Table 1-1. History of Admissions Standards for Freshmen Admissions for Past Five Years

Table 1-1. History of Admissions Standards for Freshmen Admissions for Past Five Years

Table 1-3. Enrollment Trends for Past Five Academic Years

Table 1-4. Program Graduates

CRITERION 2. PROGRAM EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

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  To provide capable, motivated, and well-prepared students with an aerospace engineering education of the highest quality, that will enable them to reach their maximum potential in a technological world
  
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  To significantly advance knowledge, its applications and integration in aerospace related disciplines
  
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  To serve the larger community of which we are a part, where our abilities can be uniquely useful.
  

Our vision for the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech is one of a compact community of scholars, expert supporting staff, and dedicated students who act in a partnership with the faculty members of other Georgia Tech schools, university administration, and industry and government leaders to best carry out our mission.

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  Constituting a school dedicated to excellence in all we do
  
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  Preeminent in aerospace engineering education
  
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  Instilling in our students a sense of responsibility for ethical practice and of concern for the environment
  
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  Leading the wider aerospace community with advances in the sub-disciplines in which we concentrate
  
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  Adapting to changes in societal needs so that the education we provide and advances in knowledge we achieve are continually relevant and important to our country for the foreseeable future in every era.
  

The mission and vision statements of the school are consistent with the College of Engineering found at http://www.coe.gatech.edu/about/vision.php and that of the Institute found at http://www.irp.gatech.edu/apps/factbook/?page=15

The educational objectives of the BSAE degree program are published in the catalog. It is also published in the ABET Self-Study document, and at the undergraduate program web site www.ae.gatech.edu/undergraduate .

The above PEOs are consistent with the mission of the AE School discussed earlier. They are also consistent with the emphasis on interdisciplinarity, lifelong learning and leadership expressed in Tech’s mission statement (http://www.gatech.edu/president/strategicplan.html), which states in part

The program constituencies are: students, faculty, Aerospace Engineering School Advisory Council (AESAC, a body made of external advisors), industries, and alumni.

The process for establishing the program objectives and expected outcomes are shown in the figure below.

Figure 2.1 Process Used for Establishment and Evaluation of Program Objectives

The School of Aerospace Engineering educational objectives were established during the 1996-1997 academic year, and are revised once every 5 years. The objectives are evaluated annually by our faculty with the aid of data collected from our assessment instruments. An annual assessment report is subsequently prepared, and is documented for the following years: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 2006.

Minor changes to the program are periodically made to ensure that the objectives are being achieved. A comprehensive review of the objectives is done once every five years.  The most recent comprehensive review was completed during the 2006-2007 academic year.

The process begins with a draft statement of objectives prepared by the Aerospace Engineering Academic Council, a body made of discipline chairs and faculty leaders. During this phase, we make extensive use of industry input. The industry input is documented at:

http://www.ae.gatech.edu/~lsankar/ABET2008/Educational.Objectives.IndustryInput.doc

We next review the Institute and College of Engineering mission, the School of Aerospace Engineering Mission Statement and the Aerospace Engineering Strategic Plan to ensure our educational objectives are consistent with our mission. The draft statement of objectives is distributed to the aerospace engineering faculty, and are extensively critiqued and revised over numerous e-mail messages.

The draft statement is subsequently presented to the AIAA Student Branch, to our Student Honor Society (Sigma Gamma Tau), and to the AE School Student Advisory Council. Their feedback is collected (see Student Advisory Council Comments ).  The draft statement is also presented to the Aerospace Engineering School Advisory Council, an advisory body made of industry leaders, faculty members from leading educational institutions, and government labs (see External Advisory Board Comments). The comments from the constituencies are distributed to the faculty for final revisions.  The objectives are finalized at a faculty meeting.

We also distributed our objectives and received oral/written feedback from the program coordinators of all the schools within the College of Engineering, from the Associate Dean of Engineering (Dr. Jane Ammons), and the Institute Assessment Office, to ensure that these objectives are consistent with the mission of the College and the Institute, and that these may be clearly evaluated. 

