1.  Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. Proposal

2.  Report of the Senate Planning Review Committee.

3.  Report of the Senate Budget Review Committee

4.  Report of the Graduate Council

5.  Report from the Library

2.  Report of the Senate Planning Review Committee

To:         University Senate

From:     Senate Planning & Review Committee
              Frances Jackson, Chair

Re:         Proposed Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering
              Submitted by the School of Engineering and Computer Science – Department of Mechanical Engineering

At the request of Senate Steering, SPRC reviewed the proposal to initiate a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering submitted by SECS. The Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) currently has 350 undergraduate and 150 graduate students. In addition, 22 of the doctoral students enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Systems Engineering are being advised by the ME faculty. It is important to note that the implementation of this program was delayed until a permanent Dean was appointed to the SECS. This position has been filled, and there is an urgent desire to have this program approved.

To establish the need for this program, ME conducted a student survey and the proposal also includes letters of support from local industry establishing there is need and support for this new degree. This proposal is predicated on a steady state of 30 students enrolled in the Ph.D. program in mechanical engineering. At least 12 new courses are planned. Currently, there are 12 full time faculty in ME. In order to successfully offer this degree, 5 new full-time faculty, two of whom have already been hired, with concurrent additional laboratory space and equipment, and the occasional use of an adjunct faculty member will be required. This degree will require 80 credits to complete. Fifty-six credits are post bachelor (exclusive of the dissertation, an additional 24 hours) and it is anticipated it will take 4 years to complete. Students who have a masters degree in ME may transfer a maximum of 32 credits to the Ph.D. in ME.

Students must establish residency by registering for full-time study over 2 consecutive semesters for a minimum of 8 credits during their active dissertation research and committing to 20 hours per week in active research. An alternative to this traditional approach is that students can, with proper notice, establish residency by registering for full time study for two consecutive semesters and completing their research by working on a job-related project that has the approval of their dissertation committee. This feature will encourage industry to promote and support employees who seek the terminal degree in ME.

Special efforts will be made to recruit underrepresented minorities and women, using a variety of recruitment strategies and Kings/Chavez/Parks funding. Also approximately 8-10 students may be supported as Graduate Assistants that will include a stipend and tuition support. It is also anticipated that some of the GAs will also be supported by funded faculty research during spring/summer terms.

The costs of this program are considerable. Not only faculty, but laboratory space and equipment must also be obtained. The library costs exceed $50,000 each year, and in the fifth year are expected to rise to $62,000. Given that the library recently announced a cut in journal holdings, the library costs are cause for some concern.

On the basis of the review of this program, SPRC notes the following strengths:

1. The faculty - currently 12 PhD faculty
2. The ME faculty are already supervising PhD students in the Systems Engineering program
3. The association with Systems Engineering
4. The completion rate for this degree exceeds 90%, an admirable accomplishment.
5. The ties between the SECS and local industry is a major strength.
6. The alternative residency plan is innovative and responds to the realities that many students face when seeking the Ph.D.
7. Students can work on either personal projects or employment-related projects rather than being forced to work on faculty research projects.
8. The support letters from industry are quite strong.
9. The location of OU to the Technology Park is a strength that will promote recruitment and retention of students.
10. The new course offerings, several of which have already been taught and developed.

We also note the following concerns:

1. The level of current grant support is low given the preparation of the faculty.
2. Faculty are required to do a lot of teaching vs. time for research as compared to other doctoral faculty.
3. The library resources may not be sufficient to support program goals.
4. Laboratory space for new faculty may not be available.
5. The stipends for Graduate Assistants is low and not competitive with other universities offering a PhD in ME.
6. This program is quite expensive, costing substantially more than projected revenues. Historically, it is the observation of the committee that the university is unlikely to provide adequate support to allow the program to meet its goals.

Recommendation:  SPRC recommends the approval of this proposal.

