anchoring concepts in electromagnet-ics [33]. In preparation for each LSM, students must com-plete assigned pre-work that includes required reading anda timed, online evaluation that asks a series of concept-levelquestions pertaining to topics in the pre-assigned text [34].These brief, interactive formative assessments provide stu-dents real-time feedback to gauge their understanding of thefundamental concepts. Data from these assessments informthe ‘‘flipped classroom’’ approach so that in-class time canbe devoted to deeper discussions about how the theory andits applications relate to other anchoring concepts in thetechnical core. Moreover, the students are implementingthe concepts they learned into a ‘‘virtual electromagneticstest bed’’ using MATLAB [35], as part of the creativitythread.

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D. EXAMPLE KI ACTIVITY: KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATIONTO UNDERSTAND WHYTo achieve the goal of helping students connect and inte-grate topics, and understand why they are learning material,KI activities utilize hands-on examples and group work toillustrate how concepts in different core competency areas arehighly connected and interdependent to make a complex sys-tem function as intended [1]. Using familiar applications suchas the smart phone or digital media player, these KI activitieshelp students gain a better understanding of the contents ineach LSM, and how anchoring concepts are implemented andapplied to a complex piece of ubiquitous technology.To demonstrate how our new pedagogical approach facili-

tates knowledge integration, we provide the following simpleillustrative example of the first KI activity that was devel-oped for LSMs 1 and 2, referred to earlier in Fig. 3 andTables 1 and 2. As shown in this example, KI activities serveas a vehicle for helping students grasp the commonality andcorrelations between concepts of electronics, electromagnet-ics, and signals and systems. All the faculty and studentsfrom the technical core of the junior year came togetherin one room to participate in this interactive, team-basedlearning exercise. An environment that lends itself to opendialogue, inquiry, and problem solving, the KI activity wasan ‘‘aha moment’’ for students, as they could see firsthandhow problems are approached from multiple perspectives,and how the content from the LSMs are integrated to formthe building blocks of a smartphone.

1) PRE-WORK FOR KI ACTIVITYTo prepare for the first KI activity, students were asked tostudy the basic functional building blocks of any smartphone.Armed with knowledge from the first set of LSMs, stu-dents were responsible for identifying what these functionalblocks are and their connections to each other, which couldbe completed without having a detailed understanding ofhow each block operates. Starting with the simplest block,students were asked to identify the power supply or powermanagement system (PMS) functional block. A schematicof a generic PMS was provided (Fig. 4) for reference.Next, the students made a list of all possible concepts, fromLSMs 1 and 2, relevant to understanding how a PMS operates.

2) HANDS-ON COMPONENT OF KI ACTIVITYAfter the conceptual discussion of the PMS, students wereasked to perform a four-part KI activity that consisted ofhands-on, lab-like exercises to be completed in groups.(a) Standard design problem Each student was given a

standard design problem in which they were asked todesign a bridge rectifier circuit as shown in Fig. 4,with the bridge rectifier serving as the PMS. The spec-ifications for the rectifier output voltage, Vout, was3V DC with a ripple voltage of less than 10%. Thecomponents available to them were limited to four1N914 diodes, a 10K� resistor, a capacitor of arbitraryvalue, and a 60 Hz AC source. To satisfy this design

FIGURE 4. Basic schematic of power management system.

specification, students were asked what value of thecapacitor theywould need. In addition, prior to buildingthe circuit, they were required to sketch the waveformthey expected to see at Vout for a correct design, as wellas answer the following theoretical questions regardingthe rectifier circuit:

• Is this rectifier circuit, in practice, a linear or non-linear circuit? Is there any way to validate youranswer? (Hint: Can you combine different sourcewaveforms from the function generator to demon-strate the principle of superposition?)

• Describe the charging and discharging action ofthe capacitor in the positive and negative halfcycles from the concepts of E-field within a capac-itor or charge stored by the capacitor.

• How would your Vout change if the capacitor priorto use in the rectifier held some nonzero charge?

Note that the answers to these questions require the stu-dents to use concepts from LSMs that would normallycome from different courses.

