T his is the second issue of our fourth year of the KlipschSpeaker Alumni News. The Klipsch School is continuing to prepare for the upcoming ABET 2000 accreditation visit. Our self-study document is nearly complete and will be submitted in late June. Nearly two years of assessment data has been compiled and used to evaluate how well the Klipsch School is meeting its objectives (http://www.ece.nmsu.edu/ general/klipsch_school_objectives.html). Overall the newly established assessment process has indicated that the Klipsch School is doing an excellent job in meeting its stated objectives. One exception is in meeting the objective of providing students with a knowledge of probability and statistics and their applications to electrical engineering. In the new curriculum we have addressed this with the requirement that all students take one of three different statistics courses before graduation. Thank you to all alumni who have participated in our alumni surveys. This data is a very big component of our assessment process.

The Klipsch School graduated 42 BSEE, 14 MSEE, and 2 PhD students in the spring commencement. The number of BSEE degrees awarded is up dramatically from the 18 graduated in spring 1999. This reflects continuing increases in undergraduate enrollment; however, the high salaries being offered to our BSEE students are discouraging many of them from going on to graduate school. Salary offers ranged from $50,000 to $60,000 this spring with bonuses! NMSU has addressed this problem by implementing a large stipend increase for graduate students, effective in fall 2000. The NMSU stipends will now be near the top of our peer institutional group which should provide significant help in maintaining our graduate school enrollment.

Research programs in the Klipsch School continue to remain healthy with faculty receiving funding in many diverse areas. The Klipsch School faculty are averaging approximately $100,000 of research funding per tenure-track faculty member which is well above the national average.

We continue to improve our undergraduate laboratories with some help from the NMSU administration, contributions from our alumni, and grants from our customers -- private corporations that hire our students. Over the past two years, the Klipsch School has received significant donations from Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Agilent, and Texas Instruments. We were just notified of a grant from El Paso Electric to provide $150,000 over a six-year period to upgrade the Faraday Machines Laboratory. The Klipsch School faculty in the power area (Bill Kersting, Howard Smolleck, and Satish Ranade) are seeking matching funding from the National Science Foundation so that the new Faraday Machines Laboratory will be a real showpiece for the Klipsch School and a state-of-the-art teaching facility.

The Goddard Hall renovation has begun. Completion of the Goddard Hall Annex is scheduled for April of 2001. The Manuel Lujan Center for Telemetry and Telemetering, along with the electro-optics faculty and research laboratories, will move into the Annex upon completion. This will free up space in Thomas and Brown Hall for additional undergraduate laboratory space.

We will welcome Dr. Jay Gogue as our new president on July 1 of this year. Dr. William Conroy is retiring as President of NMSU after providing strong leadership for NMSU. Dr. Gogue received his Ph.D. in Horticulture from Michigan State University. He worked for the National Park Service from 1979 to 1986. He then began his academic career at Clemson University where he became Vice President and Provost for Agriculture and Natural Resources. He moved to Utah State in 1995 to take the position of Provost. Dr. Gogue has a strong background in land-grant universities and has a good understanding of research and teaching at these universities. He also has a strong fund-raising record at Utah State. We are excited to have Dr. Gogue as our next president.

I want to thank all of our alumni for their continued support of our efforts. It is our goal to provide the very best electrical engineers to industrial, government, and graduate school customers, and with your continued support we can continue to do so.

---Steven Castillo

Professor and Head

KLIPSCH SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT

Development of current and endowed gifts continues to be high-priority for the Klipsch School. Recently, Klipsch School alumni and Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy member, Jerry Shaw through the Jerome & Joyce Cutler Shaw Family Foundation donated $18,000 to establish the Dr. C. Donald Crosno Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund. The award will go to incoming Hispanic freshmen majoring in electrical and computer engineering.

Also, Annette Stocklos gave the Klipsch School $10,000 for the Raymond Stocklos Memorial Scholarship. The Michael Corpening Memorial Scholarship endowment is now at $13,000. Scholarships can be awarded once full endowment of $20,000 is reached.

