Using Discourse Analysis to Study a Cross‐Disciplinary Learning Community: Insights from an IGERT Training Program

A major challenge for fostering integrative cross‐disciplinary collaborations at the graduate level arises from the divergent exposure and training of students from uni‐disciplinary graduate programs. In this report, we present the design and preliminary analysis of an experimental forum to facilitate cross‐disciplinary discourse within a NSF‐sponsored Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT) at Rutgers. This forum brings together IGERT Graduate Training Fellows and faculty from four diverse graduate programs in the engineering area and four related programs in life sciences and physical sciences for structured seminars and interchanges. Our report offers methodological and analytical tools grounded within a conceptual framework for promoting discourse that integrates content across diverse disciplines as well as across levels of inquiry. Both the theoretical framework and the research tools may be valuable to others seeking to develop integrative training environments for coalescing learning communities between engineers and their collaborators.     

Developing Criteria for an On‐Line Learning Environment: From the Student and Faculty Perspectives*

The research literature abounds with articles about distance learning from the perspectives of students, faculty, and administrators. Most of these articles discuss the details of transitioning to on‐line learning environments. Research is beginning to pay attention to quality issues in distance learning. This article discusses a three‐phase developmental study conducted in a graduate school. Students were asked to brainstorm and develop a set of quality indicators. These indicators were ranked by a second group of students. Then the indicators were given to a group of faculty for another ranking. In this study it was shown that there was a very great agreement on the relative importance of the various potential indicators of quality in courses delivered via an on‐line medium.     

Encouraging Graduate Study in Engineering

Abstract This study was undertaken to provide information on the factors that most influence students to undertake graduate studies in engineering following their baccalaureate degrees. Several hundred engineering deans were asked to send a questionnaire to the three departments in his/her college that had been most successful in encouraging their undergraduates in proceeding to graduate school. Responses indicated that student participation in semester research, student participation in summer research, and mentoring by faculty are the most significant in encouraging students to proceed with graduate studies. These conclusions were confirmed by a survey of newly entering engineering graduate students. Fifty percent of student respondents indicated that they had been involved in some form of research as undergraduates and eighty percent of this group identified that this experience had been important to them in deciding to choose graduate study. It is concluded that the inclusion of undergraduate students in research programs can be very important in influencing their career choices and in enhancing their likelihood of proceeding with graduate studies.     

Tenure and turnover of academics in six undergraduate programs in the United States

The mobility of faculty members in different undergraduate programs is influenced by different factors, and so inter-program variability can be expected in mobility rates. This study makes use of course catalogs for the collection of data related to the tenure and turnover of academics from six undergraduate programs in the United States. Included in the study are 34 universities ranked in the top 100 US universities according to USNews for which a minimum of 15 years of course catalogs are available. For the study, 1345 course catalogs were used to attain information about 19,353 faculty members. It was found that economics faculty members have the shortest average tenure and economics programs have the highest turnover among all six programs, while physics and chemistry are the least mobile programs. The other three programs—history, mathematics and political science—fall somewhere in between. Private and high ranking universities are less mobile than public and low ranking universities respectively. It is found that turnover rates fell and average tenures increased after the 1970s.     

Environmental engineering education at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

The Environmental Engineering (ENVE) Department was established at the Middle East Technical University (METU) as a graduate program in January 1973. It began offering undergraduate programs in 1978. The department today has 12 faculty members and about 250 students. Numerous courses both on Environmental Sciences and on Environmental Technology are offered at the graduate and undergraduate level. This paper summarizes the curriculum development and missions of the ENVE Department at METU. Also, the basic characteristics of the undergraduate and graduate program are reviewed from the point of view of sustainable production.     