Next, students were instructed to take a capacitorof value closest to what they would need to build therectifier circuit of Fig. 4 andmeasure the output voltageof their physical circuit using an oscilloscope. Theywere then asked to explain the discrepancies betweentheir expected (theoretical) output and that obtainedfrom their physical circuit.

(b) Comparing numerical results with observations: Tyingtheory of LSMs to circuit analysis To illustrate therelevance of mathematical techniques to analyzing areal circuit, especially concepts of linearity and super-position, students worked in teams to explain how theycould determine the output of their circuit from linearsystems principles. In particular, they were asked todetermine the impulse response of their simple linearsystem represented by the RC circuit. Realizing thatit was difficult to approximate a theoretical impulse,they used a function generator to approximate a stepfunction from a periodic square wave and then numer-ically differentiated the resulting output of the RCcircuit to approximate its input response. They thenconvolved this with a signal obtained at the output ofthe bridge and compared this to the waveform that they

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experimentally obtained for Vout. This led to not onlya discussion of the source of discrepancy between thetwo signals, but also a deeper appreciation of theirability to mathematically approximate the output oftheir PMS for different rectifier designs.

(c) Design variations To round out the first KI activity, stu-dents are placed into groups to tackle a specific designvariation of the standard design problem outlined ear-lier. Each of the eight possible design variations ismeant to illustrate a difference between the theoreti-cally ideal components that are used in their mathe-matical analysis, and the properties of real componentsthat are used to create physical products. These designvariations provide concrete examples of how engineersare always dealing withmodels that are approximationsto the physical world, and that one of their most impor-tant decisions is to determine what model provides therequired level of fidelity.

E. WEAVING KNOWLEDGE THREADS THROUGHOUTTHE CURRICULUMIn addition to establishing the LSMs and KI activities forthe junior year, thread champions and integration specialistshave been working with fellow faculty to create a blueprintfor weaving thematic content throughout the curriculum.The knowledge threads, which are defined in section II.B,embed in the learning experience many central concepts thatimpact a student’s ability to become a well-rounded engineer.As shown in the snapshot of our new pedagogical modelin section III.B, Fig. 3, these threads are now rooted in theLSMs andKI activities. Besides being tied to deeply technicalcontent, the threads also extend beyond the technical coreto stitch together and reinforce relevant themes from thefreshman to senior years.

1) FOUNDATIONS THREAD: DEMONSTRATING THERELEVANCE OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCEBecause a holistic understanding of ECE concepts is highlydependent on students’ grasp of key topics in mathematicsand science, the foundations thread is an essential ingredientin our retention efforts. Students in our department are oftenintimidated by the mathematics required for the major andstruggle to see whymath matters. The same is true of physics.While the foundations thread emphasizes subjects in mathand science, this manuscript focuses on mathematics to pro-vide an illustration of how the thread is being implemented.Well-suited to spearhead the foundations thread, the math

thread champion not only teaches subjects in the technicalcore, but he also holds a joint faculty appointment in theDepartment of Mathematics at CSU. The thread championworks in concert with a Graduate Teaching Fellow (GTF),an ECE Ph.D. student, to carry out the goals of the thread.Among her many activities, the GTF leads a special series ofjunior-level ‘‘foundations lectures’’ that augment the LSMsand KI activities. Because every component in the newpedagogical approach gives consideration to the system asa whole, her lectures are intended to show students how

FIGURE 5. Circuit diagram for illustrative example of the mathfoundations thread.

mathematical topics are aligned with the anchoring conceptsof the LSMs and KI activities. Outside of the technical core,the GTF holds weekly calculus recitation sessions for first-year engineering students to demonstrate the value of math-ematics. Guiding students through mathematical problems,she builds motivation by putting the problem in the context ofan engineering application, such as connecting surface inte-grals with flux calculations, or connecting partial fractions tocalculating circuit responses. The idea is to show students thatalmost every calculation they perform is critical to solvingengineering problems.To better describe how the mathematics thread improves

student learning, a simple illustrative example is providedbelow, in the context of electronics principles (ECE 331).Illustrative Example: Consider the circuit in Fig. 5. Such

circuits are encountered when introducing the very firstanchoring concept of different diode models in the first weekof LSM 2. Suppose we wish to calculate the current throughthe diode, Ix, for a given value of DC input voltage Vx , andseries resistance, R. Using Kirchoffs Voltage Law, one wouldneed to solve the nonlinear equation

