Faculty Development Plan
Civil and Environmental Engineering
1998
This faculty development plan of Dr. XXX consists of four parts. It is intended to set both short- and long-term goals and plans for Dr. XXX. Short-term goals and plans are meant for the 1998-1999 coming academic year because Dr. XXX’s tenure application process takes place in the 1999-2000 academic year.
• Professional goals and plans to achieve these goals;
• Relationship between individual, departmental, and university goals; and
• The resource needed to accomplish the set goals
Self-Assessment
A. Strengths, skills, and competencies.
One of my strengths is that I had taught nine years at the City College of New York before I came here and had gone through the tenure evaluation process; hence, I am fully aware what is expected of me to become a useful faculty member at BYU. Though experienced in teaching, I do feel a need to upgrade and refresh my lectures and labs. I intend to take advantage of programs offered by the Faculty Center to make needed improvements in my lectures and labs.
Another strength of mine would be my inter-personal skills. They began to be nurtured while I was a doctorate student at Purdue where I was placed in a position to talk with various levels of engineers from district offices and the central office of the Indiana DOT for my dissertation project. Then, at CCNY I offered many short courses to local professional engineers from consultants and public organizations. These and other experiences helped me to develop skills to maintain cordial relationships with colleagues, friends and clients.
In my previous employment I was involved in incorporating computer use in civil engineering courses; that effort can be further enriched by the advanced facilities available in the College. Although I do not want to emphasize too much use of computers, I do love to incorporate transportation software in my transportation courses. Use of popular traffic software in classes is essential to prepare transportation students for competitive transportation job markets. I will be ever thankful that the department was willing to provide funds to secure necessary up-to-date transportation software.
During this past year I believe my role within the department has become defined and I find myself filling niches necessary within the overall structure of the department for expanding the existing transportation program at BYU. My strengths, skills, and competencies briefly described above would be beneficial for the department.
B. Field and research interests
The field of transportation research is broad. Based on the research work I have done, I can say my research interests are in the area of traffic engineering, traffic control (including intelligent transportation systems), traffic flow theory (including simulation), traffic safety, transportation infrastructure management, and sustainable communities. My former doctorate student at the City College of New York and I developed an algorithm and software called "Optimal Traffic Control System (OTCS)" consisting of an artificial neural network based level-of-service module and an heuristic optimal signal timing module. This model tries to estimate delays at signalized intersections quickly and accurately, and dynamically, as much as possible based on the data obtained from a training data set. The delay portion is currently estimated by the 1994 Highway Capacity Manual method. I am currently conducting research with a MS student at BYU to estimate delay dynamically in the field using advanced traffic sensors. Once this method is established, this latter model and the OTCS will be combined so that OTCS will be trained by using the field delay observation. Once this process is completed, dynamic evaluation of delay and signal optimization can be automated.
Besides these traffic engineering and/or control topics, I want to explore research in the area of transportation infrastructure management and traffic safety. As for the former area, I recently obtained a contract from UDOT to study issues of corridor preservation procedures. For the latter, I found that the level of awareness for traffic safety in Utah, in my opinion, is relatively low as manifested in the low rate of seatbelt use and the low level helmet use by motorcyclists and cyclists. I want to make our transportation program to be the center of research of these topics in the State of Utah.
C. Citizenship opportunities
I have been a member of the Graduate Committee and the Transportation Area Committee within the Department since my employment last year. I was asked by Dean XXX to head the CAD transition project (switching from AutoCAD to MicroStation or stay with AutoCAD) for the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department and the Construction Management Department. I will be happy to serve on any committees within limitations of my current position. I proposed to set up a CAD clinic to serve CAD needs of faculty members and students (supported by the department).
Outside the school service opportunities, I have been Chair of the Infrastructure Management Committee of the Urban Transport Division of ASCE since October, 1997; this service will last till September 30, 1999. I will continue to participate on professional committees like this and others for the advancement of the cause of each professional organization I participate. This will help promote the transportation program of BYU.
D. Areas I would like to develop
Several items are in my mind now. First, I spend some time to modify and refresh my lectures; the seminars offered by the Faculty Center enlightened me for various ideas and tools. Second, I want to prepare for a new course entitled "infrastructure management." Third, my desire in research area is to establish a Center for Transportation Studies at BYU, which is an inter-disciplinary research and training organization aimed to serve the school, local governments, and the state government. Fourth, after one or two years from now, I would like to offer short courses on use of traffic software through the continuing education department of BYU or the T2 Center at the Utah State University.
Goals
Teaching: My goals for teaching are the following (in no particular order):
• to help students to understand how transportation projects affect the humans and the environment.
• to help students understand that human factors or behaviors are the core issue of all transportation projects, which is a departure from traditional civil engineering subjects.
• to help students acquire basic skills needed to conduct transportation related projects, with special emphasis on statistical analyses and computer methods.
• to expose students up-to-date research information, theories, and methods in transportation topics.
• to help students acquire enough knowledge and skills necessary to compete with students from other universities in the transportation job market.
• to prepare selected undergraduate students for further graduate work in transportation.
My long-term plans for achieving these goals are:
• attend, as time permits, seminars and workshops on teaching (like those prepared by the Faculty Center) to refresh my lectures and labs.
• attend, as frequently as possible, local and national level professional meetings to update my knowledge in transportation subjects to incorporate the ideas obtained in these meetings into my classes
• work with other faculty members to prepare a coherent transportation program.
• incorporate material from my research into my teaching.
