College of Engineering University of Iowa

Self­Study

July 22, 2016

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Table of Contents

I. SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION TO THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 2

II. RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIP AND INNOVATION 7

III. STUDENT OUTCOMES: UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS 16

IV. STUDENT OUTCOMES: GRADUATE STUDENTS 23

V. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 27

VI. MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS 33

VII. FACULTY AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT 36

VIII. APPENDIX 401. Progress on the 2010­2016 Strategic Plan 402. Research and Scholarship Metrics 443. Undergraduate Graduation and Retention Rates 464. Student Data and Enrollment Trends 475. Use of the Student Development Center: Data and Trends 496. Workforce Diversity Data 507. College of Engineering Organizational Chart 51

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I. Summary and Introduction to the College of Engineering

The University of Iowa is proud to be categorized as a R1: Research University (Highest research activity) in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.1 The College of Engineering is a major contributor to the metrics required of institutions in this category, including faculty­led research funded by competitive external sources, competitive and selective undergraduate programs, and an active and well supported doctoral program based on research training.

The College of Engineering faculty are among the most active researchers on campus as measured by national and international honors and awards, research expenditures per faculty member, citations of faculty publications in the peer­reviewed literature, number of proposals submitted and funded by the most competitive funding sources, and participation in large interdisciplinary research centers. The College of Engineering is a vital and major contributor to the research success necessary for long­term membership in national associations of similar institutions, including the Big10/CIC conference2 and the Association of American Universities3. In addition to numerous active research laboratories led by individual faculty, College of Engineering faculty lead many collaborative research centers and endeavors which extend across campus, including: IIHR: Hydroscience and Engineering; The Center for Computer Aided Design; the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research; the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging; the Water Sustainability Cluster; and the Informatics Cluster among others. Research taking place at the College is motivated by the desire to solve real­world problems by understanding societal needs, as well as the scholarly curiosity which drives basic research. The research productivity of our faculty is outstanding based measures such as archival journal publications (an average of 3.7 per faculty member per year) and research expenditures (an average of ~$580k per faculty member per year).

The College of Engineering is home to one of the most selective and high­achieving undergraduate student bodies on the University of Iowa campus. In the fall 2015 in­coming class, 8% percent were high school valedictorians, 22% were in the top 5% of their high school class, the average high school GPA was 3.82, and 43% were eligible for the University of Iowa Honors Program. Students with excellent qualifications are attracted to the College in increasing numbers from across the country and across the world. In fact, the enrollment increase in the College of Engineering accounts for the majority of the total enrollment increase at the University since 2009. Currently the engineering undergraduate enrollment is at a historic high with nearly 2200 undergraduates (Figure 1) and annual increases of nearly 10 % per year for the past six years.

The College attributes this remarkable enrollment growth to the national trend of enhanced interest in STEM fields and the attraction of our personalized approach to educating engineers that focuses on the individual goals of each student and “soft” skills critical for the success of 21st century engineers. The College motto is “We educate students to become engineers…. and something more,” reflecting the philosophy of the College to provide an educational experience that goes beyond technical proficiency to provide a path to leadership in a wide variety of careers. Drawing upon the educational strengths of other colleges across our comprehensive campus, we strive to develop students’ skills and knowledge in entrepreneurship, communication, leadership, teamwork, global awareness, creativity, and cultural appreciation. Indeed, the graduates of the College of Engineering are highly sought after. Virtually 100%

1 http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/ 2 https://www.cic.net/about­cic/member­universities 3 http://www.aau.edu/

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of engineering BSE graduates find their first placement in the position of their choice and first year salaries are among the highest at the University of Iowa.

Figure 1. Undergraduate enrollment in the College of Engineering since 1915.

The College is dedicated to creating a welcoming environment where diversity flourishes in all of its dimensions. This environment is cultivated through a purposeful effort charted and promoted at the highest level of leadership at the College all the way from K12 outreach to alumni development. The College promotes engineering as a field open to all students who accept the intellectual challenge. In fact, the diversity of engineering students has increased even faster than the overall numbers. For example, the number of women students has increased from ~300 in 2009 to almost 600 in 2016: women are now more than 29% of the incoming class (significantly higher than the national average). In the 2015 incoming class, 25% were first generation college students and 16% were underrepresented minorities (the number of underrepresented minorities has nearly tripled since 2009). The number of women, underrepresented minority students, and Iowans were all at the highest level ever experienced at the College. Students are provided with personal support through the Student Development Center, and through diversity and inclusion programs in collaboration with faculty and departments. The commitment to a welcoming environment is part of the long­standing desire to provide a small­college experience with interdisciplinary and team­driven focus. This desire is challenged as the undergraduate population has expanded, but remains a central expectation of the College’s constituents.

Accommodating the growth in undergraduate enrollment has been challenging in a climate of decreased funding at the State and University levels. Consistent with the trend for state institutions across the country, financial support for undergraduate education at the University of Iowa has shifted to become much more dependent on student tuition. Indeed, tuition now accounts for approximately two thirds of the General Education Fund (GEF) of the University, and the College of Engineering has contributed significantly to this emerging budget model. In the past six years the total (gross) tuition associated with College of Engineering students has increased approximately 110%: from ~$19M in FY 2010 to ~$40M in FY 2016 (Figure 2). This dramatic increase results from a combination of three factors: the overall increase in undergraduate enrollment, a significant enhancement in the fraction of engineering students from out­of­state, and the growth in the differential tuition paid exclusively by engineering students. For example, in the last six years, University of Iowa income from engineering student undergraduate tuition for residents and non­residents has increased from $6.4M and $13M in FY 2010, to $10M (56% increase) and $30M (130% increase) in FY 2016, respectively. Similarly, the differential tuition paid by engineering students has increased from $1.2M to $2.7M (a 125% increase). Despite this growth of

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income to the University of Iowa, the College of Engineering GEF allotment has increased only ~22% from ~$18.7M to ~$23M during this same time period.

Figure 2. Engineering general education fund (GEF) allocation and gross tuition: FY2010 and FY2016. GEF includes revenue from tuition, fees, indirect costs, and state allocations.

The College of Engineering has used a number of strategies and tactics to accommodate the enhanced enrollment under tight budgetary constraints. Foremost, the College has aggressively worked to hire additional tenure track faculty. However, budget constraints have only allowed us to increase the number of tenure track FTEs from 82.4 in the fall of 2009 to 86.7 in the fall of 2016. Therefore, the student­to­faculty ratio has increased from 17 in the fall of 2009 to 25 in the fall of 2015. Since the enrollment growth has not been equally distributed by department, the impact has been particularly pronounced for the most popular majors of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering which now have student­to­faculty ratios approaching 40 to 1. To enhance the capacity of high­quality teaching, the College has also expanded the number of non­tenure track teaching faculty from one full­time equivalent (FTE) “lecturer” in FY 2010 to ten FTEs in FY 2016. As a result of the enrollment growth, the average class size has increased and the classrooms in our building are routinely filled to capacity. The College has also enhanced the utilization of specialized teaching laboratories to accommodate multiple sections and multiple semesters, and shifted costs for laboratory enhancements and some support personnel to alternative, non­GEF, funding sources (e.g., private donors and student technology fees). Finally, The College has reorganized academic advising roles to shift first­year undergraduate student advising from faculty to staff in the Engineering Student Services group.

The College provides graduate MS and PhD education in six program areas, each of which is closely tied to the research strengths of the College and University. An overwhelming majority of the MS and PhD graduates are externally funded during their studies. As a result, students work on highly innovative, cutting­edge research projects, develop strong ties with employers in their application areas, and are placed in research and development positions that take full advantage of their graduate education. The graduate programs have been under pressure as a result of the increasing costs associated with graduate students (salary plus tuition), decreasing university­wide support for graduate students, the enhanced teaching capacity required for the undergraduate program, and the increasingly competitive federal funding landscape.

During the past six years the top priority for the College of Engineering has been to attract and retain outstanding faculty. This priority is reflected in how the College has used the financial resources that it has been provided. In each of the past six years, the percentage increase for engineering faculty salaries has exceeded the percentage increase in the budget, therefore the fraction of the budget dedicated to

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faculty salaries has continuously increased despite the fact that our average salaries remain at or near the bottom of our peer groups. Endowed chairs and professorships provide important tools for the retention of outstanding faculty; thanks to the generosity of our dedicated alumni and friends, five new endowed chairs and professorships have been established in the past three years. The College of Engineering has also hired 24 new tenure­track (TT) and 11 non­tenure­track (NTT) faculty members since Fall of 2009 (for a net growth of 4.3 TT FTE and 9.5 NTT FTE, respectively). Half of the tenure­track hires were members of university­wide research clusters which offer immediate interdisciplinary collaborators and provide financial support to make the hires. In fact, while the CoE is home to 5.8% of all tenured and tenure­track faculty in the University of Iowa, its share of cluster hires is 19.4%. This demonstrates the interdisciplinary, collaborative, and research­oriented character of our faculty. The non­tenure­track faculty focus on excellence in teaching, and provide the teaching capacity needed to accommodate the large increase in undergraduate enrollment.

The College eagerly awaits the completion of a new addition to the Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences that has been inspired and justified by the impressive enrollment growth and thriving research programs (Figure 3). The $37 million, 65,000­square­foot addition will adjoin the current Seamans Center and extend the complex southward, toward Burlington Street. Funding for the building expansion will be a partnership among individual donors, corporate donors, the university, and college research centers. It will enable further growth and innovations. It includes showcase space for collaborative teaching and learning, new state­of­the­art classrooms, and critical new research space for high impact research centers and programs. Specific issues that will be addressed by the new building include: classroom needs, collaborative Learning Spaces, welcoming environment for student success, and fluid mechanics.

The past six years have been a time of record fund­raising for the College of Engineering thanks to the commitment and generosity of our alumni and friends who are inspired to become part of the exciting activities and developments in the College. In the six­year period comprised by FY 2011 through 2016, the average annual fund­raising productivity has been $9M, with a peak year of nearly $15M. As a basis for comparison, the average annual fund­raising productivity for the previous 6­year period of FY 2005 – 2010 was $4.5M. The private donations have provided a critical resource for the College of Engineering and have enabled a number of important developments, such as: 1) undergraduate scholarships to attract a diverse and excellent student body; 2) programmatic support for the Grand Challenges Scholars, The Nexus for Engineering and the Arts; 3) funds for the establishment of new chairs and

Figure 3. Rendering of the addition to the Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences.

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professorships to recognize outstanding faculty; and 4) funding for the new building addition that is currently under construction.

Opportunities (Future Directions). The College of Engineering is emerging from a strategic planning period (2010 – 2016) in which the faculty and staff set aggressive, transformative targets on numerous fronts. For many of the strategic metrics (undergraduate enrollment, number of female and underrepresented minority students, number of national and international awards, funding gained through private donations, etc.), the “stretch” targets were surpassed by a wide margin, and the faculty must be commended for their remarkable efforts and outcomes (Appendix Figure 1). For other metrics, such as the total research expenditures, the targets were not met (since the research funding remained relatively flat when the target was for aggressive growth), however the outcome was healthy considering the funding trends around the country and in other colleges on campus. Strategic metrics that were not met include total number of tenure track faculty, number of women and minority faculty, and number of PhD students. It is important to make progress in these areas during the next strategic planning period that will begin next year.