Industrial Experience: Its Role in Faculty Commitment to Teaching

Using national survey data for full-time faculty in engineering and the natural sciences, this paper examines whether previous work experience in industry affects faculty attitudes and behaviors toward teaching and research. The results show that across type of institution and irrespective of seniority, faculty with industrial experience spend a greater percentage of their time on teaching above and beyond their work assignment, are more likely to teach undergraduates, are less likely to think about changing jobs to spend more time on research, and are less likely to believe that publishing should be the primary criterion in promotion and tenure decisions. These results suggest that efforts to enhance the value of teaching in engineering and the natural sciences cannot be addressed solely through efforts to reform the attitudes of existing faculty. Instead, adding experience in industry as an important criterion in hiring new faculty may be fundamental to changing the existing culture and to placing greater emphasis on teaching.     

Current and Emerging Statistical Trends in Engineering Education

Data for enrollment, degrees, number of faculty and research funding for US colleges of engineering since 1965 are presented. These data: faculty loads (enrollment and degrees per faculty member), research funding (total and per faculty member) and funding per graduate degree (MS and PhD) are analyzed to define the trends over the past quarter century. BS degrees appear to have ceased their decline and may begin to increase; MS degrees continue to grow modestly; PhD degrees continue to grow rapidly and, based on current enrollment trends, should maintain this pace at least through the next half decade. Faculty loads are anticipated to increase. In spite of significant annual increases in research funding over the past two decades, graduate enrollments have increased to the point that constant dollar annual funding per graduate degree (both MS and PhD) has reached a maximum and may have begun to decrease. An analysis of the undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded by the largest engineering colleges indicates a.) little turnover in the colleges in this group, b.) the major graduate colleges award a significant number of BS degrees and c.) the major undergraduate colleges include most of the major graduate colleges.     

An Evaluation of the Georgia Tech Summer Undergraduate Program of Research in Electrical Engineering for Minorities

This paper describes and evaluates the effectiveness of a summer undergraduate research program designed to attract qualified minority students into graduate school in electrical engineering. This eight-week program recruits students of at least junior-level undergraduate standing on a nationwide basis and pairs them with faculty members and graduate student mentors to undertake research. The research activities are conducted in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and National Science Foundation Engineering (NSF) Research Center in Low-Cost Electronic Packaging at the Georgia Institute of Technology. From 1992–1995, a total of 47 students participated in this program. Thirty-six of these participants were interviewed by phone to obtain qualitative and quantitative information about the program's impact. The findings indicate that 92% of the program participants are either currently enrolled in a graduate program, plan to attend graduate school in the next two years, or have completed a graduate degree. In comparison to a control group of individuals drawn from the membership of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) alumni, it is found that program participants are more likely to pursue advanced degrees and more likely than non-participants to continue their studies in engineering. In addition, participants report higher starting salaries than non-participants. Overall, attitudes toward the program are positive, and the data suggests that GT-SUPREEM does have a significant impact on the student participants.     

Integrating Undergraduate Research into Engineering: A Communications Approach to Holistic Education

This paper describes the Research Communications Studio (RCS), a structured approach for teaching undergraduate researchers to do authentic written, oral, and graphical communications tasks while they are learning to do research. In the RCS, small groups of undergraduate researchers meet weekly with a communications faculty member, an engineering graduate student mentor, and a communications graduate research assistant. The project is built upon social constructivist theory that recognizes the interdependence between communication, cognitive development, and metacognition. It investigates knowledge construction within a small‐group context of distributed cognition, the concept that each group member's expertise is available to other group members. Data from surveys indicate that engineering faculty members, graduate student mentors, and undergraduate participants were very positive about the progress participants made in cognitive development and communications abilities. Analysis of participants' reflective writings shows the development of metacognitive abilities necessary for self‐directed, life‐long learning.     

Quality Improvement in a College of Engineering Instructional Program

This paper summarizes one institution's efforts to develop an ongoing strategy for gathering and analyzing data from constituents for use in appraisal and improvement efforts in its instructional programs. Although a large number of different constituents were identified, for logistical reasons it was decided to focus on five groups: undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, alumni and industry. The primary emphasis of this paper is on the results from the alumni and industry surveys. Demographics of these two groups are given and the influence of these characteristics on responses to survey questions is noted. Comparisons drawn among the two groups show that alumni and industry responses are virtually identical on the importance of specific attributes associated with newly graduated engineers. A short discussion is also given which compares the responses of all five constituent groups on certain instructional program attributes.     