The Klipsch School is noticing continued increases in financial support among the under-40 alumni. This is a national trend as highlighted in the included article "Generation X Turns Out To Be Generous," excerpted from the February 21, 2000 U.S. News & World Report. The article is included at the end of the KlipschSpeaker.

MOZART-OZ -- THE FIRST PROGRAMMING

LANGUAGE OF THE NEW CENTURY?

There is a new, powerful programming language called Mozart-Oz (www.mozart-oz.org) that is inherently concurrent and distributed. Like Unix 25 years ago, Mozart-Oz has appeared quietly from a research environment with an elegant, simple yet powerful and fast implementation. As with Unix 25 years ago, Mozart-Oz has so far been in the shadow of a more prominent programming language, like today's Java. It has not been noticed that Mozart-Oz is actually a superset of Java. Most people are not aware that Mozart-Oz programming is easier because the Mozart-Oz language is more elegant and concise while Mozart-Oz threads faster than Java threads (parallel components of a program) when distributed to several different computers.

The Klipsch School's Dr. Juris Reinfelds had the opportunity last year to meet with Dr. Peter Van Rey, of the University of Louvain, Belgium and again during this March with Dr. Van Rey, as well as Dr. Seif Haridi, Director of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science in Stockholm, Sweden. The Mozart-Oz development is led by Dr. Seif Haridi, Dr. Peter Van Rey, and Dr. Gerd Smolka, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Saarbwecken, Germany. During NMSU's spring break in March, Dr. Haridi invited Dr. Reinfelds to participate in the writing of a programming textbook that combines all three programming paradigms (imperative, functional, logical), object orientation concurrent programming and distributed programming into one coherent whole -- a body of programming skills, and expertise available through the Mozart-Oz system.

This invitation and challenge gives Dr. Reinfelds and the Klipsch School a unique opportunity to work at the leading edge of programming language development. It gives us the opportunity to teach our students programming skills that will extend further into their working life, while as a superset of Java, Mozart-Oz will also help with today's programming language development trends, as well. As in all research, questions remain and that is why there is a question mark after the title. Will we be able to combine the currently diverse paradigms into a naturally concurrent and distributable whole? Will the Mozart-Oz definitions provide sufficient power and simplicity? Will its implementation scale-up to real world problems? Will Dr. Reinfeld's introductory textbook make access sufficiently easy without sacrificing scope, power, flexibility or efficiency?

EQUIPMENT GRANT FOR VLSI LAB

The Klipsch School has received a $111,500 equipment grant from Agilent Technologies. Agilent, a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard, is a technology company focusing on the communications, electronics, life sciences and health care industries. The Agilent equipment will be used to continue the development of the Klipsch School's Very Large Scale Integrated Systems (VLSI) circuit design laboratory. Supervised by Professor Jaime Ramirez-Angulo, the lab is unique in that it will emphasize the design of both analog and digital VLSI circuits. In accepting the grant, Dr. Ramirez said, "One reason our students are in high demand by industry is because of their unique background in the design of both analog and digital circuits. The almost explosive growth of the wireless communications industry demands a large number of engineers with such backgrounds."

The new laboratory will give students hands-on experience using VLSI in microwave engineering, communications, telemetry, and digital signal processing. Arlene Yusnukis, Agilent's campus manager and NMSU alumnus, worked with Dr. Ramirez to develop the proposal.

DONATION OF SOFTWARE TOOLS

FOR THE SYSTEMS LAB

Dr. Robert Paz recently received notice that Real-Time Innovations, Inc. (RTI) is donating to the Klipsch School a five-station license for the software tool ControlShell. The donation is valued at $75,000 and will be used to enhance the Klipsch School's systems laboratory. ControlShell is a development tool set for designing and implementing real-time applications. ControlShell's graphical component-based design tools, component repository management tools, code generators runtime execution engines, and runtime debugging tools will allow students to quickly and easily build and maintain real-time system designs. ControlShell runs under Linux or Windows NT with special extensions to allow for the real-time access of hardware.

