Academy of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Academy of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Membership Meeting

October 18, 2013

Attending: Jim Berkel, Steve Bugg, Mike Bytnar, Pat Davidson, Travis Durand, Russell Flye, Vance Havens, Andrew Johnston, Jerry Kettler, Barton Moenster, Steve Moss, Robert Mueller, Paul Niewald, Dale Pitt, Pierre Powell, Bill Ricketts, Jeff Simmons, Lisa Sombart, Chris Thomason, Thomas Wham, and Randall Wood.

Missouri S&T:Jim Drallmeier, Lea-Ann Morton, Nolan Brunnworthand Lila Kolker.

The meeting convened at 9:03 a.m.

Student Design Learning Center Update

Steve Moss reported this has been a tumultuous year for the SDELC with reorganization and hiring a new director. Chris Ramsey is the new director and seemed a little overwhelmed in the beginning. The Solar House team was behind schedule and almost cancelled their attendance at the competition. So Chris devoted most of his time and efforts to assisting them. Steve will attend as many of the SDELC meetings as he can in person and wants to meet with the team leaders again so he can field their questions.

Vision 2020 Update

Vision 2020was spearheaded by Civil Engineering alumni and Roger Dorf joined this endeavor. Dr. Drallmeier said that Vision 2020started moving the departments in the direction of getting strategic plans. Then the campus strategic plan effort began. This requires all departments to have a strategic plan, and these plans will be presented to the Provost, Vice Provosts and department chairs in January. All departments must also have benchmark departments at other universities and a plan of how they will reach their goals. Dr. Drallmeier will present the department strategic plan to the Academy at the spring meeting. Best in Class (BIC) research areas are connected to the strategic plan but only two of the four areas will be decided by January. These Best in Class research areas are where campus will invest resources in order to propel Missouri S&T to be nationally, and internationally, recognized. One example is the area of advancedmanufacturing, and campus would focus new faculty hires and money for labs in this area so we could be nationally or internationally recognized. The BIC areas will impact the department’s strategic plan so Dr. Drallmeierhas asked faculty to be involved in these discussions. After January 2014, Bob Mueller, John Eash, and Dr. Drallmeier will start the process of looking at the campus, department and Academy strategic plans so the Academy can decide their themes.

Chancellors Academy Presidents’ Meeting

Lisa explained that this meeting was a time to brainstorm and see what the other academies are doing. All the academies have common issues such as how to attract new members and how to engage new members in activities. Some information on all the academieswere provided. AMAE has 151 members with 143 of them giving to the University. The only issue is these donations were over the last 25+ years which influences the figures. This information tells us we may need to find new and various ways to give to the Academy, and then to the Department, and provide these opportunities to our members. At this meeting we learned that a person can designate a phonathon gift. AMAE has 74 OGS members out of 151. Almost all the academies are the same except for Electrical Engineering who looked at their academy members that were close to being OGS membersand then contacted them. They also inducted 16 people this year. Lisa asked which academies suggest/require dues from their members, and all academies except mechanical and electrical have dues which range from $250 to $500. A couple past presidents suggested that the past presidents call members who are close to OGS and see if they will contribute. Only about 30% of our members participate in a given year.

Information on the instructional lab match was presented. We feel that we are ina really good position for the instructional lab match. The minimum is $50,000 and to get a bigger match campus is looking for interdisciplinary projects. Other academies were not knowledgeable about this and were just going to start discussions on this at their meetings today. There is an off campus agency looking at space utilization on campus. If campus becomes more nationally recognized, we will need space to put the new students. S&T received funding for 33 new faculty, and the Chancellor said there were 25 positions for replacement of current faculty.

Missouri House Bill 253 was passed to lower taxes and was then vetoed by the Governor. If you live or have a business in Missouri, the Chancellor asked you to contact a legislator to make sure that tax relief will not penalize institutions of higher education. Liz McCune () is manager of strategic communications and can help you with a sample letter. The tax reduction bill will come back to Congress in January. When this happened in Kansas, state tuition went up 7%. In Missouri, tuition cannot go up more than the cost of living. If the budget to campus is flat, any additional money goes to strategic initiatives. These will go away if we don’t get additional support from the state.

Twenty-five percent of the new freshman arethe first time college students in the family so this is higher than other technological universities. Most students have been involved in student mentoring and internships. There are only 800 internships which seems very low. Our Academy could expand those opportunities. The Academy does not have a formal program where we work at finding intern positions.