Vx = IxR+ 0.026 ln⇣ IxI0

⌘(1)

where I0 is the saturation current of the diode.To solve this nonlinear equation, the students need to

use an iterative method, e.g., the Newton-Raphson method.The challenge is that students often do not remember suchmethods from their math courses. To address this issue,the GTF gives a math foundation lecture on iterative methodsfor solving nonlinear equations during the same week thatdiode models are covered in ECE 331, and we specificallyapply these methods to examples of the type in (1), wherethe nonlinear equation involves equating an affine functionof Ix to a logarithmic function of Ix. Later on, when smallsignal analysis is discussed in ECE 331 for linearizing diodemodels, a math foundation lecture on Taylor series and lin-earization is delivered by the GTF with specific examplesrevolving around linear approximations of logarithmic func-tions, as encountered in the diode equations. Through theselectures, the GTF is able to illustrate how the knowledge ofmathematics facilitates learning in ECE 331.

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2) CREATIVITY THREAD: DESIGNING THE FUTUREThe creativity thread shines a light on the importanceof creativity, research, and design in our discipline. Thisthread integrates the department’s research efforts into theundergraduate learning experience and provides an avenuefor graduate students to serve as research mentors to ourundergraduates. Building on Olin College’s work to cre-ate a ‘‘student-centered, people-first, project-based makerculture’’ [27], students are experiencing the excitement ofengineering in the LSMs and KI activities because theyare applying creative thinking and problem-solving skills todesign challenges that emulate, and demonstrate connectionsto, the real world. Through project-based learning, studentsare able to see how creativity and innovation distinguishengineering from other disciplines, and how their knowledgeis driving our technological future. In addition to the creative,collaborative activities in the technical core, each studenttakes part in a common set of design experiences, beginningearly in the program with 200-level open-ended projects andculminating in the senior year with a capstone design project.Broader initiatives are also included in the creativity thread

to engage students in design and allow them to tailor theirplans of study to align with their passions. For example,CSU joined Georgia Techs Vertically Integrated Projects(VIP), a program that unites large teams of undergraduateswith graduate students and faculty to work on long-termprojects [36]. With the goal of increasing the number anddiversity of graduates in the STEM disciplines, ECE studentsare able to participate in large-scale projects similar to thosefound in start-up environments. Additionally, students at anystage in the program now have a new independent study path,Open Option Projects, which allows them to design and buildprojects of their choice in a dedicated makerspace labora-tory. As part of the Engineer in Residence (EiR) program,described in the next section, industry volunteers hold regularhours in the design lab to support the creative efforts of ourstudents and lend important insights.Finally, the creativity thread ensures continuity of opti-

mization tools throughout the curriculum. As an example,we are leveraging our use of MATLAB by creating virtualenvironments that augment learning and inspire creativity.We also provide students with analog discovery devices thatallow them to experiment and invent anytime, anywhere.

3) PROFESSIONAL FORMATION THREAD: DEVELOPINGCRITICAL SKILLS FOR THE 21st CENTURYIt is without question that to remain competitive as a nationwithin the worldwide economy, the United States mustengender a new generation of engineers with superior skillsand knowledge to excel [2]–[5], [37]. The importance ofresponding to needs of the profession has long been recog-nized by ABET [38] and the engineering community at large.The professional formation thread makes professional skillsdevelopment a priority by reshaping the processes and valuesystems through which people become effective engineers in

