POSITION PAPER On Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering Prof. Dr. A.M. Sharaf Electrical Engineering Dept. Univ

1. POSITION PAPER On Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering Prof. Dr. A.M. Sharaf Electrical Engineering Dept. University of New Brunswick P.O. Box 4400 Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3 (506) 453-4561 Fax (506) 453-3589

2. CHAIR OF ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERING • The Position of Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering • The Candidate • Administrative Philosophy • Challenges • New Programs & Initiatives • Management Philosophy • Problems & Needs • Vision • Mission • Goals • Key Values • Other Issues • Immediate Challenges/ Concerns/Directions • Other Issues • Last Word ! • Planning Issues/ Quality Assurance Areas/ /Feedback Metrics

3. I. THE POSITION • The Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering is both leader and servant to department needs in particular and University academic goals in general. • He / She must be Honest, Transparent, Sincere, Straightforward, Equitable, Unbiased and Forthcoming • (NO POLITICS) • He / She must ensure department- academic excellence by fostering originality and innovation in teaching, research and community service. • He / She must be a role-model and servant to department professional needs and academic aspirations.

4. He / She must be fully democratic, ensuring the highest standards in recruitments, promotion, tenure. No biases, politics or favouritism. • He / She must be fully accountable for all department and staff performances and exercise the leadership role in avoiding conflicts. • He / She must ensure continuous evaluation of teaching/ learning qualities and the effectiveness of all educational programs. • He / She must be a team-player and real participant in all University/ Community academic activities. • He / She must be equitable, real defender of human rights, and equal-opportunities for women, physically challenged, and visible minorities.

5. He / She must establish full partnership with other post secondary education/ institutions nationally and internationally to maximize quality transferability, academic links and sustainability. • He / She must promote the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering role as an effective and evolving technical training centre. By establishing continuing education activity and industry/business consulting services office in collaboration with the office of VP Academic and International Relations and University Continuing Education Division. • He / She should be a facilitator, promoter and catalyst for innovation change. A Leader is a Servant, who listens and serves!

6. II.THE CANDIDATE • The Candidate for the Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering should have the ability to lead and motivate others • To be innovative and energetic. • To be appreciative of all people/cultures and department units. • To be committed to collegial relations & morality. • To be personable and approachable. • To be adaptable Transparent and competent. • To be a good manager and a caring administrator Commitment to Equity/Equality/Justice is the Essence of True Leaders!

7. III. ADMINISTRATIVE PHILOSOPHY • An Effective Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering: • Should be a good listener, honest, sincere, approachable and willing to serve! • (Even for one term)!! • Should be willing to compromise because all problems have solutions and all solutions are at best mere compromises (without Sacrificing Ethics/Professionalism). • (No optimality)!! • Should understand that the mission of an Electrical & Computer Engineering department is a part of the full mission of the University which is to serve New Brunswick community and Canada by ensuring the highest academic standards and quality educational/research programs nationally and internationally.

8. Should seek teaching/learning academic excellence, despite any imposed austerity by enhancing quality, productivity, efficiency and efficacy to ensure a coherent Culture of Excellence. • To be fully accountable to the University Administration, Department, students and the Public. • To ensure an innovative/sustainable department, capable of facing the challenge of change and the imposed competitive era? • Should work closely with other Department Chairs and Faculty Members/Staff to ensure an effective learning environment that embrace both diversity and Excellence. • Should provide full liaison with University Administration and outside national & international organizations in all areas of academic matters, research links and collaboration.

9. IV. CHALLENGES • Universities are facing an imposed change & renewal - evolution (like it or not!!). • How to be productive with limited resources and continued austerity measures! • Accountability to the students and public. • Need for curriculum change, flexibility and adaptability to reflect evolving technological changes, competitive global economy, slanting employment market-shift, and global competitiveness. • University education as a commodity. • Need for a national/ international and global role of University. • Sustained business, industry link. • Active continuing technical education and training role.

10. Need for innovative teaching/learning technologies and tools (Distance Education, Internet, Interactive Multi-media, Tele-Education) • How to attract top notch students, mature and international students to ensure sustainability and offset continuous declining student-enrollment. • How University's scarce resources can be shared using the rapidly growing Information Highway. • How to establish a sustained link between shifting employment markets and the University, and How a University curricula can respond to employment markets shifts and training/retraining needs. • Need for an effective Mitigation-Mechanism & Zero Tolerance (ZTP) Policy to deal with (Harassment, Bias, Hate & discrimination) ; And to balance such policy against individual rights, censorship, and the fuzzy concept of relativity of freedom of speech.