The enrollment growth of the past six years should set the stage for growth in the number of faculty during the next strategic planning period. The current student­to­faculty ratio is unsustainably high, and it is important to have a net growth of twenty tenure track faculty even without further growth in enrollment. Since the university’s general education fund, which supports faculty salaries, is generated primarily from tuition (including engineering differential tuition), the enrollment growth itself can directly support the hiring of additional faculty. However, the College of Engineering has not been provided funding for additional faculty lines. This growth in the number of engineering faculty is strategic for the University of Iowa in many ways. For example, 1) appointing new engineering faculty guaranteed to be research­productive will directly enhance the research metrics that determine our standing in national associations such as the Big10/CIC conference and the Association of American Universities; 2) it will lead to the enhancement of our graduate programs to produce PhD graduates in scientific and technical areas critical to the future of the state, the nation, and the world; and 3) it will create new educational opportunities for undergraduate students from across campus to enhance their understanding of technology in a manner that will enable their future no matter what field they study or career path they choose.

This Self­Study is intended to be an overview of the state of the College of Engineering. It is intended to inform the committee of internal and external advisors charged with reviewing the College. Following this introductory section, the Self­Study will provide an overview of 1) Research Scholarship and Innovation; 2) Undergraduate Education; 3) Graduate Education; 4) Community Engagement; 5) Marketing and Communications; and 6) Faculty and Staff Development. The support the College provides to improve the diversity and welcoming environment of the College is integrated throughout all sections of the document. For each section, the opportunities available are briefly presented. The discussion of opportunities is expected to be only the first step towards a more complete analysis of the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) that will be part of the upcoming College­wide strategic planning process.

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II. Research Scholarship and Innovation

The College of Engineering is involved in a broad variety of research activities, in line with the disciplinary focus of the individual departments and programs. Specific to our College, many of our research endeavors have a strong interdisciplinary component. Currently, 31 engineering faculty members (34%) hold secondary and tertiary appointments in other Engineering departments and UI colleges, including Business, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, Public Policy Center, and Urban and Regional Planning. Research taking place at the College is driven by the desire to solve real­world problems, by understanding of the societal needs, as well as by scholarly curiosity driving basic research. There are several main areas of focus that can be identified together with the departmental affiliation (Table 1).

Table 1. Departmental research focus areas Biomedical Engineering Biomedical Imaging Biomaterials Cardiovascular Biomechanics Cellular Engineering Genomics, Bioinformatics, and Systems Biology Human Modelling & Simulation Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Mechanobiology

Civil and Environmental Engineering Driver decision making Emerging contaminants groundwater cleanup Environmental biotechnology Fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants Flood mitigation and prevention Hydroclimatology Hydroinformatics Nanotechnologies for water monitoring and treatment Optimization of structural and mechanical systems Structural health monitoring Surface transportation infrastructure Water and wastewater treatment and reuse Water quality monitoring Water sustainability Watershed and nutrient management

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Air pollution Atmospheric chemistry Biocatalysis Biochemical engineering Biofilm engineering and control Biofuels Biomaterials Drug delivery Extremophile biotechnology Medical devices Nanotechnology Oxidative stress in viral infections Photopolymerization Polymer reaction engineering Supercritical fluids

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Additive Manufacturing Aerodynamics Big Data Analytics Biological/biomimetic locomotion in fluids Energy and Fuels Fluid mechanics Health Care Systems Human Factors Information Visualization Machine Learning Manufacturing and Materials Processing Mechanical Systems Production Systems Reliability and Design Thermal­Fluid Engineering Wind Power

Electrical and Computer Engineering Communication Systems and Computer Networks Computational Genomics Controls and Robotics Design and Test of Very­Large­Scale Integrated Circuits Environmental Sustainability and Forensics High Performance Optoelectronics for Chemical Sensing and Energy Applications Informatics Large Scale Intelligent Systems Medical Imaging Nonlinear Optics Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems Reliable Computing Systems Signal Processing Sensor networks Software Engineering Wireless communication

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In addition to departmental research, Centers and Institutes associated with the College conduct research in several unique areas (Table 2). A full discussion of the centers is provided in separate self­studies and only a brief overview is provided here.

Table 2. College of Engineering (CoE) Research Centers and Institutes IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering (IIHR, 23 affiliated CoE faculty members) Environmental hydraulics Fluid dynamics Air and water resources Environmental engineering and science Water sustainability

Center for Computer­Aided Design (CCAD, 17 affiliated CoE faculty members) Advanced Driving Simulation Operator Performance research Virtual Soldier research Musculoskeletal Imaging, Modeling, and Experimentation Reliability and Sensory Prognostic Systems BioMechanics of Soft Tissues Advanced Manufacturing Technology

Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging (IIBI, 20 affiliated CoE faculty members)Biomedical imaging – CT, MR, PET, ultrasound, OCT, X­ray, etc Biomedical image analysis 3D, 4D, Virtual and Augmented reality visualization

Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB, 5 CoE affiliated faculty members)Bioinformatics research related to the basic biological sciences Bioinformatics research related to applied medical research Collection, quality control, analysis, archive and searching of molecular and clinical data

IIHR has been home to innovative hydraulic research since 1920, when a small model laboratory was opened on the banks of the Iowa River in downtown Iowa City. Research activities expanded rapidly, and by 1928 a larger Hydraulics Laboratory replaced the original small structure. With this proud 95­plus­year history of research and innovation, IIHR looks to a future that promises to be even more exciting. The institute is now home to a steadily growing, broadening research program. About 55 PhD research engineers and scientists work with about 90 graduate students on cutting­edge fluids­related research. IIHR offers state­of­the­art computational simulation and laboratory modeling capabilities, as well as field observational research. This encourages application of an expanding range of approaches for the investigation and solution of a wide spectrum of flow problems, with unmatched opportunities for students and researchers.

IIHR is a world­renowned center for research, education, and public service, focusing on hydraulic engineering and fluid mechanics. The study of water, one of the world’s most precious resources, is a field of growing global importance. IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering claims a major role in international research efforts related to fluids. The institute is a globally recognized center for education, research, and public service focusing on hydraulic engineering, fluid mechanics, and hydroscience. IIHR faculty, researchers, and students work together to study water and other fluids, and to understand the many ways in which fluids impact our lives and our environment — research that will clearly be relevant and necessary for many decades to come.

IIHR researchers are at the forefront of cutting edge research in many areas, including several multimillion dollar, multi­year programs, some of which have spanned decades: Ship hydrodynamics; Artificial heart valves and blood flow in humans; Fish passage at hydroelectric dams; The history of hydraulics and fluid mechanics. New research areas continue to advance, including water quality, water sustainability, flood research, groundwater modeling, and more. IIHR’s research program can be broken

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down into five general subject areas, with considerable overlap and many interdisciplinary links, including environmental hydraulics; fluid dynamics; air and water resources; environmental engineering and science; and water sustainability.

IIHR has experienced significant growth during the past decade, from about $7.5M in expenditures in fiscal year 2004 to about $20M in each of the past several years. This can be accounted for through significant efforts to diversify, grow, and maintain IIHR programs. The most significant growth has occurred since 2008 and included the addition of the Iowa Flood Center in 2009, the commissioning of the wave basin facility in 2010, the addition of all Water Sustainability Initiative faculty to IIHR in 2013, and the transition of the Iowa Geological Survey to IIHR in 2014. To sustain its leadership role and vitality in globally significant research— whether in traditional research areas or in new emerging fields— the institute pursues diversification in subject areas as well as funding sources.

The mission of the Center for Computer­Aided Design (CCAD) is to conduct basic and applied research across multiple disciplines of modeling and simulation of engineering systems. The overall mission is for CCAD researchers to research and design technologies for people to create a better future. The Center is organized into seven research programs, each of them managed by at least two researchers. The research program in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMTech) conducts cutting­edge research and development aimed at advancing and exploring next­generation manufacturing technologies, with an initial focus on model­based manufacturing and bio­manufacturing. Biomechanics of Soft Tissues (BioMOST) contributes to the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases of the soft tissue structures in the human body by drawing upon principles of engineering mechanics. Musculoskeletal Imaging, Analysis, and EXperimentation (MIMX) research program is a collaborative effort directed at computational modeling of anatomic structures. A primary objective is to automate the development of patient­/subject­ specific models using a combination of imaging and modeling techniques, with particular emphasis on finite element modeling. The National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) is a self­sustained transportation safety research center at the University of Iowa’s Research Park. NADS utilizes its suite of world­class driving simulators and instrumented vehicles to conduct research studies for the private and public sectors. The Operator Performance Laboratory (OPL) research program is a simulation and flight testing organization that has developed an infrastructure aimed at providing low­cost distributed flight simulation and flight test services. Reliability Sensory Prognostic Systems (RSPS) research program focuses on uncertainty quantification in mechanical systems with interests in reliability, fracture mechanics, and the general topic of computational mechanics. The Virtual Soldier Research (VSR) program is a world­class research organization comprising a multi­disciplinary team of faculty, professional staff, and students the expertise of which spans a variety of fields, including computer science, computer graphics, physiology, engineering, biomechanics, robotics, and optimization. VSR balances cutting­edge research with customer­driven product development in the field of digital human modeling. As an independent research group within CCAD, VSR was established to develop new technologies in digital human modeling and simulation. As one of the research units of the College, CCAD would be a primary location on campus where classified research can be conducted if such a direction is chosen in the future.

The Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB) aims to catalyze the development of new areas of study and expanded research opportunities in informatics areas related to the basic biological sciences, and applied medical research. Founded in 2002 as a joint enterprise spanning the Colleges of Engineering, Medicine, and Liberal Arts and Sciences, the CBCB involves faculty from 7 Colleges, and more than 22 departments. It serves as a coordinating home for interdisciplinary research, undergraduate, pre­ and post­doctoral training, as well as faculty recruiting and professional

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development. At the hub of an inherently interdisciplinary field, the goal of the CBCB is to assist in overcoming traditional disciplinary hurdles to collaboration and assist in utilizing state of the art instrumentation and analysis methods needed by 21st century biomedical and basic science research. CBCB’s research focuses on developing novel state of the art practice of bioinformatics that involves collection, quality control, analysis, archiving and searching of molecular and clinical data. The CBCB has extensive data storage and processing capabilities, as well as a wealth of installed and maintained software analysis tools to enable research and experiment execution at the leading edge of modern biomedical research. It heralded the advent of an intense effort to characterize genome sequence data through systematic computational analyses including comparative analysis of data obtained from genome and transcriptome sequencing, high­throughput gene expression assays, and proteomics. CBCB’s research includes the investigation of the genome location, 3­D structure, possible mutations of genes, inter­species comparisons, and what these factors might indicate about gene function. Additional areas of emphasis include pathways and systems biology; disease, drugs, and therapies; "new Data" – the need for discovering new genes has motivated the development of many novel wet­lab and in­silico techniques; and computational Infrastructure and techniques.