A University benchmark is the Career Center working to connect students to employers, and this is outstanding when you see how many companies come to the career fair. The Academy could expand our involvement by bringing our companies to recruit on campus. We could also look at coop, internships and summer jobs. A problem with tracking how many students have these opportunities is that we only have numbers if the student received the job through the Career Center. Obtaining the number of students who have a fulltime commitment when they graduate is dependent on the students responding and telling the Career Center.

The Academy could look at our members and their organizations and assist with obtaining speakers for student groups – create a speakers bureau within the Academy. Engineering Management has a mentoring program to match academy members with students. Maybe we could survey our members to identify resources for the groups/teams. If it is a technical topic that aligns with a course, there would be a speaking opportunity in the classroom as well.

We could increase participation of our members by accessing available technology. Maybe we could tap into the design reviews by electronic means. We have taped the student presentations in the past. When we send out the invitation to attend the senior design reviews, maybe you could say that they can attend via web. We have teleconferences at our board meetings but Electrical Engineering has a Webexmeeting with their entire academy for only 90 minutes. Chris will talk to Randy on the senior design and technical resource committee to see about getting the ME 261 presentations on Webex. Mid-semester presentations have low attendance but it may help if we had more advance notice of the dates. We could send an outlook appointment to everyone (Chris).

Minutes

There was no discussion on the minutes from last general membership meeting (October 12, 2012). Mike Bytnarmotioned to accept these minutes, Russell Flyeseconded the motion, and the members present approved the motion.

Officers

Lisa Sombart announced the slate of officers for the 2013-2014 fiscal year:

Lisa Sombart– President

Patrick Davidson – 1st Vice President

John Eash – 2nd Vice President

Randall Wood - Treasurer

Bill Ricketts motioned to approve this slate of officers, Bob Mueller seconded the motion, and the members approved.

The committee chairs and vice chairs are:

Communications Committee: Steve Thies

Facilities Committee: Russell Flye

Special Events Committee: Paul Niewald

Membership Committee: Looking for a replacement for John Eash

Scholarship and Excellence Awards Committee: Bart Moenster,

Senior Design and Technical Resource Committee: Randy Foster

Strategic Planning Committee – John Eash

Past Presidents Committee– Chris Thomason

Liaison to SDELC –Steve Moss

Liaison to Vision 2020 – Roger Dorf

Lisa Sombart reported on the retiring officers and chairmen. The Academy appreciates all the service these individuals gave to the Academy.

President – Chris Thomason

First Vice President – Lisa Sombart

Second Vice President – Pat Davidson

Past Presidents Committee Chair – Randall Wood

Strategic Planning Committee Chair – Patrick Davidson

Liaison to the SDELC – Bob Mueller

Missouri S&T Development Report

Nolan Brunnworth provided a report that covered some of Advancement’s strategic plan and showed “our Heroes” who will be honored at today’s Miner Legends Luncheon. Nolan works with individual alumni but not corporate donors. Nolan represents our Department and the Academy.

Department and Strategic Plan Update- Jim Drallmeier

Much of this has been discussed earlier in this meeting. Mechanical students are required to take the FE exam. ABET requires some kind of exit exam so we have used this to meet that requirement. Missouri is slow to get feedback of the FE results so in the past we could not ensure the students pass before they graduate. We created our exit exam which the students have to take and this provides feedback on the curriculum. Our exit exam is not nationally normed. We are evaluating if we still need to require the students to take it since it is now online. Under the new on-line based approach, we will get the results back much faster but the cost has gone up to $225. We require that the mechanical students take, but not pass, this exam. We would like to know if industry feels it is important for mechanical engineers. Civil engineers typically get a professional license. The members stated that it depends on the company where you work. Most students don’t know where they are going to work so they don’t know if they will need a PE or not. If we require it to graduate, they could take it twice in a semester. If they don’t pass the FE exam the second time, then what do we do with the students? From the academy viewpoint, is this important for our students to have when they come to work for your companies? For ABET we can use our exit exam, and it doesn’t cost the students to take it. Some members thought we should keep doing what we are doing. Most students don’t get their professional engineering license. Are our benchmark institutions requiring the FE exam? If we don’t require the students to pass the FE exam, then the average performance on the exam tends to be down. Dr. Drallmeier took a poll of the Academy members present and three thought the students shouldtake and pass the FE exam and 12 did not feel it should be a requirement. One member stated that it encouraged him to get his license and this made it much easier. Some companies expect their engineers to get licenses and reward them if they get it. Therefore, most of the engineers in those companies got licenses. At Boeing it is not required but a good idea. Doing well on the exit exam does not mean that you will do well in the job. Dr. Drallmeier asked how many of the Academy members at the meeting had their professional engineering license and 8 out of 20 have their PE license.

