Society of Penn State Electrical Engineers
129 Electrical Engineering East
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
www.engr.psu.edu/SPSEE
 
 

Twenty-First General Membership Meeting

Friday October 5, 2001, 1:30pm, 225 EE West

MINUTES

Members/guests Present: Mark Wharton, Ray Lunnen, Tim Reddington, Al Gardenitour, Larry Burton, David Salvia, Liz Kisenwether, Bob Horst, Al Niessner

Mark opened the meeting at 1:30pm.  He had an agenda with 8 topics.

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Topic 1.  EE Departmental News
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Ken Jenkins updated the members on a number of departmental issues:

  • Mario Sznaier -- full professor
  • Qiming Zhang -- full professor with tenure
  • David J. Miller -- associate professor with tenure
  • John Doherty -- tenure
  • awards
  • Kwang Lee -- IEEE Fellow
  • IC Khoo -- Distinguished Professor
  • NK Bose -- Fetter Faculty Fellow
  • Ken Jenkins -- Montefiore Award
  • faculty recruiting
  • Craig Grimes -- MEMS area
  • Aylin Yener -- Wireless Communications
  • Kirby Chair -- to be announced soon
  • Ongoing recruiting: DSP, remote sensing, photonics, materials and devices
  • resignations
  • Ray Luebbers -- retiring
  • Jay Patel
  • Hao Che
  • strategic growth areas
  • Electronic Materials and Devices (especially MEMs)
  • digital/optical networking
  • wireless communications and signal processing
  • environmental and remote sensing
  • VLSI circuits and computer engineering
  • grad recruiting
  • strive to attract more domestic students
  • offer more fellowships
  • more RA support
  • curricular initiatives
    • ========================================
    Topic 2.  Undergraduate Recruiting
    ========================================
    Harry Bell updated SPSEE about the undergraduate student recruiting efforts: of the 38 enrolled, only 20 were estimated to be 100% sure of going to PSU.  This means that 18 of the students who eventually came to PSU had been 50% probable or less at the time of the phone call.  This could be taken as an encouraging sign that the call was a factor in the student's decision.

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    Topic 3.  Guest Speaker:  Gordon Turow, Director: Penn State Campus Planning and Design
    ========================================
    Gordon gave a fascinating Power Point presentation outlining the long term (20 year) growth plans for the University Park campus.

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    Topic 4.  Graduate Fellowship Fund Report
    ========================================
    Mark Wharton updated the group on the SPSEE Graduate Fellowship Fund

    ========================================
    Topic 5.  New Membership Drive
    ========================================
    There were 192 local PSU EE alums who are not associated with the University.  They were contacted about becoming active SPSEE members.  There were 7 positive responses (4%).

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    Topic 6.  Fundraising
    ========================================
    Target group -- pioneers (alums graduating 50+ years ago)

    There are 645 EE grads in this target group.

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    Topic 7.  Officers
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    Topic 8.  EPICS
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    Liz Kisenwether gave a report on the growth of EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service).

    Information about EPICS is available from: http://labs.ee.psu.edu/courses/epics
     

    Next meeting -- May 3, 2002, 1-3 pm

    A. David Salvia
    SPSEE Secretary
    9-07-01