The mission of the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging (IIBI) is to foster efficient and cooperative inter­disciplinary and cross­college research and discovery in biomedical imaging, and to improve training and education within the broader community at the University of Iowa. IIBI was formed in 2007 as a joint initiative of the Colleges of Engineering and Medicine. Its formation reflects a strong institutional support for biomedical imaging and image analysis as well as for translational medical research. The IIBI brings together more than 40 faculty members (out of which over 25 hold faculty positions in the Carver College of Medicine, 15 hold faculty positions in the College of Engineering with a primary expertise in biomedical image analysis) and over 60 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. IIBI focuses on the following research areas: imaging/image acquisition (MR/CT/PET/ultrasound/OCT/IVUS/optical); quantitative medical image analysis (pulmonary, neuro, cancer, cardiovascular, orthopaedic, and ophthalmic, etc) generally­applicable methodology for image analysis; translational medical research using imaging of small and large animal models, humans; and imaging informatics.

IIBI is newly housed in two stories of a 100,000 sq.ft. building that was opened in October 2014. The IIBI space in this new building (30,897 sq.ft.) is devoted to human, large, and small animal imaging, image analysis, computational support, and visualization. The IIBI space in the new building forms a new integrated home for a large number of biomedical imaging research projects at the University of Iowa and further enhances close interaction within the University of Iowa biomedical imaging community. The first 7 years of IIBI’s existence demonstrate a clear success of UI’s bold decision to invest in interdisciplinary biomedical imaging and establish IIBI. IIBI organization and new space in PBDB have facilitated a number of device acquisitions, allowed to extend and further enhance industrial partnerships and thus diversifying research funding portfolio beyond NIH in the area of biomedical imaging, and contributed to new company startups supporting Iowa’s economic development. IIBI is reporting a notable upslope in external research funding at the time when funding for the rest of the UI is flat or even decreasing, IIBI facilitated unprecedented growth in interdisciplinary research, with truly joint 50­50 faculty positions between colleges. IIBI’s collaboration with other universities, UI cluster hire initiatives, and involvement in large Center and Network grants of the NIH provide excellent position for the UI to compete for large Program Project and Training grants. IIBI plays an important recruiting role for the UI and has already helped recruit the new head of Radiology.

Seventy­two Engineering faculty members (76%) have affiliations with 16 major university research centers and institutes (including the four above). Faculty in the College of Engineering are associated

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with many different cross­college and multi­institutional research centers and programs, including: the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing; Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research; Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination; Center for International Rural and Environmental Health; Environmental Health Sciences Research Center; Heartland Center for Occupational Health and Safety; Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center; Iowa Superfund Research Program; John and Marcia Carver Nonprofit Genetic Testing Laboratory; Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute at UI; NSF Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis; Optical Science and Technology Center; Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory; Project 3000 ­­Finding every man, woman and child affected with Lebers Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) in the U.S.; Public Policy Center; and simulation@iowa­ center for computer simulation excellence.

The College of Engineering has reached or exceeded the targets specified by the 2011­2016 strategic plan in the number of faculty/staff research awards and in numbers of proposals submitted (Table 3). The worsening extramural funding nationwide has contributed to the flat level of the overall research expenditures where the College as a whole remained at the generally same research dollar amounts as 5 years ago. While not reaching the desired increases in research funding, the flat level funding outcome is consistent with funding levels at other University of Iowa colleges, almost none of which has seen substantial increases in funding.

Table 3. Key strategic planning metrics regarding research (College of Engineering 2014­2015 Annual Report)

Key Metric Baseline2010­11 2011­12 2012­13 2013­14 2014­15

College Target 2015­16

Number of national or international awards for faculty & staff

3 12 9 12 17 6

Number of research proposals submitted 301 349 331 327 369 360

Research expenditures $51 million

$50 million

$56 million

$54 million

$50 million

$60 million

Number of peer­reviewed publications per faculty per year 3.5 3.2 3.4 3.5 3.7 4

To put the success of College research funding into perspective relative to the other colleges at the University of Iowa, the College has maintained a very high research funding performance level per faculty member. The College ranks second in total federal grant $ per faculty (behind the College of Public Health), second in total (federal and non­federal) grant $ awards per faculty, and is first in the number of funded grants per faculty. This demonstrates the high performance of engineering faculty despite the small size of the College and the competitive environment for federal funding.

Competition for federal funding is becoming increasingly competitive and faculty are forced to submit more proposals for the same level of funding. The success rate per application has been decreasing over the last five years. Figure 4 shows that while the numbers of submitted research grant proposals is increasing, the success rate is not. Rather, the success rate for all new research proposals and all competitive renewal proposals has decreased from 53% to 44% ­ demonstrating the overall more

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challenging funding landscape for the CoE faculty. The funding situation is generally the same if only federal sources of research funding are considered (Appendix Figure 10).

Figure 4. Annual CoE research applications submitted to all funding sources (left axis) and funding rate (right axis)

While the success rate has been decreasing in the increasingly competitive research funding environment, the overall trend of total research dollars and size of the individual awards has been growing over the years. Appendix Figure 11 and Appendix Figure 12 show the 5­year and 10­year comparisons. Over the last five years, the total awards to the college increased from $24M in FY2011 to $28M in FY2015. Over the same time period, the size of the average award has increased from $118,000 to $126,000. Other than FY2010, the trends are different for the 10­year and 5­year periods, showing the more positive trends achieved in the past five years compared to years 2005­2010. Research funding in FY2010 was anomalously high (almost twice the total dollars of other years) because of the ARRA economic stimulus brought an influx of research funds to the College.

The funding success rates vary by department. Departments with high percentages of faculty associated with a center or institute, especially with IIHR and CCAD that offer an excellent research support infrastructure, are generally more successful in obtaining the funding once an application is submitted. Figure 5 illustrates the number of submitted applications per faculty during the FY 2015. Faculty in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) had the highest success rate (70%). It also offers an interesting comparison of the numbers of applications submitted per faculty member of each department per year, indicating the differences in grant submission size and complexity as well as in the success rate. For example, departments that submit larger research proposals to the NIH (BME, ECE)

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tend to submit smaller numbers of applications and have a lower success rate. When successful however, the dollar sizes of the awards are typically larger than awards from NSF or some other sources.

Figure 5. Grant and contract application success (normalized by faculty headcount)

The federal government is the largest source of research funding to the College of Engineering, followed by funding from industry, state government, educational institutions (which are most frequently pass­through federal funds) and private/non­profit organizations. Other sources of funding are negligible. The same finding remains true if only the CoE centers and institutes are considered.

For the 2011­2015 period, the agencies of the federal government provided $74M in research funding. Other sources combined account for less than half that value. MIE captured the largest share of federal funds ($18M) and also the largest share of total funding ($30M). CEE had a similar high level of funding ($28M) and captured the largest share of state funding in the College, primarily due to the Iowa Flood Center, led by faculty in CEE and housed in IIHR­Hydroscience and Engineering (Figure 6). Both MIE and CEE departments are strongly affiliated with two of the most productive research institutes at the University of Iowa: IIHR and CCAD account for $102M of the $144M in research funding attracted by the College in FY2011­2015 (Table 4).

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Figure 6. Cumulative research dollars by funding source ($M) over FY2011­FY2015, categorized by department of the PI.

Table 4. Same data as above, categorized by the affiliation of the PI with College of Engineering Centers and Institutes.

Opportunities (Future Directions)

While a more complete set of future directions and a list of recognized opportunities will emerge from the strategic planning process that will start in the near future, several future opportunities can be identified and discussed further.

Ten years ago, the College identified the opportunity to focus high­achieving undergraduates on the engineering “grand challenges” of the 21st century and this could be extended and refined for strategic initiatives in the future. Certainly, the college will continue strengthening strategic collaboration with the University’s Health Sciences colleges, including the College of Public Health, the College of Nursing, the College of Pharmacy, as well as the College of Medicine. Building on past successes, the college will

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continue to pursue cluster hires and leadership in multidisciplinary activities including large center and institute proposals.

The new Engineering Building addition promises to enhance research excellence by upgrading and expanding laboratory space and improving the capabilities and support for research computing. With the new building come opportunities to encourage faculty, students and staff to approach research in new ways. For example, the College can continue enhancing the efforts to encourage researchers (students, faculty, and staff) to think entrepreneurially and to innovate; to accelerate improvements to the information technology infrastructure for collaboration; to engage in more interdisciplinary research, within the college and across colleges; and to take advantage of the building to increase the visibility of CoE research and facilitate access of junior faculty to outside senior icon in their fields.

The future of research in the College of Engineering is vitally important to the success of the College and the University of Iowa. To raise awareness, the College will continue tracking and promoting success through scholarly productivity metrics and benchmarks (e.g., H­index, citation­based indices, impact factor of journals/conferences) and will continue to promote and highlight faculty awards for societal, national, and international impact.

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III. Student Outcomes: Undergraduate Students

The 2010­2016 College of Engineering Strategic Plan identified ten Key Metrics for achievement in the undergraduate program: enrollment growth; number of BSE degrees awarded; number of women; number of students employed by the college; number of students participating in the tutoring programs; percent of students earning minors, second majors, or certificates; percent of student with experiential learning; and career placement of first choice. Most Key Metric target goals were achieved, many before the last year of the plan (Table 5). One exception is the number of students completing Honors Theses. Support for exceptionally talented students through honors credentialing is discussed in more detail later in this section.

Table 5. Key strategic planning metrics regarding undergraduates (College of Engineering 2014­2015 Annual Report)

Key Metric Baseline 2010­11 2011­12 2012­13 2013­14 2014­15 2015­16

College Target 2015­16

Enrollment 1573 1667 1840 1996 2120 2165 2000 BSE degrees 288 261 293 353 446 ­ 370 Number of undergraduate women students 314 349 388 438 493 563 500 Number of underrepresented minority undergraduate students 94 109 121 150 201 273 160 Number of undergraduate students employed by the College 151 198 221 268 287 263 250 Student Development Center / Hanson Center for Technical Communications / tutoring consultants

2719/885/3836

3537/936/8080

2979/1093/7582

3847/1201/6119

4239/1234/7286 ­

3500/1100/5000

% of undergraduate students with minors, second majors, or certificates at graduation 52% 77% 47% 54% 58% ­

55%

Number of students completing honors theses prior to graduation 11 10 16 9 16 ­ 25 % of undergraduate students with experiential learning at graduation 84% 90% 86% 90% 93% ­ 90% Career placement in industry, government, graduate or professional school 96% 98% 99% 97% 94% ­ 100%

The College has very good success in retaining engineering students from year to year and to graduation (Table 6). Between the first and second years the College retains almost 90% of students, a rate better than the University as a whole. The average retention of first year engineering students to the sophomore year is 87%. The average retention from 2nd to 3rd year is 90%. The average retention from 3rd to 4th year is 91%. About 76% of students who enter the College in their first year graduate from the University of Iowa six years later (Appendix Figure 14). Again, this rate of graduation is better than the University of Iowa as a whole. Engineering students commonly complete internships and co­operatives work arrangements with industry as part of their educational experience and so it is not surprising that only 44% of engineering students graduate within four years. We have previously shown that about the same number (45%) graduate within 5 years and the remaining graduate in the next year. The success of minority students and underrepresented minority students is nearly equal to that of majority students. First­year retention and graduation rates are also better for the students in the College of Engineering relative to the University of Iowa as a whole (Appendix Figure 16).

