Happy Birthday IAP

by John Pokoski

In April, I presented a paper on our department’s Industrial Associate’s Program (IAP) at the Zone 1 meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education held at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Tom Miller suggested that a summary would be of interest to our readers. Since last year’s Signals and Noise detailed IAP functions and also listed recent activities, I thought that a historical perspective might be of interest, particularly since the IAP recently celebrated its tenth anniversary.

The Background

In the mid-1980’s our student enrollments were huge relative to our faculty size, lab space, and operating budget. Simultaneously, high-tech industry was expanding greatly within the state. The Department had established relationships with individual companies over the years, but it strongly felt that a more formal union was needed. An organized program could help companies in many ways, such as assisting them with student recruitment, using their advice and resources to produce better graduates, generating special courses for their employees, and working cooperatively on R&D. Clearly such activities are also beneficial to ECE faculty and students. Department Chairman Ron Clark secured some start-up funds from the administration, and Prof. Fletcher Blanchard became the point man for the initial efforts.

Getting Started

One of the first problems was to decide how much of a fee (if any) to charge member companies, and what the quid-pro-quo should be for that fee. We knew that some universities had programs with high (e.g. $50,000) fees which would be used to fund unified research (e.g. chip fabrication) of direct benefit to the members. After some discussion, we decided that our situation dictated a small fee ($5000) which could be used in diverse ways, yet would cement a special relationship with the member companies. We also decided that we would not spend the money in areas which were obviously the responsibility of UNH, and we would use IAP funds to leverage resources from other sources whenever possible.

The next task was to recruit some members. The first step was to develop a detailed, professional document, which would describe the Department and the proposed IAP. We felt that it was critical to have hard-copy to place in the hands of prospective members. This was a time consuming and expensive task, and although all faculty cooperated, the burden fell on Fletch, who produced a nice brochure. Simultaneously, we needed to develop a list of prospective members. We felt that the most likely candidates would be medium to large high-tech firms, located in New Hampshire, who regularly hired our graduates, and with whom we had previous relationships. All faculty provided personal leads, since an inside connection (e.g. an alumnus) would help us get a foot in the door. We got other leads from the development office, state government lists, and by hook and crook. At this point, the prospective customer would be written, called, visited, and pestered in general. For some companies, business was so good that they didn’t have the time to get involved. For others, business was so poor that they couldn’t afford the fee. A few showed some interest, but weren’t quite sure what we were up to. This was a frustrating time.

After about a year, I had become Department Chairman, and Fletch and Ron had the names of eighteen officials of companies who had shown some interest. They were all invited to a day-long meeting at UNH. Fifteen came. The program started with an overview in which I described the IAP goals, but perhaps more importantly, bared the soul of the Department, including all budget details, to the attendees. This was followed by brief presentations by each faculty member on his research and professional interests. Lunch included time for informal discussions between faculty and recruits. Before they could escape, attendees were seated at a round table for a down-to-earth discussion with the chairman and several of the more emboldened faculty. The basic question asked in turn was, "What do you think? Is it a good idea? Are you going to join?" After some hemming and hawing by several visitors, the Vice- President for Research for a major U.S. firm said, "I think it’s a great idea. I’ll support you 100%." This broke the ice, and three others joined on the spot. My heart started to beat again, and thanksgiving prayers were heard being mumbled by the faculty who remained.

Major Impacts of the IAP over the Past Ten Years

Many of the impacts which the IAP has had on the Department have been money related. An average of $30,000 was deposited each year into a UNH interest bearing account. The department chair, with advice from a faculty committee on major matters, could make spending decisions with essentially no fiscal or time restrictions imposed by the University. This led to very flexible and efficient use of funds. At the annual IAP meeting, previous spending and budget decisions were discussed, and the industrial representatives were invariably supportive. Some examples follow.

Graduate student recruitment in April for September enrollments of each year had become a hassle, since withering university budgets had forced us to limit our research assistantship offers to fit the research contracts in hand. We could not over commit, which meant we would lose some good students to other institutions while we were waiting for our top choices to commit. The aggravation would be further exacerbated when new grants would come in during the summer, and it would be too late to recruit. The IAP "kitty" allows us to over commit by three or four additional offers, in anticipation of rejections and new grants. It is interesting that in ten years, we have never had to actually spend IAP money for this purpose (new grants always arrived), but we were able to improve the quality and quantity of our graduate students with this financial buffer.