The objectives are posted on the Aerospace Engineering Web site and in the catalog. The intention is to raise the faculty and student awareness of these objectives, and to receive feedback.

Achievement of Program Educational Objectives

The School of Aerospace Engineering conducts an annual assessment of whether the educational objectives are being realized by our graduates and whether the program expected outcomes are achieved by our students. The most recent assessment reports for the past several years are found at and is documented at 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 2006.

Because the program objectives address the attributes of our graduates during the first several years after graduation, we extensively use

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  Alumni surveys (See data from the 2001, 2004, and 2007 surveys)
  
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  Input from the employers and recruiters
  
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  External benchmarks (e.g. publication record, honors and awards, student team success in design competitions)
  

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  Students Honors and Awards: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 2006
  
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  AIAA National Design Competition Award History
  
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  American Helicopter Society International Competition Results
  
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  Senior Design Projects. For samples, see 
  

The alumni survey data is distributed to our faculty, and the AE to the Student Advisory Council (see http://aesac.tk) and to our External Advisory Council in a timely fashion. This data is processed and the results assessed as follows. We first identify the areas (and skill sets) that the alumni feel are extremely important to be successful engineers and researchers. On a scale of to 5, if the alumni give a median score of 3 or above, that particular area (or skill set) is considered extremely important. We compare these skill sets with those explicitly or implicitly mentioned our educational objectives to determine if our objectives are closely matched with the training that our alumni found to be most important in their work place.

We next identify how well the graduates believe they were trained in these areas. On a scale of 1 to 5, if the alumni rate their training as 3.5 or above in a particular area, then we conclude that we have adequate educational processes and practices in place, consistent with our educational objectives and alumni expectations. If the alumni data indicates that they are not adequately trained in an important area, we reexamine the educational processes and practices and make appropriate changes.

Since the last ABET visit in 2002, we have collected two sets of alumni data (2004 and 2007) and have used the results to re-examine our objectives, improve our educational practices, and fine tune our curriculum. As an illustration of how our assessment is done, we present the 2007 data collected from our graduates during the 2001-2004 period. We examine areas that our alumni found to be extremely important, and their satisfaction with the training they received at Georgia Tech in that area. The data reduction was done by the Georgia Tech office of Assessment. The number of surveys returned was high enough (> 60) and may be expected to yield statistically meaningful data.

The table above indicates that our graduates found nearly all of the areas covered in our program (and addressed in our first educational objective) to be very important in their work place. The graduates felt that they were adequately prepared in most of these areas, although the data indicates that they desire additional preparation in economic issues related to engineering, engineering graphics, and in integration of complex systems.

We finally examine the data to determine the graduates’ overall satisfaction with the education they received. As shown in the table below, the graduates are well satisfied with their training and with their career.

Actions taken to close the loop based on Alumni Data

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  The alumni survey has indicated that more preparation is needed in the area of oral and written communications and presentations. Our School has been systematically collecting samples of student writings. These include freshman writing and presentations from GT 1000 and Introduction to AE (AE 1350); sophomore writing in selected courses such as low speed aerodynamics (AE 2020), junior level lab courses (AE 3051, AE 3145) and senior design projects (AE 4350, 4351, 4536, 4357, 4358, 4359). Two full years of data has been collected, and additional systematic collection of the samples is planned to conduct longitudinal studies of the development of writing and presentation skills. We also collect comments from external visitors and judges where such data is available. Our faculty feels that good writing and presentation skills require coaching on the part of instructors and TAs rather than requiring more technical writing classes. We are examining our undergraduate curriculum (and in particular the lab courses) to see how additional instruction on writing and presentation may be integrated in these courses. AE Student Advisory Council has organized technical symposia given by AE faculty on oral and written communication skills. We are also expanding the offering of attractive electives (design-build-fly competition courses, undergraduate research) that emphasize oral and written communication skills.
  
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  The alumni survey indicates that additional preparation is needed in the following areas: ability to function in multi-disciplinary teams, interpersonal conflict resolution, the design of components from a business perspective, professional and ethical responsibilities in their profession, and societal/cultural impact of their professional practice. These skill sets are inter-related and are best learned in team design activities. Since the last ABET visit in 2002, the AE program has greatly expanded the senior design activities from a single sequence of courses (AE 4350 in the fall, AE 4351 in spring) dealing with aircraft design to three sequences the students may choose from: aircraft design, spacecraft design, and rotorcraft design. These expanded choices and the smaller class sizes are expected to improve the ability of the instructors and external judges (and examiners) to more closely interact with the students and develop their skill sets in these critical areas.
  

The AE faculty and staff also have extensive interactions with industry and government employers and directly refer our graduates for internships, co-op positions, and jobs upon graduation. The faculty members also work jointly with industries and government laboratories on sponsored research activities. This interaction provides another avenue for discussing our educational objectives with the employers, and get feedback on the preparation of our graduates for succeeding in industry and government labs.

The data collected from the recruiter input in the form of free form conversations (which are documented, and communicated to the faculty as needed) and written e-mail responses. The web site www.ae.gatech.edu/~lsankar/ABET2008 contains samples of written input from the employers on our educational objectives.
Closing the Loop based on Employer Input The employers that the AE School and faculty interact with are complementary of our educational processes and appear to be very satisfied with the education that our graduates receive at Georgia Tech. All of them feel that a broad education and training focusing on the fundamentals is very important. Depending on the employer’s perspective and background, they desire additional training and emphasis in areas such as orbital mechanics, design of systems with schedule as a constraint, and systems engineering skills. The AE program, over the past few years, has increased our elective offerings in these areas. For example, a course on orbital mechanics is offered every fall term (AE 4310) and may be used as a technical elective. Courses on life cycle cost and courses emphasizing the “system of systems” are periodically offered.

Assessment of External Advisory Council Input: The AE School External Advisory Council (AESAC) was closely involved in the establishment of our program objectives. Their input to the establishment of the objectives is documented at www.ae.gatech.edu/~lsankar/ABET2008 . The external advisors also receive annual briefings on all the aspects of our undergraduate program – processes and survey results related to our program objectives and outcomes, our new educational initiatives designed to achieve these objectives (e.g., International Plan, Research Option, Honors Program, undergraduate Research, and Design-Build-Fly Competitions), and new course offerings. The External Advisory Council also meets with the student representatives to hear about the students’ thoughts and suggestions related to the education.

The External Advisory Council summarizes their findings in the form of an oral and written debriefing to the School Chair and the Dean of the College of Engineering. Electronic copies of these findings are on file in the AE School Chair’s Office and will be made available to the ABET visitor. The School Chair, in consultation with the faculty, takes immediate actions on the Council’s suggestions as resources allow. The Council is briefed on the actions taken, at the next AESAC meeting.

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  In co-ordination with the College of Engineering, faculty members are being added in strategic areas. The total number of instructional faculty has grown from 33 to 39 over the past several years.
  
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  The mandatory academic advisement of students by faculty is being replaced by the multi-tiered advisement of our freshman, graduating seniors, and other students, as discussed in the section on students (Criterion 2, above).
  
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  The limited access to the AE undergraduate computing lab was based on personal safety and security concerns for our students. The School is exploring placing the software needed by our students (e.g. for senior design) on public servers. Many of the other software (e.g., CATIA, ABAQUS, etc) are already available to the students under a floating license. Finally, during peak periods of an academic term (e.g. the weeks before a major senior design project is due) the School is offering 24/7 access to the lab.
  

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  The undergraduate student advising process was recently revised based on the student input communicated through AESAC.
  
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  The co-op surveys conducted by AESAC indicated that the co-op students desire additional training in oral and written communication skills and on the use of advanced software (e.g., CAD) and programming skills (e.g. java, C++). A lunch and learn seminar series has been organized by the AE faculty in collaboration with the students to provide informal training on these topics, to be followed by users’ group meetings organized by the students.
  
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  AE Expos have been organized that bring faculty and students together in an informal setting, allowing students to meet with the faculty and browse/explore the research offerings of our faculty.
  

CRITERION 3. PROGRAM OUTCOMES