Losing a Spark
A previously unreleased story about the review and closure of the Electronics Engineering Technology program at Missouri Western.
Note: This story was originally intended for publication during the spring of 2019 but was not released due to extenuating circumstances. The information presented does not necessarily reflect the reality of September, 2020, but is being published for archival purposes and will only be updated to reflect any errors in the original story (corrections that could have been made at the time it was originally scheduled for publication) or links that have since changed. Questions and comments about this story can be directed to csarna@missouriwestern.edu.
In the darkest depths of the building, a bolt of electricity lights up Wilson Hall. It’s nearly silent, save for the pitter-patter of ROTC down the hall. A defeated man stares at pieces of his robotic creations strewn across his desk.
Despite the moans and groans of cramming for finals week, this isn’t a Frankenstein story. For the students and professors in the electronics engineering technology program at Missouri Western, or EET, it might be something far scarier.
EET is closing. If you feel like the last to know, you’re not alone.
Faculty Push-back
Towards the beginning of 2019, Zhao Zhang penned an open letter about the closing. Zhang has been a professor of electronics engineering technology at Missouri Western for 21 years. The letter claims that the EET program was closed unfairly, using a “fake dual process.”
In the letter, Zhang says that his department was shocked to learn that a review committee consisting of other department’s chairs had recommended closing the program. This recommendation was announced in a memorandum from Douglas Davenport, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs. It was sent to Jinwen Zhu, chair of the department of engineering technology, and is dated Sept. 25, 2018.
According to the memorandum, a program goes up for review if it does not average 10 graduates per year over a three-year period. The memorandum states that this is a Missouri Department of Higher Education mandated threshold.
This was the first his department was hearing of the review, according to Zhang, but he said that the process had started as early as the previous April when faculty met individually with the dean and a consultant.
“He says they want to help us,” Zhang said. “We were so naive.”
According to Zhang, the consultant was no stranger to closing programs; he was involved in the closing of WireCo, a wire-rope manufacturing company that called St. Joseph home for several decades. Looking back, Zhang said this choice of consultant signaled the beginning of the end.
The Review Process
Logan Jones, dean of the Craig School of Business and Technology, said he was tasked with finding ways to make engineering technology a flagship program when he became dean in April of 2018. He said that his first step in doing so was hiring Mike Mastio as a technical consultant.
According to Bloomberg, a financial news source, in their company overview of Wireco Worldgroup (Cayman) Inc., Mastio joined WireCo in 2013 and served as their chief technical officer and senior vice president of engineering between April 26, 2016, and Feb. 15, 2017.
He is also a Missouri Western alumnus. He attained a degree in mathematics from Missouri Western and later achieved a master of science in mechanical engineering and doctorates in both mathematics and mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri. However, Zhang’s letter states that the consultant’s qualifications included no higher education experience or engineering degree.
The letter also states that an ABET team leader visited the department. Jones said that the EET program’s accreditation with ABET, or Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, would be coming up next year.
According to Zhang’s letter, the ABET team leader was never informed of the potential closing of the program. Zhang said that comments from their one-hour meeting were “cherry picked” out of context as evidence to support closing the program.
The second paragraph of Davenport’s memorandum states that historical program information as well as curriculum value, accreditation and laboratory equipment were all relevant evidence for the review. Davenport mentions additional information provided to the review committee a week prior, but that information is unknown. Both Davenport and Zhu were unable to comment on the closing due to an active grievance process filed by Zhang through faculty senate.
Before this closure, the department of engineering technology consisted of three main programs: construction engineering technology (CET), manufacturing engineering technology (MET) and electronics engineering technology (EET). Jones said that these programs were not on equal footing.
“In the end, my report back to the president was that we have two healthy programs, and then we have one that needs resources,” Jones said. “In the past it had gotten a pass, kind of, because it’s a STEM program. It was considered essential, so they didn't do the reviews.”
In fact, according to the program reviews sent to the Missouri Department of Higher Education, dated July 21, 2017, this isn’t the first time the EET program has failed to meet minimum graduate numbers.
At the time of the 2017 reviews, EET did not meet those requirements either. Instead of closing EET, the electronics and computer engineering technology program (ECET) was cut. Students were directed students to join EET program with an additional minor in computer science, potentially bolstering average graduate numbers.
