In this issue of the KlipschSpeaker Alumni News we want to introduce you to NMSU's new president, Jay Gogue, as well as new Klipsch School faculty member, Dr. Ray Lyman. We also want to share our perception of the outcome of the October 8-10 ABET visit and the activities of our annual Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy meeting. Also included is an update on the Goddard Hall renovation, the new power systems laboratory, and recent Klipsch School development activities.
JAY GOGUE
NMSU's 20th PRESIDENT
On July 1, 2000, Jay
Gogue became NMSU's
20th President. President
Gogue had been provost
at Utah State since
1995, responsible for all
academic and
non-academic units on
the main campus and
branch locations. He was
vice president for
research at Clemson
University from 1988 to
1995, and also served as vice president and
vice provost for agriculture and natural
resources at Clemson. He joined the Clemson
faculty in 1986.
Besides higher education, President Gogue's background includes extensive experience as a scientist and administrator with the National Park Service. From 1977 to 1986, he was chief scientist for the Park Service, leading scientific programs involving professionals from the biological, physical, and behavioral sciences. From 1979 to 1986, he also served as Chief of the Park Service's Division of Interpretation, Park Protection and Natural Resource Management, responsible for educational centers, law enforcement activities and natural resource management at 50 national parks.
President Gogue received a doctorate in horticulture from Michigan State University in 1973 and bachelor's and master's degrees in horticulture from Auburn University in 1969 and 1970. He was born in Waycross, Georgia.
With the limited public resources in the State of New Mexico, President Gogue sees development of alumni and corporate giving and endowment as one of his most important efforts as president. His investigation leads him to believe that for a university of this size and excellence, giving and endowment at NMSU should be six times greater. Consequently, the university is currently developing a major capital campaign. As you KlipschSpeaker readers know, the Klipsch School strongly agrees with President Gough's position that development efforts at NMSU and the Klipsch School are critical.
In early September, President Gogue met with the Klipsch School faculty and staff for an excellent interchange of ideas. Later, we asked him to provide some of his thoughts for the Klipsch School alumni regarding giving and ambassadorship.
As I begin my terms as New Mexico State University's 20th
president, I am most interested in ways to enable success -
for our students and for our programs. This is what many
donors are interested in as well. Successful people are
drawn to success.
In my travels around the state this summer, I found people extremely positive about their experiences at New Mexico State, and I realized that many of these "ambassadors," and certainly each of us involved in university advancement efforts, should be familiar not only with NMSU successes that prompt personal fond memories, but with other NMSU successes. One important element in the complicated area of finding the resources to make NMSU the best it can be is that we (and our ambassadors) must be able to convey our pride and enthusiasm about success points such as these:
Our land grant status - We are to educate the "sons and daughters of the working class." The land grant model is the biggest success story in higher education in this country. No other institutional system can compare with the impacts that land grant colleges and universities have had on society. Know the history and tell the story.
Our designation as a Carnegie I Research University - One of the top 88 out of 3600 universities in the United States. Through our efforts in research we are making substantial impact on society.
Our identification as one of America's 100 Best College Buys for being above average academically and below average in cost.
Our identification as one of the top 25 colleges for Hispanics according to Hispanic Magazine.
Our pride in our difference from other universities from the state (building on this pride rather than being critical of another university).
We are second among U.S. universities in the impact of its engineering research by the Institute for Scientific Information because of the number of citations of NMSU work in research worldwide.
These are simply some examples, but the key is that each of us, in our own way, wants to convey that NMSU has been very successful, we want to be even more successful in the future, and it is a great opportunity for a donor to join us. In your own words, it is important for you to be able to explain why New Mexico State is absolutely great. And we want to pass this "key" along to every person who might employ it for the good of the university.
-----Jay Gogue
ABET 2000
After two years of intense preparation by the Klipsch School, we completed our ABET visit during October 8 - 10. At the conclusion, Steve Castillo received an unofficial verbal report from the electrical engineering accreditation visitor detailing the assessment he presented during the ABET exit meeting with NNSU President Dr. Jay Gogue.
All aspects of the undergraduate program were evaluated with respect to the ABET 2000 criteria. An ABET program evaluator may give a program a deficiency, weakness, concern, or make observations with respect to any aspect of a program. A deficiency is grounds for non-accreditation, a weakness means that criteria are being met, but there is a high probability of a danger of not meeting the criteria in the near future. A concern means that the program is meeting the criteria, but it needs to continue to work to ensure that its efforts will result in continuing to meet the criteria. Finally an observation is simply advice to the department. The following is what Dr. Castillo was told.
