ECE Distinguished Lecture – Thursday, December 1 at 11:30 am
November 30, 2022
A Holistic Approach to Transforming Undergraduate Engineering Education
Anthony A. (Tony) Maciejewski, Ph.D.
Colorado State University Electrical and Computer Engineering
Thursday, December 1 11:30 am in Simrall 104
Abstract: A diverse team of educators at Colorado State University (CSU) are redefining what it means to teach and learn in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Supported by a five-year ”RED” grant from the National Science Foundation, we have, in effect, thrown away courses to overcome the challenges of the current engineering educational system. Approaching the degree from a holistic perspective, we no longer view our program as a set of disparate courses taught by autonomous (and isolated) faculty, but as an integrated system that fosters collaboration among faculty and students. This presentation describes our new organizational and pedagogical model, which emphasizes knowledge integration and interweaves thematic content threads throughout the curriculum. It also discusses the process for implementing our new approach, along with the successes and challenges that we have experienced along the way. Through this project, we strive to become a catalyst for change in engineering education.
Biographical Notes: Anthony A. (Tony) Maciejewski received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1982, 1984, and 1987, respectively, all from The Ohio State University. From 1988 to 2001, he was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. In 2001, he joined Colorado State University where he served as Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering until 2022. He has co-authored over 300 technical publications (h-index of 47 and> 10,000 total citations) in the areas of robotics, high-performance computing, and engineering education. He is a Fellow of IEEE and currently serves on the Executive Committees for both its Education Society and Robotics and Automation Society. He also served as President of the ECE Department Head’s Association. A complete up-to-date vita is available at www.engr.colostate.edu/~aam
For further information, contact: Dr. Jean Mohammadi-Aragh | jean@ece.msstate.edu | 662.325.2042