Zhang said that this time, regardless of his attempts to work within the process, his program was doomed from the start. His letter states that the EET program had 28 graduates over the past three years. MET and CET narrowly escaped review with 30 and 32 graduates respectively.
However, under “Institutional Data” on the Missouri Western Website, the list of graduations by program shows that EET fell far below that number when considered a separate entity from ECET.
In the academic years of 2015–16, 2016–17 and 2017–18, EET is shown with a total of 16 graduates. Added together with the ECET graduates, this number becomes 28. It is unclear which of these numbers was used in the review as the 2018–19 program review documentation has not yet been made available to the public.
Not Enough Graduates, But Not Alone
However, EET was far from the only program up for review based on limited graduates in 2017. In fact, over 30 other program names were sent to the Missouri Department of Higher Education for the same reason that year. With very limited exceptions, most of these programs are still here today*.
Some of the programs that failed to meet MDHE minimums include majors within history, art, music, economics, political science, mathematics, English, French and Spanish. The justifications to continue these programs often included low cost and minimal unique course offerings.
According to the graduation data found on the Missouri Western website, several of these programs had far fewer than an average of 10 graduates per year. Over a three-year period, English education had 11 graduates. Spanish had one. French had zero.
In his letter, Zhang says that the review process is normally no big deal. However, he said that this review made him feel blindsided, not understanding the gravity of the situation until it was too late. Zhang said that things happened quickly and quietly.
“We didn’t really take it seriously because program review happens quite often,” Zhang said. “Looking back, it was a big mistake. If we had paid enough attention earlier, things might have been better.”
The Decision
Jones said that the decision to fully review the program was made at the beginning of the summer of 2018. The previous sitting provost, Jeanne Daffron, gathered other department chairs to create a review committee working with 10 years of historic program data.
This data included enrollment, graduation rates, curriculum and accreditation. After reviewing all of these components, Jones said that a hard decision had to be made.
“There’s two choices here,” Jones said. “Either we put more resources into it (EET) and hope it gets better, or we need to end this program and keep the other two (MET and CET).”
Jones said that the review committee felt strongly that it was necessary to shut down the EET program and move resources to the two remaining programs. He said that after the recommendation was made, the EET faculty were given an opportunity to make a formal appeal. They were given a month to draft this appeal which was then reviewed by Davenport, the interim provost.
Davenport sent a follow-up memorandum to Zhu in January of 2019.
This memorandum states that the review committee decided to discontinue the program. Jones said that the Board of Governors discussed the program in a closed session due to personnel matters, but that they did not vote on the closing of the program. This kind of vote would require open session if made during a Board of Governors meeting.
In his letter, Zhang says that the review process was unfair and says that any attempts to prove the worth of his program were ultimately made in vain.
“We are helpless and doomed from day one,” Zhang said. “The whole process has no effective check and balance. For some unknown reasons, the decision might have been made much earlier, and then all that happened afterward is just procedural.”
Impacts on Current Students
Fortunately for students, Jones said that anyone who is declared as an EET major will be able to finish their degree. Over the next two years, EET classes will be phased out from freshman to senior level. Students who choose to complete the program at Missouri Western will take heavier semesters with course substitutions and most likely have to take summer classes. Normally a four-year program, students who declared EET majors in the fall of 2018, the last opportunity to do so, are projected to complete their EET coursework in just three years total.
Zhang said that once this solution was reached, most of the push-back from students stopped.
“It’s an advantage to them,” Zhang said. “They planned for four years of college, now they’ll be able to do it in three.”
According to Zhang, the main impact on students will hit the next incoming class in fall of 2019. Students who might have come to Missouri Western for the EET program will have to look elsewhere. Jones said that this impact was unfortunate but unavoidable.
“No one who can’t finish in two years has been accepted,” Jones said. “The main thing is just trying to do the best by students to be fair. But, at the same time, we do need to close the program.”
Jones said that the program was removed from the website months ago. In fact, the program page now leads only to an eror message.
Regardless of the three-year timeline, some students still feel as though they’ve been left in the dust.
Rainbow Li is an EET major returning for a second degree having completed her first degree in nursing. Li said that she generally avoids getting involved in any kind of contention, but she tried to help Zhang rally signatures in support of keeping EET.