Observations:
1. The evaluator recommends that we consider including more software in our curriculum as taught by the Computer Science Department. The computer engineering group is already responding by offering a new C++ course in the spring. In addition, our undergraduate studies committee approved the CS senior level C++ course to be allowed in our curriculum as a technical elective.
2. Our students genuinely like the Klipsch School and are extremely happy with the curriculum and the open door policy of the faculty.
3. Our laboratories are in outstanding shape with the large amount of support we have received from industrial sponsors and some state funding during the last three years.
4. Our processes for evaluating our objectives and the outcomes associated with our objectives are in place and working. Our processes for making changes to our objectives in response to constituent needs are in place and working. Our processes for making changes to our curriculum in response to outcomes assessment data are in place and working. We were especially commended for the class self-evaluations including evaluations of class objectives published in the class syllabi.
Concerns:
1. Our formal, centralized advising is centered around the freshman advisor and assistant department head and does not include other faculty. We should consider using other faculty for formal career/course advising outside of the formal process of record checking, etc.
2. Our support staff is inadequate for a department of our size at a Carnegie I research institution. National numbers show that we should have two and maybe even three support staff for our laboratories and computer operations.
3. The freshman advisor, assistant department head, and part of our department engineer are supported on salary savings and overhead funds recovery. The university should provide the resources to support all of these personnel with state funding.
4. Our salary levels reflect a large problem with salary compression. The administration should provide the resources necessary to bring our salaries into line with peer averages.
5. Our capstone projects in our traditional course offerings (EE 421, EE 467, etc.) may not be offering a full interdisciplinary design experience. We should examine these courses to ensure that they are truly interdisciplinary design projects.
Weaknesses: None.
Deficiencies: None.
We feel that the Klipsch School will receive a 6 NGR which means six years until the next general review! This is the best possible outcome. However, this will not be official until next year sometime. As was mentioned earlier, two years of intense effort went into the preparation for this ABET review. All of the Klipsch School faculty participated in the ABET 2000 total quality management, outcomes assessment, and value-added evaluation criteria. However, the major effort rested on the shoulders of Steven Castillo, A. K. Petersen, Sheila Horan, and Paul Furth. We also wish to thank the Klipsch School Industrial Advisory Group and Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy for their help and insight, as well as the Klipsch School alumni and students who participated in our various surveys and evaluations.
KLIPSCH SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT
The Jerome and Joyce Cutter Shaw Foundation donated $25,000 to complete the endowment of the Michael Corpening Memorial Scholarship Fund, as well as to provide funds for the Dr. C. Donald Crosno Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund. With endowment complete, the Klipsch School was able to award the first Michael Corpening Scholarship to Todd Giles, a close friend of Michael.
THE ACADEMY
The Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy (ECEA) held their annual meeting at the Klipsch School during October 11-12, 2000. The Academy's Industrial Advisory Group (IAG) met on Wednesday, October 11. The IAG agenda included presentations by Dean Jay Jordan and Head Steve Castillo on the state of the College and Klipsch School. Dean Jordan discussed the overall status of engineering, ABET 2000, the College's Advanced Manufacturing Center and his objectives for the College of Engineering. College demographics are changing across the U.S. with more non-traditional students enrolled. One of President Gogue's directives is for NMSU to become more involved in distance education and specialized training. The College of Engineering needs to become more competitive in providing quality distance education.
Steve Castillo provided an overview of the past year's activities. Included were the ABET visit, recruiting of new faculty, placement of graduates, laboratory equipment status, endowments and gifts, and alumni support. Steve Castillo brought a suggestion to the IAG that it be expanded from the current five ECEA members to include an additional five non-ECEA members from local and area companies with staggered two-year terms, as well as an associate membership grade, so that companies having a strong interest in Klipsch School graduates can both give, and take information from the meetings. A proposal was drafted and presented to the ECEA for their consideration at their meeting the next day. The Academy voted for the proposal in principle and directed the Klipsch School to work out the details.
Elections were held and the new IAG Board is as follows: Bill Osborne (2001), Chair, Larry Stolarczyk (2001), Joe Kitchell (2004), Vincent Boudreau (2004), and Paul Kepner (2005).
