From: Perry Wheless [wwheless@UA1VM.UA.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 5:53 PM
To: David Green
Cc: r3-excom1998@ieee.org
Subject: Educational Activities Report to ExCom 10/98

To:  David Green
cc:  Region 3 ExCom

From: Perry Wheless

Subj: Educational Activities report

The Region 3 EAC has increased in "peoplepower" recently.  Dr. 
Atef Elsherbeni of the Electrical Engineering Department at Ole Miss 
has joined the committee as Vice-Chair, and has already been hard at 
work on the Region 3 Employer Professional Development Award.  Other 
committee members at this time include Tom Bellarmine (Florida),  
Andrew Hargrove (Virginia), Dan Jackson (Mentor, Virginia),  Charles 
Lord (North Carolina), Deb Powers (Georgia), Bill Ratcliff (Area 3), 
Butch Shadwell (Area 4),  John Liegeois  (Area 5), Darrell Piatt 
(Area 6), departing David Hulett (Area 7),  John Parr  (Area 8), and 
Dennis Hartley (Area 9).

I regret to report to you the passing of Dr. Demetrius Paris 
of Georgia Tech.  EAC was pleased to support and endorse the 
nomination of Dr. Paris earlier in 1998 for the "Meritorious 
Achievement Award in Accreditation Activities," and his death is a 
great loss to Region 3 and all who knew him.

EAC recently relayed by email to all the Region 3 Sections a 
call for volunteers for ABET accreditation reviewer duty.  Program 
reviewers from industry are especially in demand, and more Region 3 
volunteers from the industrial sector would be a positive development 
for us.

A listing of holdings in the Region 3 Lending Library is now available
on the Web. From https://sandbox.ieee.org/r03/, there is a link to the
"Lending Library." It is intended that several new acquisitions will
be added to the library between now and the end of  the year.  Items
which could be used by Sections to provide workshops and short
courses, perhaps even carrying Continuing Education Units (CEU)
credit, will have priority in this round of new acquisitions.  Perry
Wheless traveled to Atlanta for a weekend working meeting with the
Membership Development (MD) Committee in September, and there will be
an active attempt to coordinate EAC and MD efforts, particularly in
partnering with employers - an area of considerable overlap of EAC/MD
interests and missions.

A negative note is that one of EAC's Goals and Objectives for 1998
included getting the Region 3 Sections to have a special,
education-oriented meeting (apart from their regular meetings) once a
year. Because local needs vary, the definition of what constitutes an
educational activity was left to the discretion of the Section.  Two
publicity broadcasts about this to the Region 3 email distribution
list only netted two replies, just one of which was positive.  You
might say the idea was greeted with considerable apathy.  If you have
any comments on what this concept needs in order to gain acceptance at
the Section level, please give your input to Perry Wheless 
(p.wheless@ieee.org) at your earliest convenience.   Without a new
twist to "sell" this idea, it is questionable if it should be rolled
over onto the 1999 objectives list.

Finally, a word of public thanks to Dan Jackson for continuing to work
with this committee as its Mentor.  Dan is an outstanding source of
information, ideas, and enthusiasm for IEEE, and we are grateful for
his ongoing assistance.

***********************************************
Dr. W. Perry Wheless, Jr., P.E.
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Alabama
Box 870286; 324 Houser Hall
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0286
phone 205-348-1757   fax 205-348-6959
preferred e-mail:  wwheless@ua1vm.ua.edu
***********************************************