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Table 6. Year­to­year retention rates of undergraduates in the College of Engineering.

ABET accreditation is one of the most important means of assuring engineering students’ success. ABET, formally called the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology, is the national accreditation agency for engineering. An accredited educational program is recognized by its peers as having met national standards for its development and evaluation. To employers, graduate schools, and licensure, certification, and registration boards, graduation from an ABET accredited program signifies adequate preparation for entry into the engineering profession. In fact, many of these groups require graduation from an ABET accredited program as a minimum qualification. Accreditation is also intended to protect the interests of the students, benefit the public, and improve the quality of teaching, learning, research, and professional practice. The College has maintained accreditation throughout its history, and now has six ABET accredited undergraduate programs: Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.

ABET accreditation requires a full assessment of student learning outcomes. All of the programs underwent a self­study that addressed the criteria defined by the accrediting body and hosted an on­site visit by ABET peer evaluators in the fall of 2014. The self­studies contained the responses to the criteria required by ABET – students; program educational objectives; student outcomes; continuous improvement; curriculum; faculty; facilities; and institutional support; and program specific criteria. The programs were accredited for the maximum period, with no deficiencies or weaknesses identified by the ABET reviewers in the Final Report. In fact, the ABET reviewers noted several components of the College of Engineering that were particularly impressive:

“Many students earned engineering credits prior to entering the university, with 33 percent of first­year students indicating they earned credits associated with Project Lead the Way. The College of Engineering benefits from this and other middle and high school STEM learning programs that provide opportunities for prospective students to take engineering­related courses or participate in engineering­related activities. Through these experiences, incoming students already have an understanding of the engineering profession and curriculum, which may help in­major retention.”

“Over 80 percent of undergraduate engineering students are involved in experiential learning such as internships or undergraduate research, with nearly a quarter of seniors participating in paid research positions at the time of the visit. This participation rate, which will grow significantly by the end of the next semester, is unusually high. The college is clearly committed to giving students an opportunity to experience research and to develop associated teamwork and academically­advanced thinking skills.”

“The college uses Elective Focus Areas (EFAs) which allow students to acquire advanced education in a specific area related to their major or in an area outside of common engineering curricula. This additional depth or breadth makes students more attractive to potential employers. The college uses a

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broad view of the engineering field and promotes a holistic approach to engineering career development.”

The College provides support to undergraduates through a mindful approach to the needs throughout the student lifecycle. Figure 7 illustrates the components of the lifecycle of a successful undergraduates in the College, starting with the development of a pool of future engineers through K12 Outreach all the way to the support for alumni. For each major component, the College has identified specific events or programs designed to provide excellent support. For example, the classroom experience lies at the center of the lifecycle of the successful student. To support excellence in the classroom, the College provides excellent faculty, teaching laboratories, computer facilities, teaching assistants, Elective Focus Areas (EFAs), grading support for writing assignments, and a culturally intelligent leadership program. Almost all of these support measures are investments funded directly by the college. For example, computer facilities are provided primarily by the Engineering Technologies Centers funded through the mandatory Technology Fees. Teaching assistants are provided from general education funds as well as departmental funds. Support for writing assignments in one of the required engineering core courses (Statics) is provided by the Hanson Center for Technical Communications, funded by an endowment from Tom and Nancy Hanson. The Culturally Intelligent Leadership Program was developed by the Associate Dean for Diversity and Outreach through a professional development award from the College.

Figure 7. Support provided by the College to support successful undergraduate students. The items in red are provided with the specific intention of supporting diversity initiatives. The items in blue are enriched with programming designed to support a welcoming climate for students with diverse backgrounds and needs. The items in black are long­time components of the College’s support for undergraduates.

The events and programs shown in Figure 7 are enriched or complemented by specific efforts to promote a diverse and welcoming environment. These events and programs are part of the College’s effort to provide diversity programming that is integrated throughout the student experience and available to all students, not only those students identified as underrepresented minority (URM). These

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efforts promote a culture of personalized support for the hard work required of students completing the engineering degree. For example, the College recognizes the importance of creating a community as a required component of the lifecycle of a successful undergraduate student. To support a positive community, the College provides support for student organizations, a required first semester student success course, STEM­centered living learning communities, a Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program, ice cream socials, comfortable study spaces in the Seamans Center, display boards that inform and welcome, as well as programming specifically designed for URM students such as Engineering: A Step Ahead, peer mentoring and targeted social media.

The motto of the College, “Engineering and Something More,” (also expressed as “Engineering and More”) has motivated the College to provide a variety of routes for engineering students to cultivate interests and skills beyond those required by their major. The Elective Focus Area (EFA) concept is an important example of how students, working with the faculty and departments, are required to develop depth in their curriculum that supports their life and career goals. Every student is required to submit an EFA plan in their sophomore year for approval by their faculty advisor and the department. The EFA plan includes a statement about the student’s life/career goal and a list of specific elective courses they will take to support that goal. Each engineering department has created sets of recommended courses for EFAs that students commonly cite. For example, the Department of Mechanical Engineering has developed three standard EFAs: Design; Energy and Environment; Manufacturing and Materials Processing.4 The Design EFA recommends advanced courses in engineering design and prepares students for successful careers in industries ranging from manufacturing (aerospace, automotive, biomedical, etc.) and processing of materials (metals, composites, biomaterials, etc.) to consulting and energy (power plants, wind farms, etc.). Students selecting the Design EFA are required to participate in the one­year long Program for Enhanced Design Experience and choose five courses that support development of design skills. Every department in the College provides standard EFAs as well as providing an opportunity for student tailored EFA plans.

The College’s dedication to the motto extends to support for curricular exposure beyond the offerings of the engineering departments: particularly for second majors; minors, certificates, and general education. In fact, the number of students graduating with second majors, minors and certificates is specifically included as a metric of success in the implementation of the 2010­2016 Strategic Plan. In the 2014­15 AY, 58% of engineering graduates earned such credentials. The EFA program directly supports this. Students earning a second major, minor or certificate are allowed (and encouraged) to use the 21 semester hours of the EFA to complete their secondary credential in technical units of the University of Iowa (defined as engineering, math, computer science, physical and biological sciences). Some departments also allow non­technical courses be used to satisfy the EFA and/or secondary credentials. Courses from the Tippie College of Business are among the most popular, in part because of student interest in completing a minor in business administration or the Technological Entrepreneurial Certificate.5

In the spirit of their motto, the College of Engineering Faculty voted for a revised General Education Component (GEC) to allow considerably more flexibility than had been previously allowed. This redesign opportunity was identified during the ABET review process. Prior to ~2012, ABET required that all accredited engineering programs include 15 semester hours of curriculum in the social sciences and

4 http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/mie/undergraduate­program/me­elective­focus­areas­efa 5 http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/current­students/educational­opportunities/earn­technological­entrepreneurship­certificate

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humanities. ABET changed this requirement to a more broad approach, and allowed colleges to “a general education component that complements the technical content of the curriculum and is consistent with the program and institution objectives.”6 The faculty expanded the GECs to 15 s.h. of courses offered any non­technical unit of the University of Iowa, with 3 s.h. limited to courses in a category called ‘Be Creative’ and 3 s.h. limited to the non­technical general education courses identified by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. One of the immediate outcomes of this change is the availability of the GECs to serve minors and certificates in nontechnical areas including business – freeing departments to add more technical courses to the elective focus areas.

The courses in the ‘Be Creative’ category were developed in collaboration with the arts departments and units in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Art, Creative Fiction and Nonfiction, Cinema, Dance, Music, Theater). The criterial for inclusion include support from the arts Department Executive Officer (Chair) and a goal of providing training in the skills and tools of creativity.7 This decision by faculty was consistent with a college­wide engagement with the arts, including the creation of a new position – Director of the Engineering and Art Nexus – funded by a gift from Virginia Meyers, an emeritus professor of Art and Art History. The Arts initiatives have attracted new students to the college who always wanted to include artistic design in their engineering curriculum and new employers who wish to recruit engineering graduates with training in creativity and the arts.

The engineering faculty have are deeply engaged in curricular and pedagogical innovations. Indeed, our accreditation demands it: modernization of the engineering curriculum and part of the accreditation review. While a full discussion of all the innovations occurring in the various curricula provided by the majors is beyond the scope of this self­study, a brief overview of four example course revisions is provided to illustrate the extent and variety of pedagogical innovations the college enjoys. The core engineering courses have all undergone major revision since the last self­study. Engineering Problem Solving I (ENGR:1100) became a project­focused course in 2001 and remains a centerpiece of first­year problem­based learning. The size of the course has now reached 18 sections of 30­student enrollment project sections complemented by four large (150 student) lecture section. The course is commonly cited by students for its rapid introduction to peer engineers and exposure to engineering professors the first semester of their experience at the University of Iowa. In 2014, a survey of international students showed that this course was an important experience that better integrated international students into the university experience. Engineering Problem Solving II (ENGR:1300) was redesigned in 2005 in the opposite direction: faculty removed discussion sections of this computer­intensive course and instead integrated all learning into smaller lecture sections conducted as active learning with laptop computers in front of every student. Engineering Fundamentals I: Statics (ENGR:2110) was revised to include a major writing assignment in 2005 and in 2014 was tailored to provide an opportunity for students to explore professional ethics associated with engineering failures. The inclusion of a major writing assignment early in the engineering curriculum is unusual and has been possible only with the support of the Hanson Center for Technical Communications, which provides the peer tutors and professional graders for the assignment. Lastly, Engineering Fundamentals II: Circuits (ENGR:2120) was the subject of a large lecture transformation project funded in part by the Provost and the University Office of Teaching, Learning and Technology (OTLT). The project paired a traditionally taught version of the course with a section that used electronic and online resources to dramatically increase the overall time and frequency that the students were engaged in team­based and individual problem solving. This

6 http://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation­criteria/criteria­for­accrediting­engineering­programs­2016­2017/#curriculum 7 http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/general­education­component­starting­summer­2015

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successful experiment was subject to intensive assessment coordinated by OTLT and the Office of Assessment.

The increasing undergraduate enrollment has required greater efficiency in providing the support to students at all points in the lifecycle. As enrollment has grown, more support for academic advising has shifted from faculty to professional advisors, more automation has been built into registration and advising processes, and staff have been assigned to cover more than one role.

The use of the Student Development Center has increased dramatically (Appendix Figure 12). During the 2010­2016 years, the number of students using the SDC has risen 35% and the number of visits has increased 85%. The growth in visits is partly due to the increased diversity of services offered by the SDC. In 2010, for example, the tutoring program attracted fewer students and served a smaller number of courses. The total number of visits for group tutoring has increased from about 1500 to more than 2500 (a 90% increase in the number of students and 85% increase in the number of visits). The number of students served by academic advisors has increased by 49% since 2010, primarily by first –year students. The SDC academic advisors now serve the first year students in the Biomedical, Civil & Environmental, Mechanical, and Industrial Engineering majors. Faculty advise all students starting the fall of the sophomore year. In general, the increase in SDC advising has been received positively by students and faculty and provides many opportunities to introduce new students to the many resources available in the college and to assist new students in the transition to college life. The expansion of the peer advising program, where upper­class students provide informal advice to first year students, has been particularly efficient and effective for the latter goal.