3.  Report of the Senate Budget Review Committee

Date:   April 16, 2002

To:    Oakland University Senate

FROM: Senate Budget Review Committee

Subject:   Review of Proposal for a new Ph.D. Program in Mechanical Engineering

The amount of additional resources requested is very significant.  Per the proposed budget, the requested university resources would be approximately $620,000 in the first year (expenditures of $770,000; revenues of $150,000).  By the �steady state� situation in the fifth year, the requested university resources continue annually in excess of  $200,000 per year (expenditures of $441,000; revenues of $235,000). 

Given the program description, we do conclude that the amount of resources requested is appropriate.  Further, we conclude that, if allocated the resources requested per the proposal�s budget amounts, the Department of Mechanical Engineering should be able to deliver a meaningful doctoral program.  We also conclude that the addition of a Ph.D. Program in Mechanical Engineering would have many positive effects on the perceived stature of Oakland University. 

The greatest concern is the extent to which this program will require redirection of existing or creation of new university resources.  We are not charged with making recommendations about allocation or re-allocation of university resources.  Thus, we cannot address the tradeoffs inherent in this proposal as compared with other programs; we can only make recommendations on the merits of the proposal.

4.   Report from the Graduate Council

28 March 2002

TO:                  Virinder K. Moudgil
                        Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost

FROM:            Ranald Hansen
                        Interim Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Study

RE:                  PhD in Mechanical Engineering program

On behalf of the Graduate Council, I am pleased to forward a recommendation that Oakland University implement the PhD in Mechanical Engineering Program.  The Graduate Council on April 19, 2000 unanimously approved the proposal currently before the Senate. The document before the Senate reflects the comments and suggestions of the Council.

The Graduate Council believes the proposed program responds to the growing needs and demands of business and industry.  In addition, the Graduate Council noted that the proposed program should be well received in student, industry and academic markets.  

Although the Graduate Council approved the program without contingencies, it did wish to underscore the need for the resources requested in the proposed budget. The Council noted that the full success of the program was linked in the proposal to: (1) 12 new courses, (2) five new faculty positions, (3) five new graduate assistantships (4) increased library resources, (5) laboratory renovations and (6) expenditures for new equipment.  In addition the Dean of the School of Engineering indicated to Council that present faculty and resources provide a good base for initiating the PhD program, but can not guarantee its future success.  The Graduate Council believes that incremental future funding for new graduate programs is critical to their continued quality and success.

 Cc:      Pieter Frick, Dean, School of Engineering and Computer Science
           Claire Rammel, Director of Graduate Program Policy, Evaluation and Assessment

5.  Appendix C: Library Report

MEMORANDUM

TO:         Gary Barber, Acting Chair
               Mechanical Engineering Department

                and

                Michael P. Polis, Dean
                School of Engineering and Computer Science

FROM:     Mildred H. Merz, Coordinator for Collection Development
                  Library

SUBJECT: Library Collection Evaluation for proposed Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering

DATE:       April 24, 2000

 In reviewing the library’s ability to support the proposed Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering I consulted the proposal dated January 2000 and also referred to the current OU graduate catalog for descriptions of courses currently available to master’s students in Mechanical Engineering.

Proposed library funding for the Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (see Appendix B) will allow the Library to support the basic research requirements of the Ph.D. students. Demands on the Library’s budget in the past have not allowed it to adequately meet even the library needs of the mechanical engineering master’s and undergraduate students. However, the addition of the Ph.D. program and the provision of requested library funding will provide the added benefit of remedying this situation.

Collection Strengths

Since 1993 the library has received all 17 journals published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The library also subscribes to 36 or more scholarly journals relevant to this program from other publishers. (These titles along with 9 other titles to which the library no longer subscribes are listed as Appendix C, pages 27-29, in the program proposal.)

A good number of these journals plus a few professional magazines related to mechanical engineering are indexed in the online source Applied Science & Technology Abstracts—available from the library’s homepage through the FirstSearch databases. The library is quite likely to be subscribing to the online Web of Science by July 2000. This includes an expanded version of Science Citation Index (which the library currently receives in paper) and makes it possible to identify relevant articles both by subject searching and by the use of the articles’ cited references.

