The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association
September 2020
Letter from the Editor
Dear ECEDHA friends and family,

Welcome to the new ECEDHA Source. After one of the most extraordinary summers in memory, we are back for the Fall of 2020.

I wanted to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Badri Roysam for his dedication and his exemplary leadership of the Source. I am personally grateful to Badri, especially for his caring assistance to me and my transition to the new Editor-in-Chief role, and also for his mentorship and friendship on the ECEDHA Board of Directors.

We also send a special welcome to the new ECE Chairs and Heads. You certainly picked an interesting time to come on board. We look forward to working with you. In the coming months, we will be deploying a fresh take on the ECEDHA Source, with a new editorial committee, new columns, panels, and candid conversations.

These continue to be hectic times, fraught with stress, and often more questions than answers. ECEDHA has achieved a remarkable pivot, from a traditional in-person Chair-focused society, to an agile and very active contemporary organization, offering essential services to a much wider audience in a dynamic manner.

Still, our great potential for impact on the lives of our constituents is countered by unprecedented uncertainty and suspicion, with diverging opinions and viewpoints. We are facing challenges such as college re-opening, student participation, in-person versus remote, lab instruction, social distancing versus team building and collective experiences.

ECEDHA continues to remain at the forefront of developments and at the cutting edge of technologies and content, with contributions such as the new Project RECET, lab professional meetings, new chairs' activities, communicators coordination, and more. But we cannot exist in a vacuum pretending to be above the goings-on. We need to address and acknowledge the societal landscape in which our departments and our students live and operate. Therefore, without being seen to take sides as an organization, we need to include a variety of viewpoints and be inclusive of a diverse set of opinions and perspectives.

We cannot afford to be apolitical, but we don't want to be perceived as partisan either. We should listen to a diverse set of strong opinions, without being predictable and type-cast as a liberal, "academic ivory tower" group.

To this effect, we inaugurate a series of articles, conversations and interviews that aim to inform and also to provoke thinking and discussion. In this transition issue for September of 2020, we are re-printing an article by Mike Seele and Santiago Gomez at Boston University, on the "master-slave" language used in our ECE textbooks. We are also featuring a "new chairs" article by John Papapolymerou of Michigan State University. We bring to you a report and a call-to-action from Larry Overzet of UT-Dallas, on ExCEllence in Senior Design. Finally, we begin a regular area for student perspectives, starting this month with Elizabeth Zidar, Electrical Engineering student at Northwestern University.

Good luck to all of us and let us have a great academic year 2020-21!

Michael Devetsikiotis
Editor-in-Chief, ECEDHA
ECE Department Chair and Professor,
University of New Mexico
Calendar of Events
September 22, 2020 at 3pm CT
Presented by José Alvarez, Intel

September 29, 2020 at 12pm CT
ECEDHA Awards Committee Call

September 30, 2020 at 1pm CT
Hosted by Sid Deliwala, University of Pennsylvania

October 1, 2020 at 1pm CT
Hosted by John Papapolymerou, Michigan State University and Art Lizotte, Keysight Technologies

October 2, 2020 at 1pm CT
Presented by Y.C. Wang, Digi-Key

October 9, 2020 at 10am CT
Central States Regional (Virtual) Meeting

October 9, 2020 at 2pm CT
iREDEFINE Online Mentoring Session

October 22, 2020 at 10am CT
ECEDHA-C Virtual Workshop (AI)

November 12, 2020 at 10am CT
ECEDHA-C Virtual Workshop (5G)

November 12, 2020
Western Regional (Virtual) Meeting

December 1-2, 2020
ECEDHA Summit Series
A Virtual Program for Educators and Lab Professionals

December 5, 2020 at 9am CT
Northeast Regional (Virtual) Meeting

December 8, 2020 at 12pm CT

December 8, 2020 at 3pm CT

December 9, 2020 at 1pm CT

December 10, 2020 at 12pm CT

January 14, 2020 at 10am CT
ECEDHA-C Virtual Workshop (Quantum)

New Programs added daily!
Check the calendar for updates.
Featured Articles
Some Thoughts For New Chairs in the Year of COVID-19, 2020
By: John Papapolymerou, Michigan State University

Welcome to this issue of the ECEDHA Source and to the new academic year. In light of the events of the past 6 months that have shaken our world and have affected all of us, I have been looking for inspiration and guidance and Martin Luther King Jr’s famous words came to mind: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Striking Out Racist Terminology in Engineering
By: Mike Seele, Boston University
with an introduction by: Santiago Gomez (right)

Introduction
My name is Santiago Gomez. I attended Boston University for my undergraduate degree as a Gates Millennium Scholar, and I graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. My career as an admissions officer at Harvard University led me to my current path in engineering. I returned to Boston University in 2019 as a Martin Luther King, Jr. Graduate Fellow in the Late Entry Accelerated Program to pursue a graduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