We used IAP funds to generate an annual newsletter, Signals and Noise, to students, alumni, UNH administrators, and friends of the Department. This resulted in extremely positive public relations as well as three major endowed student scholarships funded by alumni.

IAP money was critical in seeding the annual Advanced Technology Workshop under Dr. Rucinski’s direction and the annual Ergonomics short course, which is run by Dr. LaCourse. Both are important to those professors and to industry, as well as to the Department in general. Although both operations are self-supporting, they could not have been started without the IAP reserves.

We have been able to take "one-time" advantage of special equipment and supply "deals" at times when our normal coffers were bare. Similarly, emergency travel needs could be tended to on short notice.

An average of five annual $500 scholarships have been given to undergraduates. One extremely strong graduate student was supported with an IAP fellowship. Individual undergraduate and graduate students have been given summer salaries to support targeted fledgling research and to stimulate undergraduate laboratory curriculum development.

IAP funds and support were critical to the development of a state of the art personal computer cluster for ECE students. $30,000 of IAP funds were leveraged into $180,000 of total support. The cluster is now an essential component of our program.

In addition to direct financial support, the Department has received extremely strong support and advice from its industrial friends at its annual IAP meeting. For example, when the formation of a new departmental student project requirement was under discussion, some faculty were not convinced of its importance. The IAP members made their support of the idea loud and clear. This carried the day.

Several major research contracts with IAP companies have spun off of the IAP relationship. Similarly, several undergraduate student projects have been generated. All of these have been mutually beneficial and many have resulted in permanent jobs for the students.

In addition to occasional minor free consulting for member companies, ECE has allowed them to recruit through ads on its WWW page on the Internet. Moreover, each company annually receives a Resume Booklet of all graduating ECE students. Individual contacts are facilitated with the support of the Career Planning and Placement Office on campus.

Finally, if any member company needs special university service the Department is quick to react. For example, university library access has been facilitated, and consulting contacts have been arranged with faculty in other departments.

Current Status

Currently there are five IAP companies, two of whom are charter members. We have found that a group of from five to eight is about right for us. Too small a group would not be practical, while a large group would depersonalize things as well as strain our resources. Over ten years, we have had fourteen different member companies, some for one year, most for several. Most members have been New Hampshire based, with a few from other parts of New England, and a few others from more distant states.

The $5000 fee has been a reasonable choice as far as we can decipher. A few potential members have balked at the fee, and a few have inquired about the possibility of a smaller fee for smaller companies or for new members, while most think it is reasonable. We have decided to keep it uniform and have not adjusted for inflation, just to keep things more straightforward.

We have found that each company is unique. Some are satisfied with the knowledge that they are enabling us to produce a better graduate. Some like the student project cooperation. Some use the Resume Booklet heavily, while others ignore it. For some the "inside link" to UNH is important. (Several companies have wished that the program formally encompassed all the engineering departments, but this is beyond our control.) We have been told many times at our IAP meetings that members are very pleased at our leveraged use of their fees to get much more value for their dollar.

When recruiting companies for membership we have found that, although it is useful to ferret out how best we can help that company, it is most critical to find a sympathetic ear, particularly if it belongs to someone with clout. A good approach has been to invite prospective members to our annual IAP meeting where current members have been the best salesmen for our product. The meetings start about 10am with an overview of the Department and the IAP budget by the department chair. We usually have a presentation or two of some research or curriculum matter by faculty members and/or students. We then lead into some issues of current concern for which we seek advice, and also ask them for topics of discussion. These continue through a luncheon, during which our dean often appears for further interaction. The meeting ends about 1:15pm. In recent years we have successfully integrated our annual meeting with our senior projects poster day so that IAP representatives can interact after the meeting, if they wish, with students to their mutual benefit (and obvious enjoyment). This day is a fitting climax to our academic year, and has become an important tradition in our department.

Although it takes time and energy to keep the program viable, the results have been well worth it, as previously mentioned. The program has been a positive in the eyes of our ABET accreditors, and has been a helpful factor in student recruitment. In addition, as the only department on campus with such a program, it sets us apart in the eyes of administrators and other faculty, and is a source of cohesion and internal pride.