Chairman's Corner

by John R. LaCourse

This year has been very exciting with significant accomplishments made in many areas. It has also been a year of reflection on past accomplishments and successes and a year of discovery for future endeavors.

This past year the ECE Department has embarked on a process to establish a new degree program. We anticipate offering a computer engineering major which will provide students with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. The goal of the computer engineering program is to produce graduates with the hardware and software expertise to design computer-based systems and solve computer technology problems in general. The curriculum will be broadly based in mathematics and science, as well as basic Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering, thus giving a solid foundation for addressing the changes in computer technology that will continually occur. This curriculum was mainly crafted by Professors Pokoski (Chair of the Computer Engineering Committee), Hludik, Kun, Messner, and Rucinski. Presently, the proposal is at the Trustee level. The program is expected to be approved this summer with a starting date of fall 2002.

Also this past year, the college has obtained approval and funds to renovate Kingsbury Hall along with other CEPS buildings. The "new" building will have modern laboratory and teaching facilities. Project KEEP will ensure that the departments within the college remain physically close for cross-disciplinary activities. Our contact on the committee is Professor Richard Messner.

Dr. Christian de Moustier will be joining our professorial staff as a full professor with tenure in the spring semester of 2002. He hails from Scripps Institutute of Oceanography where he is presently an Associate Research Oceanographer and an Academic Administrator in charge of the MPL Deep Tow Group and SIO's bottom mapping capability. This appointment is made jointly with the Ocean Engineering Program. Professor de Moustier's major area of expertise is underwater acoustics with an emphasis on the physics of bottom-interacting sound and sound reverberation in the ocean. Much of his work has been sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation.

Two retirements have been announced. Professor Pokoski has retired from the ECE department at the end of this past spring semester after 34 years of service. John has been a mentor for many students, undergraduate and graduate students alike, as well as for many faculty members. His parting gift to the department was the writing of the proposal for the new computer engineering program and his deftness for networking it through the college and university. John will maintain an office within the ECE Department and it is our hope that he will continue to be an active member of the department as an Emeritus Professor. Ms. Helen Lawson, our departmental secretary will be retiring in January of 2002 after 25 years of service to the University. Helen has been a mainstay as an administrative assistant in the Department for many years and a counselor to many students. She plans to travel and enjoy her swimming pool with her husband Jim. It is our wish that she visits us often, especially since this present chairman probably will not be able to find anything.

In response to the needs of the academic and industrial community the ECE Department has revamped the existing Industrial Associates Board. The new board, will be known as, "The Electrical and Computer Engineering Industrial Advisory Board (ECE-IAB)". The ECE-IAB was established in February of this past academic year. This new board is viewed as an advisory board to the ECE Department.

Please enjoy this copy of Signals and Noise and please keep in touch.