I found the master/slave (M/S) metaphor in computer engineering reprehensible on a moral, scientific, and pedagogical level. Morally, the principles of a genocidal economic tool have no place in science. Moreover, the M/S metaphor does not precisely describe the phenomena of wiring two Flip-Flops. Lastly, it is detrimental to the student experience as it can inflect trauma to students of color because it is a reminder of all the small indignities we constantly endure. I penned my letter in hopes of making engineering curricula anti-racist. More importantly, I raised my voice to inspire ECE educators to innovate their pedagogy so curricula can account for different lived experiences. Newly graduated engineers will then foster a professional environment that actively includes black and brown people’s perspectives. The ECE academy now has a closing window of opportunity to create the blueprints for an equitable and just technological future.
Student Perspective: Electrical Engineering Education Amid COVID-19
By: Elizabeth Zidar, Northwestern University

It was early March, and I was studying for my physics final the next week with a few of my friends, when I learned that all the rumors about an actual global pandemic were legitimate. When all of our exams became optional and we were being told to drop everything and just get home as soon as possible, my friends and I realized that our lives were never going to be the same again. Universities would not be sending us home and cancelling finals if COVID-19 were not a genuine threat to our safety. A few days later, I packed up my dorm, jokingly fist-bumped my friends goodbye, and drove home for our now two-week-long Spring Break. Little did I know that it would be over six months until I saw them again in person.
The ExCEllence in Senior Design Mini-Workshop: A Report and Call to Action
By: L. Overzet (UTD), D. Aguirre (UTD), J. Bredow (UTA), J. Hansen (UTD), R. Jordan (UNM), S. Newsom (UTD), T. Paillier (Würth Elektronik), J. Post (ERAU), A. Shrivastava (UTD), N. Skinner (UTD), M. Tacca (UTD), R. Wetterskog (UTD)

It was on April 21st of 2020 that we found ourselves forced to postpone the 2nd ExCEllence in Senior Design (ESD) Showcase. Everyone in the leadership of this event knew it had to be done, and everyone was upset about it too. One of the members of the founding committee inspired us all when he exclaimed: “We cannot allow the momentum we’ve developed to be lost!” He was talking about momentum developed in ECEDHA’s SW region. That “momentum” derived from and lives in a rather simple concept. One which seems to have been misplaced when it comes to our senior design programs. ECE departments are better, both individually and collectively, as we collaborate. It was momentum towards collaboration – between schools – that moved us all and still does. We hope that this vision, this momentum, can spread outside the SW region, too. ECEDHA is the right organization to further that collaboration. The ESD Showcase may be a good vehicle to encourage it.

Colorado State University Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Recognized by Peers as Innovative Program of the Year
By: Andrea Leland, Colorado State University

A national organization of Electrical and Computer Engineering department heads has named Colorado State University’s department “Innovative Program of the Year.”

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association, or ECEDHA, represents more than 300 ECE departments in the United States and Canada.

CSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, headed by Tony Maciejewski (left), received the honor for its work to reinvent the way students perceive and learn engineering through a cross-disciplinary partnership with Mathematics, the Institute for Learning and Teaching, Psychology and School of Education. The five-year project is supported by a $2 million Revolutionizing Engineering Departments grant, known as RED, from the National Science Foundation.

Photo (above): CSU Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty work collaboratively to lead knowledge integration activities as part of the innovative RED program.
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Special Announcements
Now Renewing: 2020-2021 ECEDHA Academic Membership

Renew your membership today to continue receiving ECEDHA member benefits, including:

  • The opportunity to participate in the ECEDHA Annual Survey, a valuable tool in benchmarking data.
  • The opportunity to attend the 2020 ECEDHA Summit Series, a virtual program
  • Complimentary job posting service via the ECEDHA website
  • And much more!

Looking for your membership packet? Please contact Claire Seifert at [email protected]
Welcome, ECEDHA Corporate Members!

ECEDHA is pleased to welcome its newest corporate members, including:
Announcing Project RECET

Project RECET (Remote ECE Teaching) has been launched to facilitate sharing of materials, resources and best practices for online instruction among ECE educators, with an initial focus on introductory analog and digital circuits.

Online and online-compatible techniques for teaching electrical and computer engineering at the undergraduate and continuing education levels have been developed and researched for years, but they are still not widely-deployed across ECE departments in the US. This past spring, the COVID-19 pandemic forced virtually every ECE program in the US to move to online instruction within a short period of time. In many departments, the implementations were improvised by necessity. Given continuing uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic, most universities are continuing some level of remote activity during the fall 2020 semester, and perhaps beyond. 

With this in mind, Project RECET was initiated by a group of educators from University of New Mexico, North Carolina State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Analog Devices, Inclusive Engineering Consortium and ECE Department Heads Association. We seek to broaden the group and assemble as extensive a collection of materials as possible.

We invite you to review the materials currently posted on the Project RECET website and consider using them in the classes you and your colleagues teach. If you do, we would like to follow up with you to assess your experience. We also welcome contributions of materials developed at your institution. To facilitate broad adoption, materials should have a minimum of corporate or institutional branding. However, during this early stage of the project, all materials will be considered.

Now Accepting Nominations for the 2020 ECEDHA Awards

ECEDHA is now accepting nominations for its 2020 Awards. Nominations are due by Friday, November 20, 2020.

Outstanding Leadership and Service Award

Innovative Program Award

Diversity Award

Industry Award

CHECE Canadian Leadership and Service Award

ECE Technology Integration Award
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Hayne Shumate
Senior VP of Internet Business
Mouser Electronics