The agenda for the ECEA meeting included presentations by Dean Jay Jordan and Head Steve Castillo on the state of the College and Klipsch School. Committee business included establishing a special committee to investigate suggested by-laws revision for more enabling text for new member consideration; establishing a special Entrepreneurial Program for the next two to three years, consisting of a series of lectures on entrepreneurialship. Arthur Hurtado has a keen interest in this program and will serve as Chair for the first year. To kick off the Entrepreneurial Program, Arthur Hurtado gave an excellent lecture "One Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur."
Bill Osborne's and Bob Tausworthe's terms on the Board ended. Elections were held. Vicente Garcia and Thurlow Caffey were elected to the Board. The Board then elected Stuart Warrick, the current vice-president as President, Andrew Lucero as Vice President, and Vicente Garcia as Secretary/Treasurer. The Board members and their terms are Andrew Lucero (October 2001), Don Wunsch (October 2001), Ben Boykin (October 2002), Stuart Warrick (October 2002), Thurlow Caffey (October 2003), and Vicente Garcia (October 2003).
Four new members were inducted into the Academy.
Vicente Garcia, elected as a full member, graduated from the Klipsch School in 1978. He was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy, and assigned as a Nuclear Power Instructor at the Naval Power School (1978-1982). Other active duty naval service included assignments at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey, California (1982-1984), COMNAVSECGRU, Washington, D.C. (1984-86), and an assignment as Search & Development Division Officer at Edzell, Scotland (1986-1989). He is now a Captain in the Naval Reserve. Captain Garcia was a 1984 distinguished graduate at the Naval Post Graduate School and first-ever graduate of the NPS Space Systems Engineering Program. He received a MSEE from the NPS and an MSE from the University of Central Florida.
Upon leaving the Navy, Garcia joined the National Security Administration (NSA) and since then has been a member of the NSA National Cryptologic School Faculty. Other assignments included Division Chief of the Search & Signal Analysis effort at an DoD overseas field site (1989-1991), NSA Visiting Professor, Astronautics Department, U.S. Air Force Academy (1991-1992), NSA Consultant to the National Test Bed Facility, Falcon AFB (1991-1992), DoD Senior Technical Advisor (Chief Engineer) in the Denver metropolitan area (1992-1994), and NSA Visiting Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (1994- 2000).
In July 2000, Mr. Garcia joined NMSU's Physical Sciences Laboratory as the Technical Director for Cryptology. He is a world-renowned expert in National Cryptologic Systems and the technical prospective of Information Operations.
Peggy Morse, elected as a full member, graduated from the Klipsch School in 1986 and accepted a position with Boeing as an electromagnetics engineer. Since then she has continued to take on more management responsibility as Manager, Electromagnetics, Boeing Military Airplanes Group (1991-1994), Manager, Business Development, Boeing Defense and Space (1994-1995), Chief Engineer, IUS Program, Boeing Defense and Space (1995-1997), Director, Sales Operations, Boeing Commercial Airplanes (1997-1999), and Program Manager, Integrated Defense Systems, Boeing Space and Communications Group (1999-2000). Ms. Morse received an MSEE from the University of Washington in 1980 and has two patents for phased array elements.
David Voelz, elected as an associate member, graduated from the Klipsch School in 1981, attended the University of Illinois, and received MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering in 1983 and 1987, respectively. Dr. Voelz began working for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque in 1986. His areas of research have included laser imaging, imaging through turbulence, image recovery and reconstruction, adaptive optics, target tracking and beam pointing, heterodyne detection systems, polarimetry, and coherence theory. Dr. Voelz was the Chief Scientist for a series of field experiments that produced the first images of satellites collected from the ground using laser illumination techniques. Dr. Voelz is currently the Laser Imaging Technical Group Leader in the Surveillance Technologies Branch and Chief Scientist for the Geo Light Imaging National Testbed (GLINT), a research effort to demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining optical images of satellites in geosynchronous orbit from a ground station.
Dr. Voelz has co-authored over 20 journal articles and 50 presentations or proceedings papers, and is a Fellow of SPIE, the Optical Engineering Society.