11. How to enhance the University/Department adaptability & competitiveness! • How to measure quality excellence in teaching, research, productivity, efficiency and efficacy. • How to ensure equitable teaching/supervision/other services in teaching-load distribution. • How to enhance the department/university image, perception by its employees, students, and the community. • Need for a University clean image, far from bad publicity, external political influence, patronage or party alignment. The University is facing an imposed evolution and forced need to change and adapt to the challenging task of shearcompetition and survival.

12. V. NEW PROGRAMS AND INITIATIVES • How existing engineering curricula can be changed, enhanced, updated or modified to reflect new technological changes and employment market shifts. • How new teaching/learning methods can be modified to make full use of Internet, Tele-Education/ Multi-Media and Tele-Learning/Distance-Learning/Value-Added Research Centre. • Need for a full technical training continuing education centre within the Electrical & Computer Engineering department in collaboration with the continuing education division, industry and government. • Need for better and effective student input, representations and continuous interactions in all academic matters and curricula changes.

13. How to promote the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering as a technical Centre of Excellence nationally and internationally-liaison with (CIDA, UNESCO, World Bank, International Consulting and technical projects, Other organizations, • How to establish sustained academic exchanges and research links with national/international research centres and World Wide universities. • How to better utilize and promote the dormant research talents and professional expertise within the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

14. VI. MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY • All department members working together as a team for a common unified goal which is the full promotion and development of the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department • Collective Group Decision Making. • Delegation of responsibilities to all department levels.The right job for the right person • Facilitation and promotion of department/student interactions. • Transparency, equity, collegiality and morality.

15. Enhanced/continuous/ effective communications. • Full disclosure of Department goals, activities, records, budgets, etc. at all times. • Team-work and more team work • Short term and Long Term Department Planning • Coping with change and evolving challenges. The future holds a continuous sea of change, where change is synonymous with progress and prosperity.

16. VII. PROBLEMS & NEEDS • Three major challenges are now facing the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering • Decline in student enrolment and relatively low student's success and high "attrition" rates. • Need for an enhanced and productive way to deal with evolving/ new curricula and learning challenges: • (a) Effective Teaching • (b) Effective Learning Outcome Assessment • (c) Quality Assurance Metrics

17. Research Decline Syndrome (RDS): Lack of research funds resulting in lack of department research productivity and the growing number of highly qualified but dormant department members (40-50%) • (Alternative financial sources for funding/Research Groups/Mentorship Programs/ Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration are urgently needed) MONEY RESEARCH

18. VIII. VISION ECE Department: To be recognized as a leader in Electrical & Computer Engineering Education and Research as well as training / Continuing Education Centre. ECE Dept should be the FLAGSHIP of the Engineering Faculty .

19. IX. MISSION To enhance the effectiveness and quality of Electrical & Computer Engineering Education and Research while fostering professionalism, excellence, employability and ethical values of graduating engineers.

20. X. GOALS • To promote and establish the highest educational standards, ethical ideals and moral values of graduating engineers. • To ensure comprehensive education of the highest caliber that targets new technological advances and employment markets. • To advocate a responsible stance on issues of engineering education that benefits the public and the engineering profession. • To ensure career advancement and continuing education and professional needsof all graduating engineers.

21. To promote value-added research that enhances the quality of scholarly teaching and value-added research. • To recognize and reward excellence in teaching and research and distinguished contributions to Electrical & Computer Engineering education. • To ensure collegiality, equity, team-spirit and unify the many voices for the benefit of the students, Faculty staff and the profession.

22. XI. CORE VALUES • Leadership: To provide guidance, inspiration and mentorship through education, information policy development and advocacy. • Excellence: To maintain the highest ethical and professional standards for faculty, students, educational and research programs. • Respect: To embrace equity, dignity and respect for every human being and develop a cohesive, welcoming and inclusive culture.