Approval of the 2013/2014 Strategic Plan -

Bob Mueller motioned to approve the Academy strategic plan, it was seconded and approved by the members present. There was a discussion of item VII, paragraphB, of the ByLaws. The pictures of the Academy members are now in an electronic system. It was recommended to eliminate the words “A framed photo (eight by ten inches) and a name plate of each Honorary and Active” and start with “Each member of the….“ The ByLaws may be amended at any annual meeting at which such intentions has been a part of the notice of the meeting. The issue was tabled and will be putin the announcement for our next annual meeting. Everyone should look at the bylaws and strategic plan this year. Deceased members are still being displayed. The purpose of displaying the pictures of the Academy members was to give the students a goal and not recognition of our members. We need to look at the display in the atrium and see if it is a value to the students. We may be able to use the academy’s president meeting to see how the other academies are presenting their members to their students.

Treasurer’s Report

Randall Wood reviewed the Treasurer’s Report for last fiscal year. The total of the spendable and the quasi-endowment is $144,514.18.

Spendable Account -

Beginning Balance 07-01-2012$ 24,702.12

Income - $149,627.31

Donations – General Fund$75,671.00

Donations – Instructional Labs$11,175.00

Donations – Past Presidents Challenge$55,640.00

Reimbursements, Annual Distr, Invest Inc$ 7,141.31

Expenses$ 83,648.81

Ending balance $ 90,680.62

Quasi Account -

Beginning Balance 07-01-2012$ 50,393.26

Income$ 6,259.22

Expenses$ 2,818.92

Ending balance$53,833.56

Randall then reviewed the 1st quarter treasurer’s report for FY 2013-2014. The total of the spendable and the quasi-endowment is $142,871.92.

Spendable Account -

Beginning Balance 07-01-2013$ 90,680.62

Income - $ 5,441.85

Donations – General Fund$ 1,142.50

Donations – Instructional Labs$ 1,710.00

Donations – Past Presidents Challenge$ 0

Reimbursements, Annual Distr, Invest Inc$ 2,589.35

Expenses$ 9,047.77

Ending balance $ 87,074.70

Quasi Account -

Beginning Balance 07-01-2013$ 53,833.56

Income$ 2,683.03

Expenses$ 719.37

Ending balance$55,797.22

Randall Wood presented the balance sheet. The money the Academy has for the instructional labs will position the Department to hopefully get the proposal approved for labs 2 and 3.

The Academy started financial support of scholarships, then added support of design teams/ organizations and now lab support. Once Toomey Hall was completed, we decided to draw the spending account down, so we doubled what we gave to the teams. Today we have more teams and give them more money. When the labs support opportunity came, we became more aware of what we were giving to the teams and reduced those amounts. We are in good financial health. For the instructional lab match, we would like to have the $100K match. We have some funds already for this but in order to get the match, the money has to be collected by December 2014. Once campus announces the criteria and the process for the funding, there is a 60-day window to collect the proposals. Campus will review the proposals, and the proposals with cash in hand will have a greater chance of success. We would need to approve this, and probably provide a letter,but we still need to raise the rest of the $100K. We have had the duct tape and baling wire challenge at this meeting in prior years. We have decided to forgo that this year and work on the laboratory match. We could commit the Academy to use quasi endowment funds in worse casescenario in order to get the funds in the required timeframe.

Barton Moenster motioned to accept the 1st quarter budget, Steve Bugg seconded it and the members present approved the motion.

Committee Break-Out Sessions began at 11:16.

The meeting adjourned for lunch (Miner Legends Luncheon) and will reconvene in 140 Toomey Hall after lunch.

The meeting reconvened at 1:30 in Room 140 Toomey Hall.

Student Design Team Presentations

-Formula Electric Car

-Formula SAE

-Mars Rover Team

-AE Senior Design

-Solar Car Team

-Advanced Aerospace Vehicle Group

-Robotics Team

-M-SAT

-Miners in Space

-Miner Baja SAE

-Human Powered Vehicle Group

Student design team presentations ended at 3:23. There was a discussion on the team presentations. The FSAE team won the “Best Proposal” award ($100), and the Miners in Space team won the “Best Team Presentation” ($100).

2013/2014 Budget Approval & Discussions - Randall Wood

There was a discussion on the budget. Barton Moenster motioned to accept the revised budget, Jim Berkelseconded the motion and all present approved the motion.

Steve Bugg motioned to approve last year’sbudget, it was seconded by Bill Ricketts and approved by the members present.

Adjournment

There was a motion for adjournment by BartonMoenster, seconded by Andrew Johnston, approved by the members present at 4:00.

Just a reminder of the Open House in the atrium.

Respectfully submitted,

Lila Kolker

Administrative Associate

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering