Post by title1parent on Aug 16, 2010 6:53:56 GMT -5
www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=401072&src=76
Are some NIU engineering students taking a shortcut?
Professors, graduates say college lets some opt out of core course
By Kerry Lester | Daily Herald 8/16/10
As college students head back to school, a debate continues at one university that scores of suburban residents attend over the fact that some engineering students haven't had to take a rigorous course that's a graduation requirement.
Critics say that means some engineering students at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb are allowed to graduate with an easier path, and theoretically better grade record, than those who have to take the 200-level circuits course.
A Daily Herald investigation, sparked by a claim in a lawsuit filed last summer by two former professors, found the number of students taking a different course - one that does not require a calculus base - as a substitute, increasing steadily over the last five years.
Department officials say the substitution is an experiment.
But students and professors say the "experimental" practice, in place for five years now, smacks of favoritism as it isn't advertised.
Joshua Hinkemeyer, a 2010 industrial engineering graduate from Aurora who never got anything lower than a "B" in most courses, struggled to get a "C" in circuits.
"... My instructor did mention that he would, and had, failed 50 percent of his class, so we shouldn't expect to pass it just because it was required," Hinkemeyer said in an e-mail.
He said he never heard of industrial engineering students getting out of the class.
"I was never offered any substitutions... I was never informed that there was any path other than the one laid out for us," Hinkemeyer said.
NIU engineering professor Vincent McGinn says the circuits course is "possibly the most important course an engineer could take."
The class, which relies on a strong calculus base, delves into the properties of electric circuit elements, steady state analysis and node and loop equations, among others.
"It represents the point whereby an individual has to stop thinking like a high school student," said McGinn, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and engineer who since 1999 has been a tenured professor at the DeKalb university that draws heavily from the West and Northwest suburbs. "Not memorizing facts but developing analytical skills. It's about how you look at a problem. How you tackle it. Do you understand units," he said.
The course, called ELE 210, is a requirement for graduation from all of the college's engineering department divisions.
It's no easy "A," students and professors say.
But sources within and close to the academic department claim that select students, including a dean's daughter, have been getting unfairly high marks, nonetheless, by allowing to swap the circuits requirement with a much easier course. All the while, they say, others are unwittingly plugging away at regular degree requirements. The practice, they say, smacks of favoritism, damages the university's reputation and is just plain unfair.
The lawsuit that raises the circuits course issue centers on the dismissal of one professor, Greg Rahn, and demotion of another, his wife Regina Rahn. The couple from Sugar Grove alleges in the suit that NIU took course materials developed by them, tried to claim ownership of copyrighted materials they developed in an outside business, dismissed Greg Rahn without cause and removed Regina from tenure track despite her receiving excellent reviews.
Concerning the circuits course, the suit alleges engineering college dean Promod Vohra allowed select students, including his daughter, who graduated in 2005, to take Tech 175, an easier technology department course, instead of ELE 210. It alleges the substitutions have been allowed without consultation with the university's curriculum committee, which would be the usual process.
College President John Peters' office called the claims unfounded. And the university has filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. Officials declined to comment further, citing pending litigation. Neither Promod Vohra or Divya Vohra have returned calls seeking comment.
According a Freedom of Information Act request returned to the Daily Herald, three of 14 industrial engineering graduates in Divya Vohra's graduation year had taken the technology course as a substitution.
That number increased to four of 13 in 2006; five of 18 in 2006, and 10 of 17 in 2009. In those five years, 24 of the 75 total industrial engineering graduates were granted the substitution, something Hinkemeyer calls "not right at all."
Department Chair Omar Ghrayeb declined to get into specifics about the dean's daughter or the reason for her course substitutions, citing student privacy laws.
"When this curriculum was designed, it was designed to fulfill certain requirements," Ghrayeb said. "We are an accredited university. Each given course in the curriculum represents certain outcomes."
The substitutions, he said, started in 2005, a year after a new chair Dennis Stoia came into the department.
Ghrayeb said the substitution is one way of making sure the university is running efficiently.
He said the department chair does not have the power to change the curriculum. "We have (strict) processes that were in place. ... If you think about it, circuits teaches these outcomes, this other course teaches similar outcomes."
The substitution, he noted, was never formally approved. And therefore still considered an experiment, five years later.
"What we do, this is common practice here. If there is any idea, before we put it in the catalog, we experiment," Ghrayeb said.
But the circuits and the technology course don't match up as adequate substitutes, McGinn and Regina Rahn insist.
McGinn tells the story of an industrial student who had just started taking a circuits class he was teaching.
She approached him after class, he said, and asked about a circuits substitution she had heard about.
"She said, 'I heard you can take Tech 175, what would you do?' McGinn said.
McGinn said he told the student if she wanted to be an engineer, she needed to take ELE 210.
"From 2005 up to the present is five years. What we call experimentation is two years. We're beyond that point," McGinn said.
Such a course substitution would not be allowed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said Manssour Moeinzadeh, associate head of the school's industrial engineering and systems engineering department.
Like at NIU, Moeinzadeh said, industrial engineering students are required to take a circuits course in electrical engineering. "Any engineer should have at least a basic knowledge in circuits," he said.
While students can take technology courses as electives, technology courses cannot be substituted for circuits, Moeinzadeh said.
Maryanne Wiess, the accreditation director of the Accreditation Board of Engineering Technology, declined to talk specifically about NIU's case, citing the board's confidentiality policy. However, she said, the board accredits programs but leaves it up to individual universities to specify content and individual courses.
"It's up to the individual program that we accredit, how they choose to demonstrate compliance. And how through that, how they build there curriculum."
Course substitution, she said, "is the prerogative of the institution or program. The onus is on the program to follow the policies they've had."
The last time NIU's engineering program was accredited was in 2005. It is up again in 2011.
Are some NIU engineering students taking a shortcut?
Professors, graduates say college lets some opt out of core course
By Kerry Lester | Daily Herald 8/16/10
As college students head back to school, a debate continues at one university that scores of suburban residents attend over the fact that some engineering students haven't had to take a rigorous course that's a graduation requirement.
Critics say that means some engineering students at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb are allowed to graduate with an easier path, and theoretically better grade record, than those who have to take the 200-level circuits course.
A Daily Herald investigation, sparked by a claim in a lawsuit filed last summer by two former professors, found the number of students taking a different course - one that does not require a calculus base - as a substitute, increasing steadily over the last five years.
Department officials say the substitution is an experiment.
But students and professors say the "experimental" practice, in place for five years now, smacks of favoritism as it isn't advertised.
Joshua Hinkemeyer, a 2010 industrial engineering graduate from Aurora who never got anything lower than a "B" in most courses, struggled to get a "C" in circuits.
"... My instructor did mention that he would, and had, failed 50 percent of his class, so we shouldn't expect to pass it just because it was required," Hinkemeyer said in an e-mail.
He said he never heard of industrial engineering students getting out of the class.
"I was never offered any substitutions... I was never informed that there was any path other than the one laid out for us," Hinkemeyer said.
NIU engineering professor Vincent McGinn says the circuits course is "possibly the most important course an engineer could take."
The class, which relies on a strong calculus base, delves into the properties of electric circuit elements, steady state analysis and node and loop equations, among others.
"It represents the point whereby an individual has to stop thinking like a high school student," said McGinn, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and engineer who since 1999 has been a tenured professor at the DeKalb university that draws heavily from the West and Northwest suburbs. "Not memorizing facts but developing analytical skills. It's about how you look at a problem. How you tackle it. Do you understand units," he said.
The course, called ELE 210, is a requirement for graduation from all of the college's engineering department divisions.
It's no easy "A," students and professors say.
But sources within and close to the academic department claim that select students, including a dean's daughter, have been getting unfairly high marks, nonetheless, by allowing to swap the circuits requirement with a much easier course. All the while, they say, others are unwittingly plugging away at regular degree requirements. The practice, they say, smacks of favoritism, damages the university's reputation and is just plain unfair.
The lawsuit that raises the circuits course issue centers on the dismissal of one professor, Greg Rahn, and demotion of another, his wife Regina Rahn. The couple from Sugar Grove alleges in the suit that NIU took course materials developed by them, tried to claim ownership of copyrighted materials they developed in an outside business, dismissed Greg Rahn without cause and removed Regina from tenure track despite her receiving excellent reviews.
Concerning the circuits course, the suit alleges engineering college dean Promod Vohra allowed select students, including his daughter, who graduated in 2005, to take Tech 175, an easier technology department course, instead of ELE 210. It alleges the substitutions have been allowed without consultation with the university's curriculum committee, which would be the usual process.
College President John Peters' office called the claims unfounded. And the university has filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. Officials declined to comment further, citing pending litigation. Neither Promod Vohra or Divya Vohra have returned calls seeking comment.
According a Freedom of Information Act request returned to the Daily Herald, three of 14 industrial engineering graduates in Divya Vohra's graduation year had taken the technology course as a substitution.
That number increased to four of 13 in 2006; five of 18 in 2006, and 10 of 17 in 2009. In those five years, 24 of the 75 total industrial engineering graduates were granted the substitution, something Hinkemeyer calls "not right at all."
Department Chair Omar Ghrayeb declined to get into specifics about the dean's daughter or the reason for her course substitutions, citing student privacy laws.
"When this curriculum was designed, it was designed to fulfill certain requirements," Ghrayeb said. "We are an accredited university. Each given course in the curriculum represents certain outcomes."
The substitutions, he said, started in 2005, a year after a new chair Dennis Stoia came into the department.
Ghrayeb said the substitution is one way of making sure the university is running efficiently.
He said the department chair does not have the power to change the curriculum. "We have (strict) processes that were in place. ... If you think about it, circuits teaches these outcomes, this other course teaches similar outcomes."
The substitution, he noted, was never formally approved. And therefore still considered an experiment, five years later.
"What we do, this is common practice here. If there is any idea, before we put it in the catalog, we experiment," Ghrayeb said.
But the circuits and the technology course don't match up as adequate substitutes, McGinn and Regina Rahn insist.
McGinn tells the story of an industrial student who had just started taking a circuits class he was teaching.
She approached him after class, he said, and asked about a circuits substitution she had heard about.
"She said, 'I heard you can take Tech 175, what would you do?' McGinn said.
McGinn said he told the student if she wanted to be an engineer, she needed to take ELE 210.
"From 2005 up to the present is five years. What we call experimentation is two years. We're beyond that point," McGinn said.
Such a course substitution would not be allowed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said Manssour Moeinzadeh, associate head of the school's industrial engineering and systems engineering department.
Like at NIU, Moeinzadeh said, industrial engineering students are required to take a circuits course in electrical engineering. "Any engineer should have at least a basic knowledge in circuits," he said.
While students can take technology courses as electives, technology courses cannot be substituted for circuits, Moeinzadeh said.
Maryanne Wiess, the accreditation director of the Accreditation Board of Engineering Technology, declined to talk specifically about NIU's case, citing the board's confidentiality policy. However, she said, the board accredits programs but leaves it up to individual universities to specify content and individual courses.
"It's up to the individual program that we accredit, how they choose to demonstrate compliance. And how through that, how they build there curriculum."
Course substitution, she said, "is the prerogative of the institution or program. The onus is on the program to follow the policies they've had."
The last time NIU's engineering program was accredited was in 2005. It is up again in 2011.