Lab Plan

Laboratory Endowment

      Endowment is Key to Improvements

The EE Lab Endowment will provide a means for EE Faculty members to greatly accelerate laboratory development. Many such activities are on-going, including virtual-labs, hybrid lecture-lab rooms, and renovations to existing facilities with state-of-the-art equipment. While there is great interest in making these improvements, development time is a significant limitation. Even the very generous equipment donations received in the past are not completely sufficient, alone, without support for Faculty time.

The Lab Endowment will provide discretionary funding for both time and equipment. This will be particularly helpful in maintaining the equipment in some of our labs for EE fundamentals - which are less glamorous than our labs for senior-level technical electives. Hence these labs (and others) are more difficult to attract funding for needed improvements.

      Disbursement Model Has Widespread Benefit

A disbursement model for the endowment is envisioned that would provide release time from teaching for one quarter, together with funding for equipment. A target of $5.6M for the Endowment would provide an average of $10k per lab, per year for new equipment and maintenance. It would also provide release time for each Faculty member on an average of once every 6.3 years. It is envisioned that disbursements would go to Faculty members in a round-robin fashion. This would ensure that every area of EE, each lab room, and each Faculty member would benefit.

This type of disbursement model would have a significant and on-going impact on the quality of instruction in the Electrical Engineering Department at Cal Poly. As many Faculty and labs are shared with Computer Engineering, the endowment would have a substantial improvement to CPE also. This type of donation would have a lasting impact for all future students in the EE and CPE programs, and for students in other majors that take EE courses.

      Lasting Means for Recognition

The Electrical Engineering Department would be pleased to recognize a significant contribution towards the Lab Endowment. We would work with a donor to find a mutually acceptable, lasting, means to recognize such a contribution.

Below are some blue-sky ideas. Some of these ideas include building renovations. Upgrades to structures could provide more lab space, particularly helpful for new hybrid lecture-lab rooms. Additional space would also be helpful for Senior Projects and for Industrially Sponsored Projects that include students and Faculty. Student clubs, such as the Electric Vehicle Club could also benefit from additional space. The EE Building (20) is a relatively old building at Cal Poly. Various approaches to improve it are included below.

Note that the objective of the EE Department is to establish funds that sustain lasting improvements and lab development efforts. The new structures proposed below would be quite beneficial, and recognizable, but would introduce a preliminary cost beyond a direct contribution to the Lab Endowment. As such, some of the means for recognition below are more cost effective, in terms of the endowment, than others.

The Electrical Engineering Department appreciates any interest and contributions that help improve our facilities. The Dept. is currently ranked #3 nationally, among undergraduate EE departments. The #1 and #2 schools are private institutions. This makes for tough competition. The Lab Endowment is a means by which we can maintain, and with effort, improve our national ranking.

For further inquiries, feel free to contact the EE Chair, Prof. Mike Cirovic, (805) 756-2781, mcirovic@calpoly.edu, or the Associate Chair, Prof. Fred DePiero, (805)756-2917, fdepiero@calpoly.edu.

Thank you once again for any support that you may be considering.