Over the past year, the College has worked closely with the MAUI team in ITS, Engineering Computer Services (ECS), and with department faculty and DEOs to design and improve systems and support for registrar data concerning engineering undergraduates. This successful collaboration resulted in significant improvements in efficiency and service to students, faculty, and departments. Changes included: automation of the admissions process between the colleges to allow for students to apply to change from CLAS to Engineering through MyUI; preparation of online pre­advising orientation sheets for new student; development of advising notes on MAUI; collaboration on the design and use of an appointment scheduler to allow students to schedule appointment through MyUI to meet with faculty and staff; automated pre­requisite checking verify successful completion of past courses and automated blocking of registration for courses were pre­requisites are not met; development and use of Universal Workflow of Engineering Focus Area (EFA) forms, allowing students to enter EFA and route it through the department; use of MAUI Notes to communicate Graduation File completion with department faculty and DEOs; and improved use of the CoE website to communicate policies; and use of MAUI system to identify GEC courses within MyUI.

Opportunities (Future Directions)

The College has identified a number of opportunities to better support excellent student outcomes for our undergraduate engineering students. First, the faculty is engaged in several initiatives to expand curricular opportunities for undergraduates. The faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering have collaborated with the Department of Computer Science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to develop a new undergraduate program in Computer Science and Engineering that will be accredited by ABET under both engineering and computer science criteria. The CSE program was approved by the Board of Regents in July 2016 and the first class will enter in August 2016. The faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have developed a similar plan for a new

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program in Environmental Engineering, also to be accredited by ABET. Presentation to the Iowa Board of Regents is expected in fall 2016.

There are additional opportunities for engagement with institutions abroad and with other colleges at the University of Iowa. Faculty in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering are collaborating with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on a capstone design course that requires students to form a team of students from both institutions and successfully complete a design project. Additional curricular opportunities include collaboration with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to offer new minors and second majors – particularly in the arts, computer science, and math; and collaboration with the Tippie College of Business to enhance engagement with the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (JPEC) and expand our offering of engineering courses at the CIMBA campus in northern Italy.

The University Honors Program revised requirements for honors­eligible activities for engineering students. In 2015, the Honors Program began recognizing student leadership activities as equivalent to honors coursework. In addition to a minimum of 6 s.h. of honors coursework, engineering students may also count mentored research, a registered internship or co­op, study abroad, and leadership roles for students in the college as part of the portfolio necessary for graduating with University Honors. Although there has been no change in the eligibility or requirements for Engineering Honors in the Major, the change made by the University Honors seems to have had the effect of increasing the number of first year students interested in accumulating achievements recognized as honors­level work. The College now has an opportunity to recruit more high school students who value this recognition. In 2015, the College began offering honors coursework for the first time. Although honors contracts have always been available, honors­only sections of the five core courses was offered for the first time. Over 100 students accepted the challenge. The decision to continue or expand the number and frequency of honors­only sections remains with the faculty.

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IV. Student Outcomes: Graduate Students

The College of Engineering maintains 6 graduate programs, each of them at MS and PhD levels:Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and Biochemical Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Industrial Engineering; and Mechanical Engineering.

Considering its size and a broad interdisciplinary approach to graduate education, the College provides a focused and nimble environment for graduate student research that benefits greatly from close linkages of all graduate programs to Centers and Institutes. The research projects that students are working on are very diverse and span from hydraulics to operator performance, biomedicine, material science, sensors, to societal health research.

Overall, the engineering research that is conducted at the College is driving widespread societal changes and affects many areas of our daily lives. The College is proud to state that the research performed at the College invariably has a very strong societal relevance.

The graduation rates for MS and PhD students are provided in the following table that compares the strategic plan targets with achieved results. As can be seen in Table 7, CoE has seen an approximately 15% decrease in the overall PhD enrollment. Note that while the numbers of graduating MS and PhD students are steady, the target numbers have not been achieved. The declining graduate student enrollment can be partly explained by a decreasing time to degree (TTD) – which is a very positive trend. Clearly a 10% decrease of TTD yields a 10% smaller enrollment assuming that shorter TTD is associated with increased productivity. Therefore, the effective decrease of PhD enrollment is close to 5% rather than the absolute number of 15%. Additionally, the numbers of both enrolled and graduating MS and PhD students are affected by the health of the economy, with more students enrolled during times of economic downturn and more students graduating with improvements in the economy.

Table 7. Key strategic planning metrics regarding graduate students (College of Engineering 2014­2015 Annual Report)

Key Metric Baseline2010­11 2011­12 2012­13 2013­14 2014­15

College Target 2015­16

PhD Enrollment 251 244 246 236 219 250 MS/PhD degrees 83/35 90/41 71/46 52/38 78/33 90/45

Median time to PhD degrees 5.3 years

5.0 years

5.3 years

5.0 years

4.7 years

5.0 years

A grand majority of the College’s graduate programs have an upward trend of PhD and overall graduation rates. The attrition rates are generally low for all programs, and below 20%.

Based on 2013­2014 enrollment figures, the percentage of underrepresented minorities out of the U.S. doctorate student pool (African American, Native American and Hispanic/Latino) was at 13%. The percentage of total women in the Engineering doctoral program was 23%. The number of female students in COE M.S. programs was higher than the national profile (Appendix Figure 19).

An overwhelming majority of our PhD and MS graduates are externally funded during their studies. As a result, students work on highly innovative cutting edge research projects, develop strong ties with

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employers in their application areas, and consequently are placed in research and development positions that take full advantage of their graduate education. Invariably, our graduates are hired into positions with very competitive salaries. Right after graduation, from 22% (CEE) to 75% (ECE) of PhD graduates accept job offers in the industry or business. Among current PhD alumni, the percentages of PhD graduates in the industry or business remain generally unchanged. From 13% (CBE) to 40% (IE) of all CoE PhD graduates hold positions in academia. All our graduate programs track their graduating PhD’s very consistently and with a great success with only a very small number of students “unreported.”

While some programs (BME, CEE) report satisfaction with the quality of graduate student applicants, the remaining programs note that the quality of the applicant pool is steadily decreasing. The quality of the applicant pool is – especially for international applicants – heavily dependent on the published USNWR rankings. The rankings of our CoE graduate programs is slowly but consistently decreasing. A detailed analysis of all factors contributing to our rankings revealed that while quantitative metrics related to research and publication performance show that our programs are competitive in comparison with higher­ranked programs, these performance metrics contribute relatively little to the final score. The final score is primarily affected by peer assessment and recruiter assessment – two metrics heavily correlated with the size of the engineering programs and geographic location.

The College’s programs focus on active recruiting of high­quality students from regional 4­year colleges and on research visibility offering cutting edge research projects to prospective students. This strategy requires each program to be more directly involved in student recruiting. Two of our programs already established graduate student recruiting mechanism – CBE and CEE. Two other programs (ECE, BME) have completed the pilot year of such a new recruiting initiative. The ECE program has been targeting regional 4­year colleges, especially students graduating with a BS/BA in physics or mathematics. The BME program has decided to establish a more pronounced Internet presence by active participation in Web­based graduate applicant fairs. Additionally, the CEE department and CBCB center have been seeking training grants to support funding for highest quality incoming students.

The value of the graduate fellowships that we provide competitive those offered by other Big 10 schools. The increasing cost of graduate research assistants has led some faculty to favor post­doctoral research assistants. At the same time, all our programs are increasingly affected by the lack of 1st year graduate student fellowships, which are common at other engineering graduate programs, this affecting our ability to compete and attract the best applicants. It is also negatively influencing our ability to attract domestic graduate students in all programs except CBE and CEE.

Active recruitment and retention efforts are a part of CoE success strategies for developing a diverse pool of graduate students. Efforts to raise funds to attract and retain graduate students include training grants for students based on significant areas of research strength, support from programs which focus on broadening participation of minorities in the professoriate, and incentives for individual graduate students to apply for and secure graduate fellowships. CoE graduate students have been supported by training programs including Department of Education Graduate Assistantships in Areas of National Need, NIH training grants in Biotechnology and in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, the NSF GEEMAP IGERT and individual NSF graduate fellowships. Most of these fellowship programs support recruitment and do not provide full funding for PhD studies, and often these programs only fund U.S. citizens.

Graduate students are supported through integration into the research labs on funded research, and to a much smaller extent through teaching assistantships and fellowships supported by the UI graduate

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college. The college is also an active participant in the UI Sloan Center for Exemplary Mentoring and continues efforts to expand best practices in mentoring across the UI campus. In recent years, with changes in availability of institutional funds to undergird graduate assistantships, successful recruitment of diverse students into the CoE programs is becoming more challenging.

In 2015/16, the Graduate College ­ working closely with the Associate Deans from the individual colleges ­ appointed faculty subcommittees in each specific disciplinary area to review the graduate programs. Engineering programs were reviewed within the group of Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Science programs, and all programs were classified into the following three categories: A) Commendable, B) Sustainable with Continued Progress, and C) Significant Changes Required. With the exception of Industrial Engineering, all the graduate programs in the College of Engineering were rated as Commendable, and numerous positive observations were made about the mentoring, professional development, and placement of the engineering graduate students. The Industrial Engineering graduate program was labeled as Requiring Significant Changes, and the department is actively considering this feedback. This department has had a number of recent positive developments, including the hiring of promising faculty who will help to enhance the graduate program. One of the new faculty, professor Dan McGehee, is the new director of the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS, a component of CCAD).

Opportunities (Future Directions)

There are opportunities to improve targeted graduate student recruiting, focusing especially on attracting domestic applicants. More effective recruiting could improve rankings of grad programs by long­term investment in visibility and peer/recruiter views of UI grad education at CoE. A more targeted approach, with appropriate marketing, could improve recruitment of high­quality students and enable the college to sustain successes in developing a diverse graduate student population. Should funds be available, there is a need to establish mechanisms increasing percentage of students who are offered 1st year scholarships/fellowships.

There are opportunities to enhance the prominence of graduate education in the College of Engineering fund­raising efforts. Success in fundraising could be applied to increase the number of named graduate scholarships and fellowships, increase the number of named scholarships for underrepresented minorities, and could provide a means for internally funding 1st­year graduate students or graduate tuition scholarships.

The College has successfully attracted graduate students with fellowships from the National Science Foundation. There is an opportunity to enhance this by providing reward mechanisms to support development and submission of graduate student training grants from NSF, NIH, and other sources. Similarly, the College could encourage each program to submit an NRT or similar training grant application and to develop incentives for preparing training grant applications. As an example, the recently submitted NRT application from the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering has received an excellent score and is expected to be funded starting Fall 2016. Success of these training programs is also based on recruiting a diverse pool of students for which federal agencies hold programs accountable. Ethnic Inclusion and WiSE have a proven track record of integrative programs to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment in CoE. The diverse graduate community is supported with

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networking and professional development opportunities which are valuable to graduate student success.