the 21st century [28]. A major goal of the professional forma-tion thread is to create greater ‘‘fidelity,’’ or meaningful expe-riences, that mimic the eventual working environment [38].Backed by current engineering education research andliterature, the thread emphasizes five key areas: communica-tions, cultural adaptability, ethics, leadership, and teamwork.Closely aligning with the skills required for a professionalengineer in the 21st century [29], these topics are reinforcedat multiple points throughout the curriculum through in-classactivities and industry-led initiatives. Professional learningis now engrained in the LSMs and KI activities throughhand-on scenarios that allow students to experience and workthrough real-world issues, such as ethical dilemmas, as a wayof demonstrating how anchoring concepts are intertwinedwith professional topics. Activities that allow us to developand assess students’ communication skills are required at alllevels of the program, and students are now required to workin teams throughout their undergraduate experience.Leveraging our strong ties to industry, we have also imple-

mented overarching initiatives that engage practicing engi-neers to help students develop professional skills and learnfirsthand how that knowledge relates to the workplace. Onesuch initiative is the Engineer in Residence program, a novelpartnership with the IEEE that brings industry partners intoour design laboratory to interact with students at all lev-els in the program. EiR volunteers share their enthusiasmfor the profession by helping students overcome techni-cal challenges, devise project plans and budgets, navigatetheir careers, and gain insights into life after CSU. Froma recent study, 2015 Young Professionals Post-GraduationSurvey [39], respondents indicated the following:

• 59% need help developing a global perspective• 55% need help choosing what industry to work in• 48% need help with the transition from college tocareer.

The EiR program is designed to address all of these areas ofneed, particularly easing the transition between college andcareer, as EiR volunteers spend approximately half their timediscussing career-oriented questions with students.

IV. PLANS FOR TESTING EFFICACY OF NEWTEACHING AND LEARNING MODELA. INTRODUCTION TO ASSESSMENT PLANSTo ensure we have the right ingredients for revolutionizingengineering education, we have designed an assessment andevaluation plan to test the efficacy of our new model througha mixed method, longitudinal study. The plan encompassesABET’s Engineering Criteria 2000 to ensure our program isproviding graduates with the technical and professional skillsemployers demand. Ranging from evaluating student percep-tions and competencies to understanding the organizationalcultural impact, the two-pronged assessment plan addressesboth the pedagogical and organizational changes. Prior to thelaunch of the RED initiative, we collected baseline data atpre-determined points in the program to serve as a yardstickfor measuring our success.

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B. PEDAGOGICAL MEASURESThe pedagogical assessment plan addresses the following keyaspects of teaching and learning:

• Characterizing the classroom environment A teachingpractices inventory (TPI) [40], [41] has been imple-mented to analyze what is happening in the classroomand measure the level of student engagement. Thisinvolves a series of faculty self-assessments and thor-ough classroom observations conducted by CSU’s Insti-tute for Learning and Teaching. The TPI is designed tocharacterize the pedagogical behaviors of instructors inorder for us to evaluate how the classroom environmentand interactions impact learning.

• Student perception and confidence We are using aninstrument adapted from multiple validated instru-ments [42]–[47], to assess students’ self-perceptionsabout their 1) ability to use specific engineering skills,2) ability and confidence in integrating content areas(i.e., math, science, and engineering), and 3) moti-vations and intent to pursue engineering as a career.This is combined with a measure to gauge students’confidence in their knowledge of specific LSM-relatedcontent.

• Mastery of core competencies Providing a structurethat is conducive to frequent, fine-grained assessments,competency-based evaluations are embedded in theLSMs to evaluate student mastery of fundamental con-cepts. As highlighted section II.C, we have implementedformative concept-level assessments that provide imme-diate feedback to students to help them see how wellthey understand the content. These pre-work assess-ments also provide valuable information to the courseinstructors, allowing them to tailor in-class instructionto meet the needs of the learners.

• Assessing knowledge integration Going well beyondthe traditional course grading system, design tear-downproblems were created to evaluate students’ ability tointegrate knowledge from the LSMs and apply it to arelatable problem. In addition to serving as an importantbarometer for testing our effectiveness as educators,the assessments give students useful feedback in thecontext of a real-world scenario.

• Standardized concept inventories Prior to the launch ofthe RED initiative, baseline data were collected to mea-sure students’ grasp of technical content. To test profi-ciency in electromagnetics, electronics, and signals andsystems, three separate concept inventories were imple-mented with 25 validated questions apiece. An ‘‘applesto apples’’ analysis, the findings provide us with a usefulmeasure to compare and contrast student mastery oftechnical content before and after the RED intervention.