PETES -- PROVIDING ENGINEERING

& TECHNOLOGY EXPERIENCE

FOR STUDENTS

 The PETES Program, under the auspices of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, is a cooperative effort funded by NASA in cooperation with Senator Pete Domenici, the Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Gadsden, Deming, Cobre, Portales, Artesia, Carlsbad, Roswell, Ruidoso and Dexter Public Schools, MESA, Character Counts Task Force, and New Mexico Space Grant Consortium. The purpose of the program is to help teachers, students, parents, and communities become aware of the benefits of math, science, and engineering careers in New Mexico. The program also involves the business community and the Character Counts program to increase skill in integrating values, teamwork, and mentorship into hands-on science and engineering projects. The academic focus of the PETES Program is Launch Technology. Launch Technology is the emerging field our students may participate in, should we become involved in developing, testing, and launching reusable launch vehicles at the New Mexico Spaceport. The support of NASA and Senator Domenici have been essential to the success of the PETES program.  Students and teachers build high power model rockets and multi-sensor payloads, launch the rockets in their communities and download the payload data. Launch Day is a way to increase awareness and understanding of the New Mexico Spaceport effort and related job opportunities in the launch industry. Members of each participating community support the work of this program by coming out to the Launch Days in their community and by supporting the Character Counts programs in their schools.

SOUTHWEST SPACE TASK FORCE

The Southwest Space Task Force (SSTF) was organized in 1992 by citizens of New Mexico to integrate space development interests among government, industrial and educational institutions, and coordinate their focus on space programs, including space commercialization and the Spaceport space testing programs. The purpose of this effort is to bring to all New Mexicans the benefits of the space industry. Ben Boykin, Klipsch School alumni and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy (ECEA) president, is chairman of the SSTF. In February, Dr. Patricia Hynes, Director of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, was elected to the SSTF Executive Committee.

SPACEPLEX

General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunications Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, will provide enhanced satellite operations and teleport services through a new facility being developed at NMSU's Arrowhead Research Park. The facility, called the General Dynamics "SpacePlex," will enable General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunications Systems to provide satellite operation and ground-station support for up to 100 satellites. General Dynamics has operated a teleport and satellite operations center in NMSU's Genesis Center since 1997. The SpacePlex is an outgrowth of a collaborative effort between NMSU and General Dynamics. The Klipsch School is a recognized Center of Space Telemetering and Telecommunications and is funded by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, U.S. Air Force Research Labs, and the Nation Science Foundation.

General Dynamics presently supports dozens of satellites of NASA and the Department of Defense at locations in New Mexico, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, Guam, and California, and serves commercial customers through the Genesis Center facility. The new facility will enable the company to support additional spacecraft as demand grows. The 11,000 square-foot SpacePlex will include 28 control stations to support satellite operations. Operating 24 hours per day year round, General Dynamics engineers, supported by NMSU students, will provide critical satellite command and control services from the new facility.

FACULTY/STAFF HIGHLIGHTS

NASA has renewed the funding for the Klipsch School's Manuel Lujan, Jr. Space Telemetering Center for a three-year duration. The initial funding begins May 1, 2000, at a level of $700,000 per year. The Center is a Telemetering Center of Excellence as designated by the International Foundation for Telemetering and hosts the Frank Carden Chair for Telemetry and Telemetering. Faculty, students, and staff in the Center conduct research in telemetry and telemetering, communications theory, digital signal processing, image processing, and wireless communication systems. Dr. Stephen Horan is the director of the Center.

The Klipsch School's Dr. Mike Giles, along with Sean Doyle and Narashimha Prasad, have been awarded a patent for "Characterization of Collimation and Beam Alignment." The patent is for an apparatus and a method for characterizing light beam collimation and alignment.

The Klipsch School's VLSI program has continuously increased its international visibility. This year it has the record number of papers accepted for the prestigious IEEE International Conference on Circuits and Systems which will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, May 28-31, 2000. This conference is the most important conference in the field of Circuits and Systems and the Klipsch School will be represented with eight papers. The Klipsch School's hosting of the 42^nd Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems during August 1999 was featured in the KlipschSpeaker Fall 1999 Alumni News.