“I can finish my EET program, but it’s not good for the future students,” Li said. “I really think that it’s poor judgement to cut this program.”
Li said that, regardless of the personal impacts of the closing, the worst impacts would hit potential students forced to choose another university’s EET program.
“It will make people think this is not a good school,” Li said. “I mean, why would I come here? You cut all of your strongest programs.”
While some students have expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to close the program, Jones said that it was not a decision made on a whim and his role in the decision was to care for students.
“I know some students are unhappy because they wanted to do this, but in the end, one of the things was that we weren't producing graduates that the industry liked out of this program,” Jones said. “It really is protecting the students by ending the program.”
Industry Response
In contrast to any claims that EET was not producing adequate graduates for the workforce, Zhang provided a collection of letters of support from local industry. Several of these letters appear to have come from alumni of the engineering technology department. Several of these alumni express sadness and disappointment in the decision.
According to one letter, class of 2009 EET graduate Ronnie Hadley says that his experience at Missouri Western was valuable in preparing him for his current job at Ducommun in Joplin, Missouri, as a manufacturing engineer.
“I can say that I received an excellent education and experience, one that fully prepared me to enter into a private sector engineering position,” Hadley said. “I’m still designing and manufacturing wiring harnesses for the aerospace industry, including harnesses that will be supporting the Space Launch System for NASA (both the RS-25 main engines, and solid fuel rocket
boosters), and quite a few missile defense programs.”
Grove Construction General Contracting is a construction company in Columbia, Missouri. According to their website, their Vice President of Construction, Clay Minchew, graduated from Missouri Western with a degree in construction engineering technology. In his letter to Zhang, Minchew expresses his sadness about the decision and a willingness to help reverse it if possible.
“In my professional opinion Electronics Engineering Technology plays a big role in the construction industry and will only continue to be more vital to the industry in the coming years,” Minchew said.
In another letter, an Engineering Technician at Black and Veatch, Josh Krautmann, says that his EET education at Missouri Western was highly influential in achieving his goals. He also says that Black and Veatch has recently hired multiple Missouri Western graduates and seen great outcomes.
“My education helped me land a great job right out of school where I was getting a higher salary and better benefits than most of my fellow graduates from other degree fields,” Krautmann said. “In the past few years, the department that I am in has hired two exceptional new graduates and we have a third starting this spring after he graduates. The MWSU graduates from the engineering technology program stick out as exception employees who can instantly add value to our companies projects.”
St. Joseph residents might be familiar with the Boehringer Ingelheim building near the intersection of Gene Field road and the “Belt,” or Highway 169. The pharmaceutical company’s St. Joseph location specializes in veterinary medicine (Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica). According to the St. Joseph Economic Development Partnership, Boehringer Ingelheim is the fifth largest employer in the city.
Zhang confirmed that the author of one letter of support (pictured below) was Steve Smith, the director of enterprise resources planning at Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica for the past 30 years. He also confirmed that the recipient was the Executive Assistant for the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, Camille Wallingford.
In his letter, Smith asks Wallingford if the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce is aware of the closing.
“Boehringer considers this a significant mistake and I believe our engineering team is drafting a letter in support of retaining this program,” Smith said. “I believe other companies may be doing this as well. It might be good for the Chamber of Commerce to weigh in.”
It is unclear if the Chamber of Commerce ever responded, but according to Zhang, it likely would not make a difference now.
Holding Onto Hope
Though the fate of the EET program might be sealed, Zhang is still trying to hold onto hope — if not for his program, for the other programs on campus that could face a closure. He said that he would much rather be working on electrical engineering than advocating for his program, but it was the only thing he could think to do.
“Even though I’m not good at it, I will do it,” Zhang said. “Because nobody is making noise. Our voices have never been heard.”
Zhang said he wants all departments on campus to be aware of what could happen to them. He urged students and faculty to use their voices to prevent their own program from meeting a similar fate.
“That’s what I’m worried about — this process is so lacking in check and balance,” Zhang said. “If I didn’t respond to this program being closed, no one would even know. The last thing the school wants to do is have angry parents and angry students. They are our constituents. They have the muscle. They have the power.”
*This story was originally slated for publication in the spring of 2019. Program cuts approved in the spring of 2020 are not reflected in this story whatsoever and can be found here.