• Learning analytics To help students learn more effec-tively through robust, integrative, and self-regulatedlearning, we are conducting research centered on the per-sonalization of learning analytics. Leveraging decision-theoretic methodology, we have a faculty member

investigating a new system for collecting and processinglearning data into a format suitable for quantitative anal-ysis. The goal of these automated assessments is to gen-erate informative real-time feedback for both studentsand instructors to personalize learning and improve thequality of classroom instruction.

• Comparisons with Similar Students Comparing studentoutcomes within ECE over time only provides a sliceof the projects overall efficacy. We will also measuredifferences between ECE students and a matched com-parison of ME students on common course and studentperception outcomes. These comparisons will providea type of control group to help us better understandsimilar student outcomes in the absence of a larger-scaleorganizational change.

C. ORGANIZATION CHANGE MEASURESWith the goal of developing a solid perception of the depart-ment across a number of factors, the following organizationalchange measures are designed to assess the cultural impact ofthe new teaching and learning model:

• Identifying existing culture and climate The first yearof our organizational analysis included a combinationof qualitative and quantitative measures to develop abaseline understanding of the department culture andclimate, as well as look for pockets of change-resistanceto the RED initiative. It also served as a mechanism forcharacterizing the organizational environment in termsof structure, reward orientation, communication pat-terns, policymaking, and overall values.

• Multiphase analysis of faculty and staff with compari-son groupUsing surveys, observational evaluations, andindividual interviews with faculty and staff, multiplewaves of data are being collected throughout the projectto gain a well-rounded picture of the organization andhow it changes over time. The mechanical engineeringdepartment at CSU is being studied as a comparisongroup.

• Student perceptions of culture and climateMuch like themultiphase analysis of faculty and staff, we are conduct-ing a series of surveys and observations of our studentpopulation to gauge the organizational cultural impactof change from the learners’ perspective. In addition tocomparing these data with faculty and staff perceptionsto identify trends and gaps, the results will be scrutinizedto flag specific concerns for women and underrepre-sented groups.

• Student attitudes toward professionalism An analysiswas conducted to understand how students feel aboutthe existing professional formation activities [26], [37].These data allow us to compare attitudes toward pro-fessional skills development before and after the REDintervention.

V. EARLY SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES OF THE ‘‘RED’’APPROACH TO TEACHING AND LEARNINGStill very early in the RED project, we are energized byour initial successes, but the work has come with a set

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of challenges. It is well known that people are generally resis-tant to change, and the students enrolled in the technical coreof the junior year are no exception. Dent and Goldberg [48]proposed that it is not the change itself against which peo-ple resist, but instead their concerns lie with the anticipatedand unexpected consequences of change. Because we antic-ipated resistance from the junior-level students, we werenot surprised to field many questions and concerns fromthem at the beginning of the fall 2016 semester. Studentswere clearly anxious and stressed as a result of our efforts.One student commented, ‘‘Can we just go back to doinglectures?’’ As outlined in section IV, we are collaboratingwith a social scientist at CSU to study the impact of thenew approach and develop strategies for overcoming strainsassociated with the organizational and pedagogical changes,and she has been working with us to formulate appropriateresponses to student concerns and anxieties. Though not yetempirically supported, we perceive positive shifts in attitudesas the project progresses.Anecdotally, the LSMs and KI activities have been well

received by many students. They like our hands-on, collab-orative approach to teaching and learning, as well as theconcrete exercises that tie anchoring concepts to relatabletechnological applications. Students also like how the inter-active, formative assessments serve as an immediate gauge oftheir conceptual understanding of core topics because it helpsthem get more out of their in-class time. As we spelled outin the previous section, we are in the process of conductingstudies to gather substantive data to evaluate the impact ofour new approach, and while it is still too early to formdata-driven conclusions, we anticipate further support andengagement from students as we dive deeper into the project.In support, data from the fall 2016 semester revealed that thenumber of students receiving Ds or Fs in the technical corehas been cut in half as compared to fall 2015, indicating futurepotential.On a broader scale, students across the undergraduate pro-