My short-term plans (1998-1999 academic year) for achieving some of the goals mentioned above are:
• reorganize CE561 Highway Geometric Design to include either Softdesk Civil or InRoads.
• reorganize CE662 Traffic Simulation to include the CORSIM software.
• attend the Utah Engineers Workshop in fall.
• attend the 1999 Annual Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington, D.C.
• attend one of the ITE sponsored meeting (either its annual meeting or a special conference on safety).
• offer one seminar talk in one of the student chapters.
• make CE En 173 an exciting CAD and drafting fundamentals class.
• integrate the Transportation Lab with course lectures (to do so we need to have a new lab as soon as possible).
• make both InRoads (with MicroStation) and Softdesk Civil (with AutoCAD) available in the transportation lab.
Research:
My goals for research (or scholarly activities) in the coming two to three years are:
• to present research at two national and/or international conferences a year (on the average).
• to write a few chapters of a text book in transportation engineering with my former Ph.D. advisor and former colleagues.
• to involve good undergraduate and graduate students in transportation area with my own research.
• to keep up-to-date with research in my fields (traffic theory, characteristics and operation; traffic safety; infrastructure management).
• to develop a well-defined research agenda.
• to get involved with other faculty members in and outside the department.
My long-term plans to accomplish these goals are:
• set aside at minimum 30 minutes for writing papers, book chapters, reports, etc. every day.
• continue dialogue with my former Ph.D. advisor and colleagues to advance the idea of co-authoring a text book in transportation engineering.
• attract good undergraduate and graduate students to collaborative research projects.
• work with my transportation colleagues and other faculty member on future interdisciplinary projects.
• attend up to two conferences and/or workshops a year.
• set aside a half-day a week to browse journals related to my research topics to collect information for lectures and for research assistants to read.
• promote a "Center for Transportation Studies" at BYU which is an interdisciplinary center involving experts in transportation engineering, statistics, sociology, psychology, economics, etc.
My short-term plans for achieving some of these goals are:
• send one paper to ASCE’s Transportation Journal.
• send a proposal to NSF together with Dr. XXX.
• send two proposals: one for the State DOT and another for a federal agency (FHWA or NHTSA).
• complete funded projects (one from Utah DOT, another from New York State Energy Research and Development - consulting).
• mentor two transportation graduate students working for funded projects and let them graduate in April, 1999.
Citizenship:
My goals for citizenship are:
• to assimilate BYU’s high standards in my teaching and research.
• to be active in departmental functions and duties.
• to get actively involved in local and national professional organization activities, in organizing conferences of such organizations and in leading committee activities.
• to promote the transportation program of BYU at local, national, and international leves to expand the potential graduate student pool and funding organization pool.
• to accept committee assignments in the Department and graduate students within limits.
• to get acquainted with both undergraduate and graduate students.
Long-term plans to accomplish these goals are:
• attend devotionals and assemblies.
• attend undergraduate and graduate seminars.
• attend local and national professional meetings within limits (My goal is to attend two national conferences a year and to attend monthly local professional meetings (ITE and ASCE).
• continue my participation as members of TRB, ASCE, and ITE committees: Chair of the Infrastructure Management Committee of the Urban Transportation Division of ASCE, Member of the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics, Member of the Traffic Safety Committee.
• accept graduate students as RA’s for funded projects and become mentors to graduate students who conduct 3.0 credit hour projects as well as to those working on funded research projects.
Short-term plans to achieve some of the goals are:
• find membership positions in two committees: one in TRB and the other in ASCE.
• volunteer to become mentors to two to three students taking a 3.0 credit hour project course.
• become BYU’s liaison for the Transportation Research Board, replacing Dr. WWW.
• run the CAD Clinic for the Department.
Individual, Department, and University
Now that the retirements of two transportation professors are approaching, I will be representing the transportation area of the department in a few years. Transportation is an important area in civil engineering projects; structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, and hydraulic engineering are all reflected in transportation projects. As such, transportation area needs a stable program to produce competent graduates. I want to make the transportation program at BYU well established and well known in the transportation education and research communities. I will be working with other transportation faculty members to find their replacements. My plan is to have three faculty members in transportation area: traffic engineering, transportation planning, and transportation engineering materials. A faculty member in transportation engineering materials can be a faculty member in civil engineering materials; this way we can share a faculty member with the other areas in the Department.
Transportation is a research area where interdisciplinary arrangements are often required now that it deals with people - their behaviors and decision making patterns. I intend to emphasize this aspect of transportation studies by involving faculty members from other departments of the University. Also, transporation faculty members should be included in transportation related policies of the University, such as traffic control and parking area designs; therefore I want to start a dialogue with departments and organizations that deal with transportation issues, thus contributing to the University in solving its transportation problems.
Resources Needed
The resources I need, over the next two to three years, to accomplish my goals are as follows:
1. A new transportation research laboratory under consideration needs be realized before the fall semester, 1998, begins and I would like to have 6 Pentium computers functioning in the lab which will be used for research and graduate lab instructions.
2. At least one student research assistant each year is desired besides the research assistants I would hire for funded projects to explore new topics in my research area.
3. The Department keeps my teaching commitment to two courses each semester (CE En 999 and CE En 999 in fall and CE En 999 and CE En 999 in winter), and one in spring term (CE En 999) in each academic year. Depending on research demands, I may request to be released from teaching during both spring and summer terms
4. I need time, funds and opportunity to promote a Center for Transportation Studies.