Arlene Yusnukis, elected as an honorary associate member, graduated from NMSU with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics in 1984 and joined the Colorado Networks Division of Hewlett-Packard Company. Since then she has held numerous managerial positions with Hewlett-Packard's software development business and information technology organizations, now Aligent Technologies, in northern Colorado. In 1998, Ms. Yusnukis was promoted to Manager of the Loveland Site Information Technologies Organization. She is currently a strategic program manager in the Information Technology organization of Aligent Technologies focused on the Automated Test Group's Field Service and Support organization.
Ms. Yusnukis is currently serving in the added role of Agilent's Corporate Recruiting Manager for New Mexico State University, and she is an avid friend of the Klipsch School. Recently, she took a leadership role in helping the Klipsch School obtain an $118,000 grant from Agilent for our VLSI laboratories.
NEW POWER SYSTEMS LAB
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), Inc., Pullman, WA, recently established a relationship with Professor Bill Kersting in which they will donate a number of state-of-the-art microprocessor-based protective relays for the new power systems laboratory. The first shipment of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories microprocessor-based relays has arrived. These relays will be used in a senior capstone design project in the spring 2001 semester. The capstone design project will involve several areas of electrical engineering. The relays communicate with each other through a fiber optics link utilizing a new communications protocol called "mirrored bits." Digital signal processing is involved in converting the power system voltages and currents into digital form. Since the relays are microprocessor-based, computer engineering will also be involved. All of this is necessary so the power engineer can "teach" the relay to recognize the occurrence of a short circuit and send the appropriate "trip" signals to the correct circuit breakers.
Next summer Schweitzer will send additional relays covering generator protection, transformer protection and high voltage transmission line protection.
Making electric power safer, more reliable, and more economical is the fundamental purpose of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. Power system protection schemes depend on protective relays to provide response to system faults within milliseconds. SEL relays serve hundreds of utilities, and in turn millions of customers, by contributing to safer operations and minimizing outages and damage due to faults. Ed Schweitzer who, at that time, was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Washington State University formed Schweitzer Engineering in 1982.
The acquisition of the state-of-the-art protective relays will make it possible to develop a new power systems laboratory where the various types and schemes of protective relays used in industry can be tried and tested by the undergraduate and graduate students.
ALUMNI HAPPENINGS
Klipsch School alumnus Dr. Alvy Ray Smith, who was recognized with an honorary doctorate from New Mexico State University during the fall 1999 commencement exercises, published an article "Digital Humans Wait in the Wings" in the November 2000 issue of Scientific American. Dr. Smith was highlighted in the Summer 1999 KlipschSpeaker for his extensive work in computer graphics, co-founding of Pixtar, academy awards, and his participation in the first completely computer-generated film Toy Story. The Scientific American article was very introspective with respect to when, and if, animators can create realistic humans to star in computer-generated films.
NEW FACULTY
Dr. Ray Lyman will join the Klipsch School in November, 2000 as an assistant professor. He received his BSEE from the University of Houston in 1983, his MSEE from the University of South Florida in 1988 and PhD in EE from the University of Florida in 2000. His interests include linear prediction for bandlimited processing, decision-directed channel tracking, and investigation of the theoretical limits of predictability of bandlimited processes. The application of his work is in mobile radio. Dr. Lyman will be a part of the Center for Telemetry and Telemetering.
Prior to his interview trip to the Klipsch School, Dr. Lyman had not traveled west of Houston, Texas. We look forward to introducing him to the beauty of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the extraordinary Mesilla Valley chile.
GODDARD HALL RENOVATION
The renovation of Goddard Hall is progressing. Both the annex and tower portions should be completed by March 2001. Since the building is on the Historical Registry, much of its exterior had to be preserved. The north and east walls of the annex remain standing. The inside of the annex and tower have been gutted and modern facilities are being installed. Some of the roof areas were covered with concrete and other areas were covered with one foot of dirt. There were several different layers of concrete floors, with some being three feet thick. The College of Engineering offices will move into the tower area. The Klipsch School will get much needed laboratory and office space in the old annex area.
In connection with the Goddard renovation, our discussions on the elimination of the old power systems lab in Goddard and the development of the new one, in previous issues of the KlipschSpeaker, prompted Pat Quinlan, Class of 1960, to email Bill Kersting and reminisce about the 1959 rebuilding of the power lab. Following is a fascinating email relating work, experience, and education.