gram are benefiting from the RED project. The new Engineerin Residence program is an example of a holistic effort thatshows great promise for professional skills development atall levels. The program has significantly increased students’face-to-face interactions with industry, and survey resultsreveal that students and industry alike feel the initiative isvaluable and important. Because of its effectiveness, the IEEEis supporting the EiR program again this year, and we haveseen amarked increase in the number of interested volunteers,representing a range of companies and areas of technicalexpertise. In addition to the EiR program, practicing pro-fessionals from companies such as Keysight Technologiesare interacting with students in new ways to evaluate andgrow their talents in testing and measurement, project man-agement, and communications, and early findings show thatthe work is helping students master these critical skills [29].Finally, our work to weave creativity throughout the programis gaining traction. Enrollments are up in our new OpenOption Projects independent study option, and we are seeing

increased interest, and diversity of participants, in our Verti-cally Integrated Projects program.

VI. SUMMARY AND NEXT STEPSEarly in this paper we spelled out the fundamental problemsfacing electrical and computer engineering education and theneed for change. In the existing higher education structure,courses are delivered in silos, and students are not makingconnections between topics in the ECE curriculum, nor arethey seeing the practical relevance of their knowledge in thecontext of our global world. These issues are concerning,to say the least, and our team at Colorado State Universityis motivated to overcome the existing challenges to changethe direction of our discipline. We have developed a newapproach to teaching and learning that treats the undergrad-uate ECE degree as a complex system and enables a holisticview of the discipline.In addition to highlighting the nuts and bolts of our new

pedagogical and organizational model, we shared detailsabout how the approach is being implemented and how weplan to assess our efforts. Our notion that change is difficulthas been affirmed, and we will continue to measure theimpact of the reorganization of faculty roles and teachingpractices. While we are pleased with the early successesof the RED project, we are still working to overcome theobstacles associated with any large-scale change. As part ofour roadmap for scaling and adapting this project to otherinstitutions, it is our responsibility to inform our colleaguesabout what strategies have, and have not, been effective. Thisis a long-term research project, and we will continue to sharethe successes and failures of the RED project with the engi-neering community, as we strive to lead revolutionary changein ECE education and carry out the visions of engineering inthe 21st century.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe authors would like to thank the reviewers fortheir thoughtful feedback that helped us to improvethe presentation of our work. The authors would alsolike to thank graduate students Ryan McCullough andChristopher Robbiano for their tireless efforts to ensure thatthis paper was properly formatted.

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ANTHONY A. MACIEJEWSKI (F’05) receivedthe B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from The OhioState University, Columbus, OH, USA, in 1982,1984, and 1987, respectively. From 1988 to 2001,he was a Professor of electrical and computer engi-neering with Purdue University, West Lafayette.He is currently a Professor and the Head of theDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineer-ing, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO,USA.

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THOMAS W. CHEN received the Ph.D. degreefrom The University of Edinburgh. After spendingfour years with Philips Semiconductors, Europe,he joined the Department of Electrical and Com-puter Engineering, Colorado State University, FortCollins, CO, USA. He has authored over 180 jour-nal and conference papers in the areas of ana-log and digital VLSI design and CAD for VLSIdesign. His research interests include VLSI circuitand system design, CAD methodology for VLSI

design, and bioelectronics. He served as the General Chair of the 2015 IEEEMidwest Symposium onCircuits and Systems and aGuest Editor of the IEEETRANSACTIONSON COMPUTER-AIDEDDESIGNOF INTEGRATED CIRCUITSAND SYSTEMS

in 2005. He was a Guest Editor of the Microelectronics Journal on QualityElectronic Design in 2005.

ZINTA S. BYRNE received the double major B.S.degree in computer science and mathematics andthe M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in industrial and orga-nizational psychology. She was a Software Designand Development Engineer, and the Project andProgram Manager for Hewlett–Packard Company,and aManagement Consultant for Personnel Deci-sions International. She was a Professor with Col-orado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA,where she is currently a Tenured Full Professor

of psychology. She has authored Understanding Employee Engagement:Theory, Research, and Practice and Organizational Psychology and Behav-ior: An Integrated Approach to Understanding the Workplace. She hasserved as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Managerial Psychology.She currently serves on several editorial boards, and has published in peer-reviewed scientific academic and practice outlets. She has her own consultingpractice, Atniz Consulting, LLC, working with organizations around thecountry focusing on their organizational culture, and leadership to maximizeemployee engagement.