The College has the opportunity to develop new reward mechanisms to support and promote the CoE focus on graduate education and mentoring of graduate students. Enhancing the College of Engineering graduate programs will support the University of Iowa’s clear priority of bolstering our AAU metrics. Increasing the number of research­active engineering faculty, including creation 8–10 new endowed chairs and professorships directly supports these metrics. In the next strategic planning period, which begins fall of 2016, more targeted metrics can be established for the graduate program. For example, the College and the departments could establish expectations that one new PhD student is brought to UI by research­active faculty member each year, that we graduate 0.6 PhDs per faculty member per year.

The College recognizes the opportunity to diversify the graduate education offering masters degrees, short courses, and online courses targeting the professional engineering community. Although the faculty resources do not current exist, with appropriate formal support mechanisms, the College is well positioned to develop Professional Master Degrees and Short­Courses for local industry and to develop online graduate courses for professionals located elsewhere. The Tippie College of Business could be an excellent partner to extend such initiatives to include dual­degree grad programs in engineering and business.

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V. Community Engagement

Outreach activities provide state and national visibility for the college of engineering as we demonstrate leadership in addressing the broader impacts of an engaged research institution. Faculty, staff, and students are inspired to conduct societally meaningful work and to realize those impacts in close proximity to their own learning and scholarship. In June of 2013, the College of Engineering established a new Associate Dean for Diversity and Outreach role to enhance and leverage programs that promote inclusion throughout the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pipeline. The diversity and outreach group provides strategies and support for creating a welcoming environment for learning and scholarship within the college and across campus as well as for emerging STEM participants from the K­12 sector. In supporting these efforts, the College welcomed Women in Science and Engineering, Project Lead the Way, First Tech Challenge, Admissions and First Year Experience into this group. In addition, a Scholarships and Recruitment Coordinator and a Diversity and K­12 outreach coordinator, as well as an Administrative Assistant were hired. The diversity and outreach team was named the Outreach, Admissions, Scholarships and Inclusion Services (OASIS) unit. The OASIS unit enables the College to address critical issues of increasing the pathways for students into STEM with the sustainable support systems that enable participants of all ages (pre­K­12, college, graduate students, and beyond) to thrive. Herein we describe the activities, challenges and opportunities of being a publicly engaged college of engineering from the perspective of our personnel, infrastructure, collaborators and other stakeholders in community engagement.

College of Engineering faculty and academic programs are actively engaged in outreach to K­12 and community groups. Individuals attend STEM festivals, present their work in K­12 classrooms and fairs, travel to recruit prospective graduate and undergraduate students, and host community visitors in their laboratories. The College of Engineering OASIS group collaborates with faculty to develop outreach modules and presentations engaging diverse students. Associate Dean Peeples as well as experienced staff meet with faculty to help support outreach interests and inform of university policies. Table 8 is a representative sample of faculty and academic program outreach collaborations. A strength of the outreach work is the ability to help faculty connect their interests to on and off­campus partners and to relieve faculty of some of the worries of managing k­12 groups. Expertise and extra hands, management of logistics and management of youth policies help support development and implementation of outreach efforts. The challenge for the college is to manage increasing volumes of requests for outreach support and to prioritize efforts to align with faculty interest. A threat to faculty­led outreach is the growing demand on faculty time and energy reflected in increased enrollments and increasingly competitive funding requirements. Also significant is the need for clear mechanisms to recognize faculty contributions to this mission of community engagement. Faculty have expressed interest in more descriptive inventories of outreach resources. The campus­wide STEM outreach group is emerging in information sharing and structures to better serve the research broader impacts mission could be leveraged to help increase faculty opportunities to win competitive grants. The opportunity for faculty engagement in outreach lies in connecting the outreach to support successful grant attainment and to increase the visibility and sense of value of engaged faculty to the state of Iowa.

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Table 8. Collaborative Outreach Projects with Faculty and Academic Units Faculty Dept. Target groups Collab. ProjectIbrahim Osbalat, Asst. Prof.

MIE Female middle school students;

WiSE NSF “CAREER: Hybrid Bioprinting of Engineered Vascularized Pancreatic Tissues” BI: 3D Printing

Ed Sander, Asst. Prof.

BME URM SHPE NSF CAREER "Directing Epithelial­Mesenchymal Tissue Self­Structuring and Remodeling With Multi­scale Mechanical Interactions and Principles of Mechanobiology." BI Computer Simulations of Biomedical Systems

Michelle Scherer; Prof. and Departmental Executive Officer

CEE Female students, Girl Scouts

WiSE WiSE Extravaganza: Lego Chemistry Set activity for sustainability outreach

Julie Jessop, Professor

CBE Middle school girls

CoE ­OASIS

Open Minds Open Doors; polymers

Wilf Nixon, Professor

CEE Prairie High School 9th grade classes

CoE ­OASIS

Science Activity and Presentation: “Ese of Salt on City Streets”

Er­Wei Bai, Prof. and Departmental Executive Officer

ECE URM students, PLTW students, FTC Robotics teams

CoE ­OASIS

“Modern Marvels 3.0” Electrical and Computer Engineering Design Presentations

Pablo Carrica, Prof., James Bucholz, Asst. Prof

MIE Veterans, URM CoE –OASIS PLTW UI – Veterans specialist

Office of Naval Research Proposal Submitted; “Engaging Undergraduates and High School Students in Naval Science & Technology

Michael Schnieders, Asst. Prof.

BME URM, West Liberty

CoE –OASIS, MESA, SHPE

NSF CAREER CAREER: Understanding the Structure, Thermodynamics and Solubility of Polymer Crystals Using High­Performance Computing,” Science Fair and Coding outreach

Fatima Toor, Asst. Prof.

ECE Female Students,

CoE­OASIS, MESA, WiSE

NSF CAREER: ““Opto electronic Performance Optimization of “Black Silicon” and Perovskite Tandem Photovoltaic Cells via Internal and External Light Trapping Techniques”—solar energy camps for female students

College of Engineering research centers and institutes provide a platform for inspiring STEM educators, future STEM learners, corporate partners, community members as well as local, state at federal government officials. These centers provide engaged researchers and professional outreach staff for talks and demonstrations as well as attractive facilities for visits and tours. In addition to having friends come to visit the various UI sites,8 centers and institutes have effectively leveraged outreach efforts to fulfill the broader impacts activities associated with research grants.9 Leaders in IIHR­Hydroscience and

8 Center for Computer Aided Design (2012) “Engineering Showcases STEM Efforts to Iowa Lt. Governor” August 12, 2012 http://www.ccad.uiowa.edu/content/engineering­showcases­stem­efforts­iowa­lt­governor Accessed 04/17/2016 9 Sharif Rahman and Xuchun Ren (2014) Center for Computer Aided Design “Reliability­based design optimization of large­scale complex systems” http://www.ccad.uiowa.edu/rsps/projects/rbdo National Science Foundation.

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Engineering, CCAD, and NADS have worked independently, with campus and community outreach groups, and in collaboration with CoE staff to host visiting groups of legislators, K­12 students and teachers, corporate partners, alumni and friends of the College of Engineering. Venues include Lucille A. Carver Mississippi Riverside Environmental Research Station (LACMRERS), Stanley Hydraulics Lab, the NADS facility out at the UI research park, the IIBI in the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building, and the CCAD facility in the engineering research facility, as well as numerous labs of affiliated researchers. Of these facilities LACMRERS stands out as an educational resource drawing students from many fields of study. Notably, summer classes on water­quality are held at the LACMRERS facility as well as short courses and STEM festivals. Staff at LACMRERS have also produced manuals to assist educators in understanding current tools for water­quality modeling.

Faculty and staff in the research centers have been host for diverse students in academic year and summer research experiences. Further, the centers have taken exhibitions on the road to reach across the state of Iowa educating professionals and community members about the rich expertise from University of Iowa engineers and scientists.10 11 A strength of the centers to the outreach mission has been the ability to provide great visibility to the university and the college because of engaging exhibits. A challenge for the centers is in prioritizing and engaging the increasing volume of interest for STEM outreach across the UI campus as well as the regional and state communities. Still the center staff and faculty represent a great opportunity for leveraging external grants that help support the mission of broadening the impact of research for the public.

Student organizations engage employers through collaboration in professional development program. This would include etiquette dinners, resume writing workshops, networking sessions and general information about employment opportunities. Companies work with disciplinary professional societies as well as student organizations for women and under­represented racial/ethnic groups. Additional corporate/student interactions are facilitated through Engineering and Professional Development and Diversity Programs staff.

Project Lead the Way (PLTW™) engages K­12 teachers in a variety of programs to expand pre­engineering learning into the curriculum. The program reaches 22,823 Iowa students with 220 schools offering PLTW programming including 83 counties. In 2015 PLTW welcomed a new Diversity/Implementation Coach, Chelle Lehman. PLTW has led several programs including Principles of Engineering, Gateway to technology, Launch, Introduction to Computer Science, and Biomedical Science which have been selected as scale­up programs through the Iowa Governor’s STEM advisory Council. This has extended the reach of PLTW throughout Iowa (Figure 8). UI PLTW continues to generate revenue through the provision of college credit to high school students taking the curriculum. PLTW will be entering into partnership with the College Board who provides Advanced Placement (AP) credit. This relationship may provide opportunities to increase the value of UI PLTW credit to aspiring college students and families.

10 College of Engineering (2016) “National Advanced Driving Simulator miniSim(TM) to Be Showcased in UI Mobile Museum” http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/national­advanced­driving­simulator­minisimtm­be­showcased­ui­mobile­museum#sthash.QIB4x0I9.dpuf Accessed 04/17/2016 11 IIHR­Hydroscience and Engineering (2015) “On the Road with the Mobile Museum” http://www.iihr.uiowa.edu/blog/2015/07/10/water­underground­mobile­museum­makes­2015­debut/ Accessed 04/17/2016

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The UI College of Engineering is the Affiliate Partner of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Challenge (FTC) in the state of Iowa. This program has several great years of outreach and engagement, reaching 1500 students with 192 teams located in 63 Iowa counties (Figure 9). As and Iowa STEM Scale­up FTC hosted seven professional development workshops for coaches. FTC also hosted 55 league meets and 8 league championships, one wild­card championship, a state championship, and the Super Regional held in Des Moines, IA. FTC enjoys great diversity with 40 % female, 16% ethnic minority, and 58 % of the teams from rural communities. The Super Regional included diversity breakfasts for girls and for underrepresented students for mentoring and networking.

Figure 8. PLTW Implementation across Iowa

Efforts to make these activities sustainable include securing resources to support talented staff who are inspiring the next generation of STEM practitioners and engaging in effort to surmount barriers to engineering diversity. PLTW and FTC staff are engaging students and teachers, and these folks have increased requests for campus visits and information to be sent to their classrooms across the state. Further PLTW and FTC classes and groups from other states have invited UI to visit and partner. Determining as strategy for balancing these interests with collegiate priorities is and ongoing effort.