Use of Objective-Based Undergraduate Research Project Experience as a Graduate Student Recruitment Tool

This paper describes experience in using hands-on undergraduate research exposure as a tool to identify and recruit potentially successful graduate students. Undergraduate students with an interest in graduate education work toward a well-defined goal under the guidance of the faculty member, typically supporting a senior graduate student on his/her thesis research. The quality of the undergraduate research is maintained by requiring that the results of the research be presented at a major technical conference. It is found that a large percentage of such undergraduate students ultimately enroll and succeed in graduate school.     

Direct interactions medical school faculty members have with professionals and managers working in public and private sector organizations: A cross-sectional study

The research questions are as follows: to what extent do Canadian medical school faculty members have person-to-person interactions with individuals working in public and private sector organizations? What are the characteristics of Canadian medical school faculty members who interact with individuals working in these work settings? Are these different network patterns complementary or substitute? The data used for this study are from a cross-sectional survey of Canadian medical school faculty members (n = 907). Structural multivariate ordered probit models were estimated to explore the characteristics of faculty members with different network patterns and to see if these network patterns are complementary or substitute. Study results suggest that the different network patterns considered in the study are not conflicting, but that some patterns correspond to different faculty member profiles.     

Evaluating top faculty researchers and the incentives that motivate them

We survey tenure-track faculty members employed in three fields in colleges of agriculture at land-grant universities—agricultural economics, agronomy, and food science—to evaluate the effects of different employment structures and incentives on research productivity. These evaluations include conducting statistical tests to assess any effects of different academic appointments and developing a regression model to measure the effects of these and other attributes on individual research productivity, as defined by the number of publications in the Thomson ISI Web of Science. We find faculty who hold larger teaching and extension appointments produce fewer publications; we also find positive effects on the number of publications for grants and university funding, multi-institutional research collaboration, and number of graduate students advised.     

K‐12 Outreach: Identifying the Broader Impacts of Four Outreach Projects

Over the last four years, a series of outreach programs have been offered through the Colorado School of Mines to middle school teachers from eleven school districts in the State of Colorado in the United States. Each of these programs is designed to illustrate through hands‐on activities the application of mathematics to science and engineering. Each also has an academic year follow‐up such that a faculty member, an expert teacher, or a graduate student assists the teachers in the classroom. An expected outcome of this effort is the improvement of instruction in mathematics and science in the participating middle schools; an unexpected outcome has been the impact of these projects on the culture of the participating schools, both middle schools and university. Based on our assessment efforts, this article describes the qualitative and quantitative outcomes of this sequence of projects on middle school students, teachers, graduate students, professors, and college curriculum.     

Disciplinary Patterns in Degrees,Faculty and Research Funding

The variations in numbers of faculty, degrees (BS, MS and PhD) and research funding over the last quarter century for eleven engineering disciplines are compared to each other and to engineering as a whole. The engineering disciplines considered are aerospace, bioengineering, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, industrial, materials, mechanical, nuclear and petroleum. Emphasis is given to the cycle experienced by engineering BS degrees during this period. The variation in the mix of BS degrees in individual disciplines which has occurred over the past two decades is analyzed. Emphasis is also given to the rapid growth in graduate programs, especially doctoral, during the last decade. It is shown that essentially all disciplines have contributed significantly to the growth of engineering graduate programs. Research funding is analyzed in terms of total funding, funding per faculty member and funding per doctoral degree; actual and constant (noninflated) dollars are considered. Research funding growth in disciplines generally has kept pace with engineering as a whole. The effect of rapid graduate degree growth on funding available for research support is analyzed for individual disciplines; many disciplines are shown to exhibit degree growth extensive enough to cause declines in constant dollar funding per doctoral degree.     