In 1996, in anticipation of a visit from ABET, the Engineering and Library deans agreed to use part of the principal from the Critchfield endowment ($100,000 received in 1975 for the purchase of engineering materials) to strengthen the library’s books collections in engineering. Over $3,000 was spent to purchase around 50 books in the area of mechanical engineering.

Collection Needs

As one can tell from Appendix A, there are many mechanical engineering journals to which the library does not subscribe. This list totals over 50 titles with an annual subscription cost of $86,000—and this is not an exhaustive list. Titles included are journals interloaned by OU faculty and students, ones in which the Mechanical Engineering faculty publish, and titles from relevant societies, associations, and commercial publishers. It would be difficult to justify subscribing to all of these titles (not even the University of Michigan does that), but with the addition of a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering the Library certainly must add some of them. I am proposing that we add around $20,000 worth of regular subscriptions in the first year of the program (with a possible additional title or two in year three and year five). For titles the Library adds, we should secure both online and paper subscriptions if fiscally possible. To strengthen faculty/student access to journals further I suggest that we participate in a program from the publisher Elsevier. "Engineering Direct" allows online access to articles in over 500 Elsevier engineering journals at a cost of $35 per article . To participate in this program a library must prepay for at least 200 articles per year (total of $7000). Since several journals on the list (including the heavily interloaned Wear and Journal of Materials Processing Technology) are included, I think this would be a wise expenditure of funds.

While journals are usually listed among the greatest needs by those involved in science and engineering programs, books are also needed. Both the Library and the Mechanical Engineering Department have been derelict in developing the book collection. Very few titles have come through the Library’s approval plan (newly published books in selected subjects and from selected publishers sent to us to decide which we want to purchase) and very few book requests come to us from Mechanical Engineering faculty. When I checked our book holdings in topics particularly relevant to new courses for the proposed program, several times I found the most recent "book" was a Ph.D. dissertation done by an OU student. I am proposing that we try to catch up on book purchases during the first year of the program and buy approximately 100 titles. Publishers from which these titles would come include the many societies important to mechanical engineering as well as commercial publishers such as John Wiley and Springer Verlag. In preparing this report I easily identified over 100 titles by looking at holdings at Wayne State and checking lists of available books from society websites. After year one I have budgeted for the addition of a modest 30 books per year. In addition I will be modifying the "profile" by which we receive approval books so that we will automatically receive some new books by that means also.

Another area in which we are lacking is in the purchase of proceedings of conferences. Aside from conference papers that appear as articles in journals to which we subscribe, the library does not have regular subscriptions or standing orders to conference proceedings in mechanical engineering. I have budgeted a very small amount for this purpose. We may find, however, that more should be spent here and less on actual journal subscriptions. In Appendix B I have included names of societies from which we should consider securing proceedings. The process of deciding what should be added will need to be one of close collaboration between the library and the department—deciding what is wanted and then trying to find out how we can regularly receive these items. Another decision will involve whether or not we want complete collections (such as all of the SAE papers) or whether we want to explore ways to purchase individual papers the quickest and most convenient way possible.

Finally, a major need of this program (and of other programs in Engineering and Computer Science) is for a comprehensive engineering index. The one I suggest for this program is the web version ofEngineering Index (known as EI Compendex). Compendex is a "comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database . . . offering over five million summaries of journal articles, technical reports, and conference papers and proceedings." It is considered the best single source of indexing for mechanical engineering. (Inspec, for which we also do not have direct patron access, is the best source for electrical and computer engineering—and cost is more than twice that of Compendex.) Amount I have budgeted for Compendex will allow for up to three users to access the database at any one time. Access is based upon IP address. With the library’s securing of a proxy server, this will allow any OU student or faculty to use the database from any site.