MICHAEL A. DE MIRANDA received the degreein educational psychology from the University ofCalifornia, with a focus on the study of cogni-tive process and complex classroom interventionsassociated with achieving scientific and techno-logical literacy through engineering content. Heserved as a Professor of engineering educationwith the School of Education and the Departmentof Electrical and Computer Engineering, ColoradoState University. He is currently a Professor, the

Claude H. Everett, the Jr. Endowed Chair, and the Head of the Department ofTeaching, Learning, and Culture with Texas A&M University. His researchfocuses on the development of young STEM educators for the future of ourprofession, specifically in learning, cognition, and instruction in engineeringand technology education.

LAURA B. SAMPLE MCMEEKING received theM.Sc. degree in atmospheric sciences and mete-orology and the Ph.D. degree in education andhuman resource services fromColorado State Uni-versity (CSU), Fort Collins, CO, USA. She is cur-rently the Associate Director of the CSU STEMCenter, where she collaborates with faculty andstaff inside and outside the university to developand implement high-quality research and evalu-ation in STEM education. Her primary research

focuses on STEM professional development at multiple levels, includingpreservice and in-service teachers, university undergraduate and graduatestudents, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty. Specifically, she is interestedin understanding how professional development leads to changes in knowl-edge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors in STEM, particularly with regards toinstructional and professional practice.

BRANISLAV M. NOTAROS (F’16) received thePh.D. degree in electrical engineering from theUniversity of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1995. Heis currently a Professor and a University Distin-guished Teaching Scholar with the Department ofElectrical and Computer Engineering, ColoradoState University, Fort Collins, CO, USA, wherehe is also the Director of the ElectromagneticsLaboratory. His research publications in computa-tional and applied electromagnetics include over

180 journal and conference papers. He has authored textbooks Electromag-netics (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2010) and MATLAB-Based Electromagnetics(Pearson Prentice Hall, 2013). He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions tohigher order methods in computational electromagnetics. He was a recipientof the 1999 IEEMarconi Premium, the 2005 IEEEMTT-SMicrowave Prize,the 2005 UMass Dartmouth Scholar of the Year Award, the 2012 ColoradoState University System Board of Governors Excellence in Undergradu-ate Teaching Award, the 2012 IEEE Region 5 Outstanding EngineeringEducator Award, the 2014 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement ofTeaching Colorado Professor of the Year Award, the 2015 American Societyfor Engineering Education ECE Distinguished Educator Award, the 2015IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award, and many other research and teachingawards.

ALI PEZESHKI received the B.Sc. and M.Sc.degrees from the University of Tehran, Tehran,Iran, in 1999 and 2001, respectively, and thePh.D. degree from Colorado State University, FortCollins, CO, USA, in 2004, all in electrical engi-neering. In 2005, he was a Post-Doctoral ResearchAssociate with the Electrical and Computer Engi-neering Department, Colorado State University.From 2006 to 2008, he was a Post-DoctoralResearch Associate with the Program in Applied

and Computational Mathematics, Princeton University. In 2008, he joinedColorado State University as a Faculty Member, where he is currentlyan Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and ComputerEngineering and the Department of Mathematics. His research interests arein statistical signal processing, coding theory, applied harmonic analysis, andbioimaging.

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SOURAJEET ROY received the B.Tech. degreefrom Sikkim Manipal University, Gangtok, India,in 2006, and the M.E.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees fromWestern University, London, ON, Canada, in 2009and 2013, respectively, all in electrical engineer-ing. He currently serves as an Assistant Profes-sor with the Department of Electrical and Com-puter Engineering, Colorado State University, FortCollins, CO, USA. His current research interestsinclude modeling and simulation of high speed

circuits, signal and power integrity analysis of electronic packages, anduncertainty quantification of microwave/ RF circuits. He was a 2006 recip-ient of the Vice-Chancellors Gold Medal, the Queen Elizabeth II GraduateScholarship in Science and Technology in 2012, and the Ontario GraduateScholarship in 2012. He currently serves as a Guest Associate Editor of theIEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPONENTS, PACKAGING, AND MANUFACTURING.