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Figure 9. FTC teams across Iowa

Pre­engineering (K­12) camps and programs continue to be an important element of how CoE serves the larger society. Faculty, staff and students, supported by Director of Diversity Programs and K­12 Outreach, Tracy Peterson, have hosted over 560 students (30% Female, 70% male, 45% URM) through direct STEM engagement. This includes programs such as Black Youth Achieving Excellence: WindSTEP, Upward Bound, Black Girls Do Science, Lego Learners, Lego Robotics, Tetrix Robotics, Noche de Ciencias, MESA Tutoring, Girl Scouts: Generation STEM and several others. These activities have leveraged student energy and interest to reach out to the local community. A challenge for the college is to prioritize these activities among a variety of efforts and requests and to ensure compliance with institutional policies and college policies for managing youth activities. Opportunities to align these activities with faculty interest will result in new successful research, awards which articulate excellent broader impacts plans. Local engagement activities attract the attention of corporations. Examples related to the aforementioned programs include companies such as Rockwell Collins, John Deere, General Electric, Emerson Process Management, and others who seek to hire college graduates who demonstrate leadership skills. One challenge is managing the scale of the pre­engineering camps enterprise and the number of students employed as outreach agents. The camps generate revenue to be self­supporting (excluding the director of diversity programs and K­12 outreach salary). The limitation is the space to host large numbers of students in the Seamans Center facilities. Resolving this issue has led to some innovative collaborative opportunities. The college held pre­engineering camps for the Marshalltown community in 2015. In 2016 camps will be hosted in Iowa City Community School District

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Buildings, in the Meskwaki Settlement School in Tama Iowa and for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Cedar Rapids.

A component of the undergraduate recruitment process and creating the welcoming community is to include families in the student experience. This begins with student recruitment where attention is paid to having a great visit experience for students and families, through daily meeting and through Explore Engineering events. Family engagement continues with events at homecoming and family weekend including “Party after the parade,” engineering tailgates and graduation brunches. As enrollments and interest has increased, the volume of visitors during weekdays and on special explore engineering events has increased. The college must now cap enrollments on these engagements to adequately manage the quality of the programs for participants.

Opportunities (Future Directions)

There are several opportunities to align College of Engineering outreach and engagement strategies to attract the best students and to improve the success of Iowa students who want to join the UI CoE. Increasing the quality of information and educational preparation and social acclimation of transfer students into UI may be facilitated by building on existing engagement programs, as well as development of new initiatives. CoE admissions and student success staff have hosted groups of high school counselors and community college advisors to educate them about College of Engineering programs, the admissions process, course transferability, and AP credit. Further efforts are developing as we articulate 2:2 agreements, curriculum linkages and online courses that engage future transfer students.

For departments seeking to increase recruitment of graduate students, programs to connect with 4­year colleges in Iowa may yield some success. In addition engaging talented college students who are interested in engineering credentials may attract new students.

The college is exploring the opportunity to offer college credit for students who are participating in FTC. To support this effort, activities to develop an on­line curriculum are underway. The program is scalable and flexible and accessible via a login ID and password, anytime from anywhere. The online environment is designed to provide accessibility to students for students who need content or coding review, students in remote geographies or small rural schools, and afterschool programs, camps, boys and girls clubs. The course activities align with introductory engineering problem solving and/or programming and will be another path to engage students with UI CoE.

In 2016 the Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa opened and began offering classes to high­school students. Two academies at KrCUI will provide opportunities for students to make a direct connection to UICoE, the PLTW academy and the new Engineering Academy. The Engineering PLTW Academy includes Environmental Sustainability and Civil Engineering and Architecture. The engineering academy enables students to take introductory courses (macroeconomics, business (STEM) innovator, engineering II, and engineering seminar) which map into the engineering curriculum. One UI course, “Energy and Society” (CBE:2030) is offered as a post­secondary educational option (PSEO). Outreach is a critical component of helping the College of Engineering accomplish the missions of creating the most welcoming environment for aspiring students and of developing students, faculty and staff who are the best of serving society.

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VI. Marketing and Communications

The College of Engineering established a Marketing and Communications office in the Office of the Dean in 1994 to support the College’s initiative of achieving a distinctive College identity among constituencies at the state, national, and international level. The office consists of a director of marketing and communications and a director of alumni relations and communications ­­ with additional support assigned from University Strategic Communications, the UI Alumni Association, and the UI Foundation, as needed. The primary function of the directors is to design, promote, and implement strategies to strengthen and maintain the marketing and communications, and advancement activities of the College through effective, innovative programs. Since its inception, the office has orchestrated an integrated series of core marketing and communications programs to address the needs and opportunities facing the College. These are: Corporate Relations; Government Relations; Alumni Relations; News Media Relations; Periodicals; Publications/Presentations/Web; Social Media; and Events. Through these communication programs, the College aims to 1) Achieve greater awareness and appreciation among select constituencies for the unique strengths, programs, and accomplishments of the College’s students, faculty, and alumni; 2) Increase engagement of alumni through programs that serve their interests and needs, along with programs that enhance the College’s academic, research, and service missions; 3) Increase market appeal of the College’s educational and research assets within defined segments of business and industry; and 4) Provide value­added service to business and industry by assisting in solving technical problems and exploring mutually beneficial growth opportunities.

The corporate relations program has expanded partnerships with more than 385 companies and organizations (164 Iowa locations) through experiential learning, recruitment, scholarships, student design projects, guest seminars, adjunct faculty positions, continuing education, information exchanges, briefings at the College, advisory board membership, equipment/classroom facilities, faculty consulting, sponsored research, lab use, and technology transfer. The program has advanced economic development coordination with Iowa Economic Development Authority, Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, Iowa City Area Development Group, Quad Cities First, and UI Office of Vice President for Research. For example, the College recently implemented the Engage Iowa Executive Lunch Series, bringing together key industry segments in Iowa cities to share information about the college and companies, and explore ways to further partner. The first two sessions were held in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. To meet the needs of corporate partners, the College has handled more than 25 inquiries/requests for assistance through the College CorporateConcierge program, 15 requests from Iowa employers to use the CareerConnection alumni recruitment service, and provided leadership role in the Iowa Alliance for Wind Innovation and Novel Development (IAWIND). To connect corporate friends with current students, the College participates in several competitions aimed at showcasing student success in business ventures. In 2016, the college conducted the 11th Annual Storer Engineering Student Entrepreneurial Start­up Award competition. Organizer, a collaborative software solution to improve the productivity, communication, and coordination for organ donor networks, won the $6,000 prize.

Interactions with alumni are important to the College. The College has over 14,500 alumni living in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and 81 countries. Over the last five years, the College has attracted more than 1,000 alumni, friends, and parents to Homecoming, Family Weekend, and the Party after the Parade. Recently the College hosted alumni receptions in Chicago and Denver (in conjunction with the American Chemical Society Annual Meeting); and Minneapolis (in conjunction with the Design for Medical Devices Conference). The College continues to use the 2011 College of Engineering Alumni Survey engaging more alumni in student mentoring programs, preliminary ABET alumni surveying, background

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information for alumni visits, Iowa Engineer magazine stories, news media releases and cultivating giving opportunities based on personal interests. The College is proud of the success of alumni and has expanded the The Distinguished Engineering Alumni Academy membership to 75 and the Legacy of Iowa Engineering membership to 24. In 2010, the College formed the College of Engineering Young Alumni Board to better benefit from regular dialog with highly successful recent graduates.

The College communicates to alumni through a variety of paths. College of Engineering group on LinkedIn.com has increased to 1,588 members and Engineering@Iowa Facebook page to over 539 “likes.” 2015 is the 20th year of publishing E/WEEK weekly subscription electronic email newsletter for faculty, staff, students, alumni, corporate partners, and friends. Eighty­two engineering alumni serve on collegiate, departmental, and research unit advisory boards, each meeting twice a year or more frequently. Over 100 engineering alumni participated in the Engineering Career Fairs as recruiters. Since 2013, the College has published three issues each year of Iowa Engineer magazine in an online electronic format and sent by email to all engineering alumni worldwide with a valid email address. In 2016, the College engaged alumni as judge participants for Spring Research Open House and departmental senior design projects and sponsored corporate alumni gatherings at Rockwell Collins and John Deere Dubuque.

The College provides information to the public for a variety of purposes, including student recruitment, governmental relations, and community outreach. The College’s public relations group has assisted UI Government Relations on a weekly basis, providing events, Iowa student accomplishments, programs, research, etc. for the Hawkeye Caucus legislative information programs. In the spring of 2015, the College participated in Spring 2015 Hawkeye Caucus event at the State Capitol, Des Moines. In AY 2015­16, the College provided 238 Engineering news stories and features for news media consumption, coordinated 115 news media inquiries, interviews, and requests, and assisted the College of Engineering Diversity and Outreach Office by electronically distributing new Engineering viewbook to prospective students, and by heavily promoting FIRST Tech Challenge and Project Lead the Way efforts and events. Over the last five years, the College has published or renewed 22 College publications into magazine­user­friendly interactive presentations that engage readers, expanded opportunities for College administrators to deliver key research messages (sustainability, wind energy, flood prediction, digital humans, lower back pain issues) to cover various civic group audiences (Rotary, etc.), broadened use of social media tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube) for student, alumni, and public audiences, and continued use of LinkedIn groups to transmit news announcements about College to worldwide audiences. In the last year, the College joined the national Maker movement, the umbrella term for independent inventors, designers and tinkerers around the U.S., and made 890 connections with prospective graduate students via Peterson’s Graduate Programs web and print presence.

Opportunities (Future Directions)

With a well­established set of core programs, the College is poised to continue to optimize strategies of achieving a distinctive College identity among constituencies at the state, national, and international level. In Corporate Relations, and in collaboration with the Engineering Student Professional Development program, the College intends to expand its reach among partner companies both in number and in depth of the partnerships, further utilizing key alumni who are positioned within firms that may not yet be part of a partnership. In Alumni Relations, the College will investigate development of a follow­up, comprehensive alumni survey engaging more alumni in student mentoring programs, background information for alumni visits, Iowa Engineer magazine stories, news media releases and cultivating giving opportunities based on personal interests. Survey results will provide a greater

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opportunity to identify areas of interest and need among alumni to better serve them. There is an opportunity to collaborate further with University of Iowa Strategic Communications to expand efforts to reach news media at the national and international level. Overall, the College intends to streamline and prioritize the public information process to be able to extend collegiate messages faster to constituents and receive input from constituents in a timelier manner. Because previous alumni surveys have continually indicated a hunger among graduates to engage themselves with the college, the College is well positioned to use this energy level to assist the college in reaching its objectives.

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VII. Faculty and Staff Development

Faculty and staff provide leadership to support all aspects of the College’s mission. Faculty provide leadership as Dean, Associate Deans, Department Executive Officers, Directors of Graduate Studies, Directors of Undergraduate Studies, Program Directors, and Center Directors. In addition, Faculty provide leadership and guidance to leadership through the Engineering Faculty Council and its subcommittees (Curriculum Committee, Teaching Committee, Information Technology Committee, and the Promotion and Tenure Committee). Within every department, there are additional faculty committees to guide decisions regarding curriculum, policies, and promotions. Similarly, staff members of the College provide leadership Directors of Finance, Director Human Resources, Chief Technology Officer, and many other roles. Support for professional development is essential to the success of the college. For this brief discussion of this vital activity, we focus on faculty development, recognizing the importance of professional development for the staff member who provide the means for students and faculty to excel. Full discussion of staff professional development is beyond the scope of this self­study.