In January, the Motorola Foundation awarded a grant of $15,000 to Dr. Phillip DeLeon. The grant will be used for acquiring state-of-the-art test and measurement equipment for the Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Laboratory.

WHAT OUR STUDENTS ARE DOING

Dr. Jeffrey Drake has been selected as a National Research Council fellow for the NASA Administrator's Fellowship Program (NAFP). This program is sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is administered by the National Research Council. Dr. Drake recently completed his PhD degree in the Klipsch School. His dissertation research is in the application of software computing technologies for wireless communication systems. Dr. Drake will be assigned to NMSU for one year for the purpose of working in the Rio Grande Institute of Soft Computing (RioSoft). RioSoft, which was featured in the KlipschSpeaker Winter 2000 Alumni News, is a research consortium with membership from NMSU, UTEP, NM Tech, and UNM. The Klipsch School's Dr. Ram Prasad is the director of RioSoft.

As you all know, the Klipsch School continues to stress actual design experience in many of its courses. For example, in our current sophomore electronics course, EE 221 Electronics I, one group of students are designing a small-scale public address system to amplify sounds from a 600-ohm passive microphone to drive an 8-ohm speaker. The project includes a MOS pre-amplifier stage, a BJT gain stage, a class -AB output stage, and a linear power supply. Full-color presentations in PowerPoint are scheduled for the last two weeks of the spring semester. Another group designed the instrumentation to record an EKG on a digital-storage scope. The students designed a three-opamp instrumentation amplifier with a low-frequency cutoff of 20Hz. Using probes across the chest, students saw the characteristic pulses corresponding to each heart beat.

THE ACADEMY

The Klipsch School Industrial Advisory Group (IAG) met on February 22 to review Klipsch School assessment data. This is the first annual meeting of the IAG for the purpose of participating in the Klipsch School assessment process. This process is required by NMSU as part of university-wide assessment. The annual Klipsch School assessment report is provided annually to the Executive Vice President and the NMSU Outcomes Assessment Committee. In addition, the assessment reports play a large part in the ABET 2000 accreditation self-study report that is being prepared for the reaccreditation of the Klipsch School this year. The IAG provided valuable input concerning the interpretation of the data and a change in one of the Klipsch School program objectives. Objective II.g was reworded to allow for software components of complex systems. This was in recognition of the fact that some electrical and electronic systems are too large, too complex, or too expensive to exist in any form other than software.

KLIPSCH SCHOOL NOTES

We now have the KlipschSpeaker on our web site. Locate http://www.ece.nmsu.edu/alumni/ alumni. html, select KlipschSpeaker and bring up the issue you want.

It's important to us that all of the Klipsch School alumni receive the quarterly KlipschSpeaker. We get our mailing labels from the Office of the Vice President for University Advancement, but we know there are Klipsch School alumni who are not in the database. We want to include these alumni, but we don't know how to find them. Please send us addresses of alumni not receiving the KlipschSpeaker.

We can also provide the KlipschSpeaker as an attachment to an e-mail message for those alumni who prefer electronic service. This may be especially attractive to foreign alumni. If you want e-mail delivery, send your name and e-mail address to jtaylor@nmsu.edu. Indicate any special requirements.

If you haven't already, please check the Klipsch School's web page at http://www.ece.nmsu.edu. Our web page tells about the Klipsch School students, faculty, programs, and research. Look us up. The NMSU web page address is http://www.nmsu.edu. You can get to our web page from NMSU's or directly at the address above. The University has a calendar of events web page at http://www.nmsu. edu/general/calendar. If you want to get in touch with us, obtain additional information, or tell us something about you or other alumni, contact the Klipsch School Head, Dr. Steven Castillo at 505-646-3115 or e-mail to scastill@nmsu.edu, or Dr. Javin Taylor, Associate Head and KlipschSpeaker Editor at 505-646-1239 or e-mail to jtaylor@ nmsu.edu, or use the Klipsch School fax number, 505-646-1435.