cc: Randy Hansen
    Elaine Didier

Appendix A

Journals to Consider for Subscription

*APPLIED MATHEMATICAL MODELLING—91 CUT--$1,067
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING INTERNATIONAL--$96
*COMPUTER METHODS IN APPLIED MECHANICS AND ENGINEERING--$5,964
CONTROL AND DYNAMIC SYSTEMS: ADVANCES IN THEORY AND APPLICATIONS—91 CUT--$99
*ENGINEERING FRACTURE MECHANICS--$3,147
*INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS IN HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER--$1,015
*INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCE—2000 CUT-- $5,380
*INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MACHINE TOOLS & MANUFACTURE--$2,130
*INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL SCIENCES—1,953
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING--$4,940
*INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PLASTICITY--$1,458
JOURNAL OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING—2000 CUT--$205
JOURNAL OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS—92 CUT--$2,517
JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MECHANICS--$540
JOURNAL OF FLUID MECHANICS--$1,560
JOURNAL OF INJECTION MOLDING TECHNOLOGY--$275
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS ENGINEERING AND PERFORMANCE--$821
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS PROCESSING & MANUFACTURING SCIENCE--$242
*JOURNAL OF MATERIALS PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY--$3,352
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE—1980 CUT--$6,167 (all parts)
JOURNAL OF MODERN OPTICS—2000 CUT--$2,498
*JOURNAL OF PHOTOCHEMISTY AND PHOTOBIOLOGY A AND B--$5,951
JOURNAL OF SOUND AND VIBRATION--$4,987
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY--$595
*JOURNAL OF THE MECHANICS AND PHYSICS OF SOLIDS--$2,605
JSME INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL (includes the 3 quarterlies: A, MECHANICS AND MATERIAL ENGINEERING; B, FLUIDS AND THERMAL ENGINEERING; C, DYNAMICS, CONTROL, ROBOTICS, DESIGN & MANUFACTURING)--$375
LUBRICATION ENGINEERING--$76
*MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING A: STRUCTURAL MATERIALS--$5,958
MATERIALS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY--$1,358
MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY--$1,366
METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS : A, PHYSICAL METALLURGY AND MATERIALS SCIENCE; B, PROCESS METALLURGY AND MATERIALS PROCESSING SCIENCE--$2,339
MODERN PLASTICS--$65
NOISE CONTROL ENGINEERING JOURNAL--$70
*OPTICS AND LASERS IN ENGINEERING--$1,365
PLASTICS ENGINEERING--$160
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—was gift last received in 90--$825
PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS:
PART A: JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY
PART B: JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MANUFACTURE
PART C: JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING SCIENCE
PART D: JOURNAL OF AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERING
PART E: JOURNAL OF PROCESS MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
PART F: JOURNAL OF RAIL AND RAPID TRANSIT
PART G: JOURNAL OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
PART H: JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE
PART I: JOURNAL OF SYSTEMS AND CONTROL ENGINEERING
PART K: JOURNAL OF MULTI-BODY DYNAMICS
PART L: JOURNAL OF MATERIALS: DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS (Entire package cost: $6,699)
PROGRESS IN MATERIALS SCIENCE—99 CUT--$902
*WEAR—LAUSANNE--$5,200

*Elsevier titles that are available on Engineering Direct.

Appendix B
Revised to Reflect 2003 Costs

Library Budget for Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering

Books�Book costs have been increased to reflect both modest inflation and increased numbers of titles published.  Year 1 costs include funds for some retrospective purchasing.

Journals�Journal cost have increased both because of approximately 10% a year inflation and because of unavailability of plan to purchase articles from expensive Elsevier titles.  We will, instead, need to subscribe to the most relevant Elsevier titles from Appendix A as well as to significant titles from other publishers.  Figures in Year 3 and Year 5 allow for addition of a modestly priced  ($3,000) journal in each of these years.

Proceedings� These amounts would buy very selective proceedings (in various formats�paper, CD-ROM, online) from such organizations as American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society of Automotive Engineers, Society of  Manufacturing Engineers, Society for Experimental Mechanics, Society of Plastics Engineers, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, etc.  Costs presume a 10% per year inflation rate.

EI Compendex (Engineering Index)�Year 1 cost is based on a quote of $16,000+ for 2002.  It is difficult to predict inflation rates for online products�but they do increase in cost.  Inflation rate built in above is 7%.

Prepared by Mildred Merz
4/17/02

7/3/02