Making Engineering Education Fun

Maintaining student interest is more than an academic exercise. Institutions or departments that fail to challenge and actively involve their students in the learning process risk losing them to competing programs where the curricula are more dynamic and relevant. Within the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Oregon State University, we continually seek innovative ways to promote student retention while maintaining academic excellence. One recent effort was to restructure a first‐year nuclear engineering/health physics course. Using nuclear techniques, students were required to solve a fictitious murder. In the process they learned about teamwork, nuclear forensics methods, radiation protection, and basic radiation interactions. The class members were brought into the mystery playing the part of “graduate students” who helped their police‐detective uncle solve the case. To assist in their investigation the students subpoenaed expert “witnesses” to educate them on nuclear principles. The students, through homework, explained their actions, methods, and reasoning to a nontechnical participant (their “uncle“). By building on knowledge gained through interviews and homework, the students were able to solve the mystery. This mode of teaching requires extensive hands‐on faculty participation. However, the potential long‐term benefit is increased comprehension of course content as well as greater student interest and retention.     

Bringing Adjunct Engineering Faculty into the Learning Community

Adjunct faculty can offer enrichment to an engineering program by bringing practical experience and by introducing relevant industrial applications and problems to the classroom. The industrial perspective of adjunct faculty often manifests itself through an emphasis on communication and presentation skills, and concern for customer needs. Students observing these attributes come away with a better appreciation for the demands of the engineering workplace. Adjunct faculty members can also provide important linkages for developing industrial affiliate programs, co‐op activities, and employment opportunities for graduates. Nevertheless, the position of adjunct faculty is tenuous, subject to shifting enrollments, negative student perception, and limited connectivity with the mainstream issues of the academic department. Adjunct faculty who teach in engineering programs will almost always come with excellent technical credentials, but they will have little or no teacher training or knowledge of learning principles and cognitive psychology. With limited time on campus, adjunct faculty have little opportunity to improve their teaching skills and methods, resulting in a “sink or swim” environment. At the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), we have evolved a regimen of strategies to ensure the quality of the educational program and to support the teaching effectiveness and professional commitment of adjunct faculty. These strategies have improved student and faculty satisfaction with adjunct faculty, and indeed have improved adjunct faculty self‐satisfaction. These strategies are described in the current paper.     

Barriers to Increased Engineering Graduate Enrollments: Counterforces and Their Implementation

This paper highlights the role of the faculty member in recruiting students currently enrolled in B.S. programs in engineering and the sciences into full-time pursuit of a graduate-level engineering degree. The faculty member is demonstrated to be in a unique position to influence such students, providing strong counterforces to a confluence of attitudes and pressures experienced during the B.S. experience which effectively create a barrier to full-time engineering graduate study. We analyze this barrier via the method of force field analysis, and demonstrate that effective recruitment into full-time graduate study must be based on a four-fold strategy of education, expectations, improved B.S. experience and better control of the B.S. environment. Approaches to implement these strategies are discussed.     

Gatekeeping African studies: what does “editormetrics” indicate about journal governance?

The purpose of the study was to examine the productivity of faculty in social work doctoral programs. This study builds on previous investigations on the scholarship of social work faculty using the h-Index (i.e., citation analysis). This study examined the scholarly productivity of the full population (N?=?1699) of tenure-track faculty in all 76 United States social work doctoral programs by analyzing the h-Index scores of each program. Information on funding sources, regional location, year of establishment, and faculty demographics was collected to better understand why faculty and programs differ in their h-Index. A hierarchical regression analysis was used in creating a predictive model. The final model explained 51% of the variance in h-Index scores (R²?=?.51). Academic rank was the strongest predictor of school h-Index. Each school’s faculty size, gender proportion, region, college age, and auspice also contributed to the predictive power of the model. The proportion of senior faculty (Associate Professors and Full Professors) and college age were the strongest predictors based on standardized regression coefficients. The finding that academic rank contributed the most variance to the regression model provides empirical support to the long-argued importance of publication in career advancement. The overall results of the model confirm that institutional factors such as faculty size, region, and auspice do have unique effects on research productivity even after accounting for individual level differences in faculty across diverse social work programs.