23. Compassion: To be respectful, sensitive, empathetic to the needs of others. • Professionalism: To work with expertise and to be fully committed, diligent to save others before ourselves (students, other faculty, community, engineering profession nationally & internationally). • Responsibility: To ensure excellence and to maintain healthy personal and professional academic life that is fully dedicated to our vision, learning and research

24. XII. OTHER THOUGHTS • How to challenge our Engineering students? • How to bring new technology and department research expertise into the classroom? • How to utilize the industry links, professional development programs: CO-OP/PEP and senior thesis research projects as a vehicle for good research and Scholarly Teaching. • How to enhance teaching/ learning effectiveness, student- learning quality and department research productivity? • Why collaborative/group/interdisciplinary research is most cost effective and best route to enhanced research productivity and Sustainability!

25. How to enhance the work environment to be free from politics,hostility, and group alignments? (Collegiality & morality) • How can we attract top-notch students into Engineering? [women, mature students, national/ international recruitment, foreign students may be the answer! (at least financially)] (Satellite Campuses, recruitment offices, promotional marketing). • Role of distance- education /Tele-Education, Multi Media Internet based Courses, on-line publications, etc... in effective learning/teaching, and in building National Image for attracting local, national and international prospective students. [Need a new well coordinated University Student-Recruitment/Marketing Strategy]

26. How to establish an effective and productive Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering - continuing education division with planned professional seminars, workshops, community training activities? An how to use any generated surplus funds to enhance the dormant department research productivity and support Graduate Students? • How to market the continuing education nationally and Internationally. • How to establish full rapport with local and international businesses/industries/NGO [Show the mutual-benefits: Do not solicit Money or ask for Donations!]

27. How to seek real research funding and industrial support for all department members, to establish their research productivity and support graduate students? (No Charity!)-Role of research Links/Agreements/Academic Links (Good Image Building & Salesmanship) • How all of us can be involved equally in fulfilling the Department/University goals and objectives to achieve the common task of (excellent teaching and research) productivity, quality and Academic Excellence?

28. Servant to Department Needs Reflect Honesty, Equity, Transparency Lead By Example/Team Player Be a Promoter/Facilitator Adhere to UNB Rules/Regulations/Code-of-Conduct Be Caring and Empathetic Be willing to voice concerns and Discus Issues!!! Chair!!

29. Open-Door /Friendly/Transparent!! Collegial Decision/Full Consultation Flexibility/Collective Group Involvement Bottom-Up /Situational- Management Respect/Fairness/Bias-Free Equitable &Balanced Teaching load ADMINISTRATIVE STYLE

30. Balanced Teaching Load • Balanced Graduate + U/Graduate • 2+2 or 2+3-Teaching Load Assignment • Account for Extra Research/Graduate Supervision • Ensure that Research is Disseminated to Scholarly-Teaching!! • Teaching Load is tentatively assigned by Teaching/Research Group!!

31. CHALLENGES Immediate Needs *Keep EE and CE Programs *Decide Collectively either to keep or Eliminate the SE- Program based on Committed resources/Added teaching overload/Infrastructure

32. Integrity & Professionalism • A professional can work with ANYONE without Losing Integrity • Honesty is key to securing Respect/Support • A Chair is merely a Facilitator/Promoter • A Chair should be a catalyst for real Change & Renewal

33. Other Needs • Teaching Overload problems requires: • Optimize and utilize available Resources • Use of Qualified & Effective Visiting Professors/Research Associates/Inter-Department/Inter-Faculty/External for Overload Teaching Resources… if need be!! • Quality requires matching Teaching to areas of Expertise (Major/Minor)

34. Research Productivity • Need to address The Sagging- Research Ranking: • Promote Faculty- Mentorship • promote Inter-Departmental/Inter-Faculty Research collaboration • Strengthen Value-Added Research • Promote National/International Research and Graduate Supervision

35. New Programs/Curricula • Update/Modify U/Graduate Curriculum to stress: Engineering Up-Front • Promote Soft-Skills/design Skills • Introduce Project-Based Learning • Stress Interdisciplinary Programs • Target Titling employment Markets • Target New/Emerging/Evolving Technologies & Employment Markets

36. New Curricula/Programs • Inter-Departmental/Inter-Faculty • Address New Evolving Technologies such as: • CIT/BIOENGINEERING/BIOMETRICS/BIOSECURITY/ADVANCED.. ENGINEERING MATERIALS… • MEMS-NEMS/BIO-INFORMATICS • NANO-TECHNOLOGY/MECHATRONICS…

37. Collegial Learning Environment • Stress Collegiality/Respect/Inclusiveness • Stress Equity/Equality/Fairness • Promote a Culture of Excellence • Be Accountable/Be Productive • Avoid Politics/Patronage/Entitlement! • Promote Harmony by Promoting respect

38. Continuous QA- Planning • Streamline the Department Operation • Assign Job Description/Responsibilities • Develop A Continuous feedback Quality Assurance Plan • Develop a Long-Term Learning Outcome-Assessment Plan (Mission/Objectives/Metrics.. • Promote the Department/Image Building: • DATABASE/NEWSLETTER/ANNUAL REPORT/National & International Links!!