ANDREA M. LELAND received the B.Sc. degreein organizational communications and marketingfrom the University of Central Missouri. She hasdistinguished herself as a Dynamic Communicatorand a Tireless Ambassador of Engineering Educa-tion and Research, with nearly twenty years com-bined experience in higher education and privateindustry. For the past 13 years, she has been withthe Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-neering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins,

CO, USA, to advance its mission through well-planned communicationstrategies and relationship building. She has played an integral role inengaging industry to guide the department’s professional formation effortsto prepare students for an increasingly global profession.

MELISSA D. REESE received the B.S. degreein international business/finance and the M.B.A.degree in management/organizational develop-ment from the Rochester Institute of Technologyin 1998 and 2006, respectively. She is currently theDepartment Manager of Electrical and ComputerEngineering with Colorado State University, FortCollins, CO, USA.

ALMA H. ROSALES received the bachelor’s andmaster’s degrees in mathematics from The Univer-sity of Texas. She joined IBM Austin in 1976, as aCommunications Programmer. She held numeroustechnical and management positions at IBM. In2003, she was the Director of Worldwide Enable-ment Services at the Integrated Supply Chain Divi-sion, where she managed 300 people in 21 loca-tions around the world. From 2007 to 2008, shewas an IBM Executive on loan to Colorado State

University, as part of the IBMFaculty Loan Program. Shewas instrumental inestablishing the Professional Learning Institute with the College of Engineer-ing. She served as the ProgramDirector ofMexican American Engineers andScientists and the Co-Chair of the Texas Science and Engineering Festival in2010 and 2011. She currently serves as the Professional Formation ThreadChampion for the RED initiative underway with the Department of Electricaland Computer Engineering, Colorado State University. In 1998, she wasrecognized by theHispanic Engineer and Information TechnologyMagazine,for her many contributions to the industry, naming her one of its 50 WomenWho Make a Difference.

THOMAS J. SILLER received the Ph.D. degree incivil engineering fromCarnegieMellonUniversityin 1988. From 2002 to 2015, he served as the Asso-ciate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs withthe College of Engineering. He has been a FacultyMember with the Civil and Environmental Engi-neering Department, Colorado State University,Fort Collins, CO, USA, since 1988. His currentareas of research focus on sustainable developmentand engineering, with a particular focus on educa-

tion, pre-collegiate engineering education, professional skill development,and global engineering education. In addition, he runs an education abroadcourse at Hunan University, Changsha, China.

RICHARD F. TOFTNESS received the B.S.E.E.and M.S.E.E. (Hons.) degrees in electrical engi-neering from the University of Minnesota. He hasheld various technical professional roles for over40 years. He was with Fortune 500 companies,small private firms, and has owned his own busi-ness. He has managed large multi-function orga-nizations and R&D departments, manufacturingoperations, and quality departments in U.S. andinternationally. He has been part of three startup

businesses, starting one from scratch and attempting to rescue two others.He is known for his ability to look past the trendy silliness that manyorganizations get enamored with and get to the core of what people need todo to be productive professionals. He was a recipient of the 2012 AcademyAward (Oscar) for technical development of the Phantom High Speed Cam-era in additional to other awards for professional achievement and volunteerleadership roles. He has organized a volunteer effort in partnership withthe IEEE, the Engineer in the Residence Program, which brings togetherengineering professionals and students at Colorado State University.

OLIVERA NOTAROS received the degree fromthe Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-neering, Belgrade, Serbia. She has held multipleuniversity teaching positions since 1990. She iscurrently an Adjunct Faculty Member and theHead of student projects at theDepartment of Elec-trical and Computer Engineering, Colorado StateUniversity. She also leads the creativity thread ofthe ECE department’s RED initiative.

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