Growth in enrollment has required an investment in teaching capacity. The faculty of the College of Engineering consist of 45 full professors (43.5 full time equivalent or fte), 28 associate professors (26.85 fte), 17 assistant professor (16.6 fte), 12 lecturers and senior lecturers (9.19 fte) and occasional adjunct faculty members. The 90 tenured and tenure track faculty are expected to teach, conduct research, and provide service to the profession. The 12 lecturers are primarily dedicated to teaching, although many of them contribute important service that is directly related to the teaching mission of the departments or College. Hiring of lecturers dedicated to teaching has been one of the most effective strategies for managing enrollment growth. In AY2010­11, tenured and tenure track faculty were responsible for 334 s.h. per FTE. In AY2015­16, the same category of faculty was responsible for 338 s.h. per FTE. There was a negligible change in semester hour responsibility. The tremendous growth in course demand was covered by lecturers. In AY2015­16, almost 900 s.h. was taught by lecturers.

Additional teaching capacity has occurred through summer offering of engineering courses. Most faculty members in the College of Engineering hold 9­month appointments of the fall and spring semester periods. The summer session is no longer exclusively dedicated to research and scholarship. Over the last five years, the number of engineering courses offered has increased and summer enrollment now exceeds 600 students. Faculty, including lecturers, now provide many more engineering courses in the summer sessions through local and on­line methods (see Appendix Figure 18).

As the college seeks to increase the teaching capacity for carrying out the core mission, attention has been paid to increasing and sustaining diversity in the faculty. With this goal in mind, the college established search committee best practices training for and have expanded these activities to address training on implicit bias in the faculty search process. This work is based on the research from several NSF Advance programs, includes leadership and collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Vice Provost for Faculty. The Associate Dean for Diversity and Outreach has met with every faculty search committee to provide guidance and support for the search process. With the addition of new CoE faculty (including tenure track faculty and lecturers) , the College of Engineering tenure track female faculty have had a net increase of 25% from 2011 to 2015, and one female lecturer has been hired. Underrepresented minority tenure­track faculty have increased 33% from 2011 to 2015, and one underrepresented minority lecturer has been hired. Women representation in the faculty and

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staff at executive levels in the college of engineering have increased 300% over the same time period and one underrepresented minority has been added to that group.

As faculty teaching capacity increased, so has the demand for training in effective strategies for managing large classes and multiple sections. The College has partnered with the Office of Teaching, Learning and Technology, and with the Division of Continuing Education (DCE) to provide professional development and technological support. In fall 2013 and spring 2015, the College sponsored a lunchtime discussion among faculty who had developed new methods. The discussion series, “Engineering Lecture and Something More” was widely attended and introduced additional faculty members to the opportunities for professional development in their teaching role.

The College recognizes the necessity of providing support for faculty development. The College invests in developing the developing pool of future faculty members, recruiting, community building, research, teaching, service, professional development, career shifts, and post­retirement engagement. For example, with respect to research, the College recognizes that research facilities, graduate assistants, grant accounting, and grant preparation support are necessary components to support successful faculty­led research. This support is provided through the College of Engineering research institutes (IIHR­Hydroscience and Engineering and the Center for Computer Aided design, CCAD) and through departmental administration. Additional support is provided through partnerships with the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, particularly pilot and bridge funding, grant workshops, IRB support, and equipment or matching funds.

The College of Engineering also recognizes the importance of professional development for staff who support the academic and research missions of the College. Investment in staff development results in greater engagement of the staff which leads to higher levels of productivity and service. In the past five years, the College has designated funds to support professional development activities for staff in the academic and administrative departments of the college. Staff have attended conferences sponsored by professional organizations in fields such as human resources (College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, Society for Human Resources Management), financial management (National Association for College and University Business Officers), alumni relations (Council for Advancement and Support of Education), and academic advising (Iowa Academic Advising Network, National Association of Foreign Student Advisors, NACADA). Similarly, the research centers also support staff participation in professional development activities and organizations related to research administration. For example, staff have attended conferences sponsored by the National Council of University Research Administrators and have held leadership positions in that organization; other staff with responsibility for human resources functions have attended CUPA­HR and SHRM conferences. After attending developmental events, staff are expected to share their learning with colleagues when they return, so that the benefit extends beyond the staff members who attend the event. In addition to attending off­campus development programs, staff are encouraged to participate in a wide variety of on­campus developmental opportunities provided by the University. Recently, our Director of Finance has completed the Executive Leadership Academy sponsored by University Learning & Development. Others in supervisory roles have attended an Advanced Management Series. Many more staff have attended programs including a Business Process Series, Human Resources Fundamentals, Supervising Today's Students, and Building our Global Community courses. All of these programs provide

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opportunities for staff to enhance their skills and stay abreast of developments in their fields of expertise, and their participation also increases engagement and loyalty to the College.

Opportunities (Future Directions)

While the college of engineering faculty has had net increases in diversity over the past five years, efforts to reach higher levels of female representation should be ongoing. This is important in recruitment, retention and career advancement of faculty. Continued efforts to unpack the challenges in completing successful hires of diverse faculty should be ongoing. The increase of diverse leadership within the college is an asset that can support recruitment efforts. Providing faculty with more opportunities to build skills in creating a welcoming environment can also support these goals.

The College of Engineering has benefited from faculty members who complete leadership training yet there is an opportunity for greater impact in research, teaching and service both locally and nationally should more faculty participate. Programs that have provided excellent value include those offered by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC /Big1O) for department chairs and rising academic leaders; the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) workshops for teaching; the Executive Leadership for Academic Technology and Engineering (ELATE) for women leaders; and programs for DEOs and other faculty offered by the Office of the Associate Provost for Faculty.

Support for faculty engagement in fundraising may be appropriate as the College completes the fundraising necessary for the new addition. Faculty, including DEOs and Center Directors, have had limited exposure to training on fundraising and institutional development. There is significant interest, however, and training opportunities for faculty leaders could be productive, especially as the enrollment and number of faculty grows.

Engineering departments have been very successful in nominating faculty for prestigious national and international awards yet there are additional opportunities unmet. For example, a list of national and international awards recognized by the Association of American Universities was recently circulated and may be used to help target nominations. Additional lists of desirable awards could be constructed to assist a College­wide committee in identifying award opportunities. The need for this activity is important and necessary for the University of Iowa to remain recognized as one of the nation’s best Research 1 Public Universities.

Professional development and support for teaching innovations have been promoted through the workshops mentioned above as well as internal activities such as the Engineering Lecture and Something More (ELSM), a seminar series for engineering faculty to share innovative methods used in their courses. This approach could be extended to faculty in the College of Liberal Arts who teach courses required for engineering degrees. Engagement of math faculty under the auspices of ELSM was productive in 2013 and a good example of the opportunities moving forward for greater collaboration and exchange between faculties in both colleges.

In 2014 and 2015, the College of Engineering­ in collaboration with the Office of Teaching, Learning and Technology and the Division of Continuing Education – provided overload and summer support to faculty who prepared major transformations of their courses to online formats, flipped classroom styles, and other active learning and student­centered methods. The success of those efforts, measured by

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assessments completed by the faculty and by the Office of Assessment as well as feedback from students, point to an opportunity for expansion to additional faculty.

As discussed above regarding opportunities for research expansion, there is increasing need for direct engagement with funding agencies and potential research collaborators long before the release of a call for proposals. Research faculty and staff would benefit from training and support for organizing interdisciplinary and multi­institutional research teams and for participating in agency discussions that can influence agency decisions about strategic directions for future funding.

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VIII. Appendix

1. Progress on the 2010­2016 Strategic Plan

Appendix Figure 1. Metrics tracked by the 2010­2016 College of Engineering Strategic Plan.

Appendix Figure 2. College of Engineering undergraduate enrollment 2009­2015

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Appendix Figure 3. Underrepresented minority undergraduates

Appendix Figure 4. Undergraduate women

Appendix Figure 5. Undergraduate students employed by the College as tutors, research assistants, teaching assistants, help desk staff, peer advisors and mentors, and other support services

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Appendix Figure 6. College of Engineering full time equivalent faculty (FTE). The 2016 goal was 100.

Appendix Figure 7. National and International faculty awards

Appendix Figure 8. Faculty diversity

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Appendix Figure 9. College of Engineering fundraising

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2. Research and Scholarship Metrics

Appendix Figure 10. Annual CoE research applications submitted to federal granting agencies (left axis) and success rate (right axis) for FY 2011­2015

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Appendix Figure 13. University of Iowa research awards by funding source ($M)

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3. Undergraduate Graduation and Retention Rates

Appendix Figure 14. Graduation rates for students entering in 2009, First year retention rates for students entering in 2014.

Appendix Figure 15. Graduation rates for students entering in 2009, First year retention rates for minority students entering in 2014.

Appendix Figure 16. Graduation rates for students entering in 2009, First year retention rates for underrepresented minority students entering in 2014.

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4. Student Data and Enrollment Trends

Appendix Figure 17. Enrollment by major

Appendix Table 1. Change in semester credit hours by College, AY2009­10 and AY2014­15.

Appendix Figure 18. Enrollment in summer engineering courses

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Appendix Figure 19. Snapshot of Student Diversity. College of Engineering Data formatted for direct comparison with ASEE reports. For racial and Ethnic Diversity, percentage are based on the population of students who are U. S. citizens.

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5. Use of the Student Development Center: Data and Trends

Appendix Figure 20. Use of the Student Development Center (SDC) by individual student counts (left) and total visits (right).

Appendix Figure 21. Academic advising visits.

Appendix Figure 22. Tutoring Center visits. There has been a 90% increase in the number of students using the service since 2010, with an 85% increase in the number of visits to the tutoring center.

Appendix Figure 23. Peer advising visits. During AY2013­2014, the first year of this program, 71 used the service. In Fall 2015, the Peer Advisors served 165 students.

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6. Workforce Diversity Data

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Sources: Engineering Administration (Deans, Departmental Executive Officers, and Center Directors) and Managerial Staff (Directors of Finance, Human resources, Chief Technology Officer, Marketing & Communications, Facilities, Nexus of Engineering & Art) information was compiled from College of Engineering data. Other workforce data was compiled by the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity (EOD). This includes University of Iowa workforce data including all regular, full-time and part-time employees working 50% time or more (in accordance with Iowa Board of Regents guidelines) on the annual data snapshot date of each year. This EOD data uses federal guidelines prescribed by the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs.

Note: Other University reports may use different data sources and definitions; thus, prudence should be used when comparing this data to other workforce-related reports. Deans, directors, and departmental executive officers are counted as Executive, Administrative, and Managerial Staff and are not included in counts of faculty, regardless of whether they also hold faculty rank.

Appendix Figure 24. College of Engineering faculty and staff workforce data 2011­2015. Source: University of Iowa Chief Diversity Office, April 2016.

7. College of Engineering Organizational Chart

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