39. Immediate Challenges!!!! • Accreditation Problems/Issues… • Upgrading Laboratories/Infrastructure/Library • Curriculum Needs/Changes: Upgrade/Remove Duplication/Streamline Curriculum and Introduce Soft Skills/Introduce Project Based Design Skills!! • Balance Key areas of expertise within the Department • Introduce Measures of Productivity/QA/Educational Quality

40. Immediate-Challenges-Continued-….Learning Environment/Collegiality/Diversity/Respect/Quality/ New Culture of EXCELLENCE/Ethics/Profession and Bias-Free Work Environment

41. XIII. VIEW POINTS – HOW TO ? • The department is not a political arena or a Campaign Ground, it cannot sustain politics, clashes or control tactics. • Full Respect for equity, Equality, Fairness and collegiality are the basic ingredients of effective teamwork and effective group dynamics. • Need to transform the educational process to student-centered learning: Where our students can question, study and research every issue and breach all walls that divide us, develop full understanding and sense of belonging to a special inclusive,welcoming and cohesive culture of Excellence.

42. XIV. HOW TO FULLY ADDRESS EXISTING PROBLEMS AND URGENT ISSUES: • How to boost ethical/Professional values. • How to develop innovative programs and updated curricula to address emerging technological advances. • Existing accreditation issues and meet for quality assurance. • How to curb rampant plagiarism/cheating/grade inflation among students. • How to boost collaboration interdisciplinary research

43. How to ensure value-added research group and group research. •  How to promote the internationalization efforts via academic links, agreements, collaborative value-added and targeted research.. •  How to promote an inclusive fully consultative decision-making process that is collegial, effective fully-democratic and tolerant of dissent and the other viewpoint. •  How to ensure full transparency and participation by all (Faculty, Staff, Students,…) in the collegial work environment. •  How to ensure a collegial work environment that is free from harassment, bias, hatred, inequity and politics.

44. How to address new emerging technologies and the titling employment markets necessitating new interdisciplinary programs inter-department and inter-faculty programs (Biotechnology, Biosecurity, Biometrics, Engineering Materials, Mechatronics, Smart sensors, Nano-technology systems and devices, Optical communications & Information Technology. • How to motivate all to share the responsibility for renewal and participate pro-actively in the decision making process. • How we can address the needs for effective scholarly teaching and effective learning. • How we can ensure state of the art educational and research laboratories. Dare to Share and Participate

45. XV. LAST WORD Treat all as Equal, Assume the Best in people, Promote the Spirit of Competition and Friendship. Be a role model, willing to serve but be willing to accept no reward!

46. XVI. THE PLANNING PROCESS • A well planned long term approach for total Renewal • Identify challenges and problems • Start the Consultation, Brain storming and Proactive Involvement of all (Faculty / Staff / Students) • Higher Administration / External Advisory Committee

47. XVII. STAGES OF THE PLANNING PROCESS • Identify solutions and mitigate measures guided by key issues of Education-Quality, Accountability, Responsiveness, Sustainability, Quality Assurance, Collegial and Effective Work Environment • Research all options and reach consensus

48. Follow-up and more follow-up to see and evaluate all stages in implementation • Readjust, fine tune and reevaluate all implementation stages with continuous feedback, brainstorming and sustained proactive involvement of all stakeholders • Implement solutions and monitor effectiveness and impact

49. XVIII. QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA) • QA is hinged on Accountability and Learning-Outcome-Assessment • Both require identifying a mission, key objectives and evaluation / assessment matrices and indices • The evaluation process is perpetual and follow a cycle of 1-3 years

50. XIX. QA- AREAS • Learning / Teaching effectiveness • Student- centred learning and learning experience • Professional Development • Administrative process streamlining • Curricula updating • New Programs (Inter-Dept., Inter-Faculty )