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Colorado Nanofabrication Laboratory

Scott Palo reported that the CNL is at a crossroads. Its past director, Bart Van Zeghbroeck, is on leave with a startup company, its past engineer, Jan Van Zeghbroeck, has also left, and a former graduate student is running the facility. Much of its equipment is old, and maintenance and repair costs absorb nearly all of the revenue. Successful facilities across the country have much larger budgets and require state support or subsidies. Maintenance contracts are 10 – 20% of the equipment purchase price per year, and cause hourly user costs to be $200 per hour or more without subsidies. NIST has substantial cleanroom and fabrication facilities, but their use has been limited in the past. Our Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research is investigating whether an arrangement can be made for increased use of NIST facilities by CU researchers. JILA also has limited facilities. A decision on next steps with the CNL will be made after access to NIST is determined. One recommendation is to hire a full-time professional staff person to run CNL.

Undergraduate advising model

Rob noted that the central-employed, local-deployed undergraduate advisor model proposed my Mary Steiner has many attractive features, but that matrix management models such as this one need all parties on board for them to succeed. Since it does not have the support of departmental leadership, it will not be implemented. However, Rob does intend to add funding for additional advisors over the next two years, some of which will be department-specific and some with shared duties. Those with shared duties will report to Mary, and Rob encouraged departments to also consider if they would like the department-specific new or any current advisors to also report to Mary. Additionally, interest was expressed by the chairs in continuing to improve advising and the hiring and training processes.

Plans for interviewing the dean candidate

Penny is on the visit committee for the dean candidate who is visiting 28 – 29 January. Provost Russ Moore had sent out a letter about the candidate and process earlier in the afternoon. Penny went over the schedule, including opportunities for faculty and staff to meet the candidate. Feedback will be sought shortly after the interview, so that the Provost can determine whether to move forward with the candidate or invite others.

Diversity plans

The campus has asked each school and college to assemble a 2-page diversity plan by March 15. Our college will form a small committee, led by Sarah Miller, to refresh and expand the inclusive excellence portion of our Engineering 2020 strategic plan. Input from departments and programs will be sought in preparing and reviewing the draft.

Faculty search interviews and info doc

Sarah Miller and others have developed a “Fast Facts” document for faculty candidates, which provides information on benefits and various other sources of support that make our college attractive. It will be handed out by the dean (or associate dean) when the candidates interview. It was recommended that web links be added and that at least one of the building photos be replaced with people photos. Rob also announced that campus HR now has a person to help with spousal and family needs of candidates.

3rd teaching title

The campus deans approved adding an honorary or working title on top of Instructor and Senior Instructor, but Rob’s earlier request to develop a suite of three working titles (Assistant Teaching Professor, Associate Teaching Professor, Teaching Professor) was not approved. The new working title would generally be available after a Senior Instructor had been in rank about six years and demonstrated leadership in teaching, such as mentoring other teaching faculty. Proposed language for the new title has included Senior Instructor of Distinction and Teaching Professor, with a decision by campus not yet made. The administrative council expressed a strong preference for the latter.

Faculty and staff evaluation processes

Professional staff evaluations are due to the dean’s office on 8 Feb, following a similar process and timeline as last year. Faculty evaluations will also follow a similar process and timeline as last year, with the evaluations due from the departments at the end of March. We will again use code 201 in the FRPA for faculty to summarize their main contributions and plans, and then ask chairs or designees to provide written feedback.

Professional master’s program update

Working with campus leadership, BBA and Keith Molenaar drafted a proposal that will split existing MS degrees into a traditional degree program and a professional degree program. In most cases, the ME degrees will then be phased out (but kept for Engineering Management, at least).

In attendance

Rob Davis, Scott Palo (first item only), Mark Gross, Penny Axelrad, Dan Schwartz, Balaji Rajagopalan, Jim Martin, Bob McLeod, Mike Hannigan (special meeting of dean with chairs and ATLAS director)