Bill,
Was interesting to read in the Klipsch Alumni News about the revitalization of the large machines laboratory.
The 1939 power panel was the scene of many 'sparking' machine experiments over the years as students routed power to the satellite panels near each machine. To those of us confronted with amps instead of milliamps, they were most imposing. The big horsepower machines were equally imposing, and we sometimes rattled the machine mounting foundation bolts during phase-in.
In 1959, under the direction of Dr. Crosno and Prof. Harold Brown, we did a lot of rework and rebuilding as described in the news letter. We re-cabled from the 1939 power panel to each machine using the existing underfloor conduit system - occasionally exceeding the preferred number of cables in a given sized conduit. Needless to say, Dr. Crosno, being the professional he was, had some unhappy days. With the help of Jim Fields, angle iron frames and metal panels were constructed in the metal working foundry/laboratory, painted, labeled and fitted with sockets to cable up each type of machinery lab experiment. The woodworking area nearby was used to build the horizontal bench to provide a writing surface and space for test equipment. Dean Thomas made almost daily visits to watch our progress and discuss the effort with Prof.
At the same time, in 1959, the "electronics laboratory" in the annex was outfitted with new work benches and cabling systems to support classes in vacuum tube technology and the emerging transistor technology that was supported by samples from Texas Instrument Corporation. Every laboratory class experiment was tested for compatibility with the new benches and wiring for both the machinery lab and the electronics lab.
That same year we cleaned out the attic at the old Goddard Hall. When I say cleaned, I mean cleaned. Bat guano covered much of what was stored there. Among the relics was the first telephone patching switchboard used at New Mexico A&M. It probably permitted patching of around 20 phone lines and was made of wood. Prof. knew how everything got there, where it came from and its history.
A number of undergraduate students, including me, earned survival pay from Prof. Brown's kitty of Engineering Department "office" funds; and I would guess that we did the whole thing for under $3000. I wonder how realistic the quarter million estimate might be for the new laboratory and how much could be accomplished with student and volunteer help. Guess I worked during the military cost cutting era too long at WSMR to accept the newsletter estimate. During 1959, we were helped by a number of graduate students and then professors, Ray Black and Paul Kepner. I suppose "doing it yourself" has been eclipsed by another world.
Regarding a meaningful lab experience, I believe that students should be impressed with motor and generator sizes (magnitude), power systems magnitude, safety, criticality of large horsepower systems to the public and industry, system reliability and predicted mean time to failure, maintenance issues, relationship of Faraday machines to other types of motors, system control and fail-safe issues, relationships to power grids, the importance of test and evaluation, and real-time telemetry systems used to monitor performance. We had an Onan motor/generator set and phased to El Paso Electric Co. to add power to the grid (at the instant of our experiment, the grid went down and for a millisecond, we were the source of Mesilla Valley power - needless to say, the Onan seized.) What would real-time monitoring have accomplished? We also had a gas turbine driven generator set and the screaming little turbine is a pleasure to remember. The hands-on laboratories made for better engineering courses and hopefully better 'real world' engineers!
Like much from the past, it seems something should be done with some of the machines. That's why museums are full. For many of us, those were the biggest motors and the biggest generators we would ever touch. You might find that some of the OEMs would like to have a unit or would sponsor a display related to their product to highlight today vs. yesterday. It also might be interesting to see how well modeling and simulation represent the old and the new machinery.
-------Pat Quinlan, Class of '60 and your Santa Fe High School mate, class of '54.
WHAT OUR STUDENTS ARE DOING
The Klipsch School is still hiring students to do wiring. However, the wiring is not quite the same wiring Pat Quinlan alluded to above. This past summer NMSU received a $98,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to install a high speed data network linking Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and the Klipsch School. Thomas & Brown Hall and Wells Hall, which houses the Particle Astrophysics Lab, are now fed by a 1 Gigabit/second fiber optic line. Goddard Hall will also be connected when renovation is complete. During the summer six undergraduate students were hired to distribute the 1Gb/s service to each of the floors in Thomas & Brown Hall. From there, all computers in offices, labs, classrooms, and study halls were connected by 100Mb/s twisted pair cable. During the installation, the students removed the original 10Mb/s thick-net which was still being used by two or three machines, miles of 1200 baud RS-232 serial cable, used in the old Ungerman-Bass days, and 19 loops of 10Mb/s thin-net coax.
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.