The following changes have been made to the Computer Engineering program in response to the items identified by the assessment activities.

1. A new set of courses (ECE 197a, ECE 297a, ECE 397a, ECE 497a) were created to provide our students an opportunity to better understand, develop, and exercise their professional skills. The professional skills that the Computer Engineering program focuses on are ethics, the social and global impact upon engineering design, the ability to engage in lifelong learning, and the awareness and appreciation of contemporary issues in an engineering education and career.

2. In order to assure a higher success rate of our students, the advanced standing grade point average (GPA) was raised to 2.75 from 2.5. Students with a higher GPA should be more capable of succeeding in our upper division courses in the Computer Engineering program.

3. The ECE department streamlined the microcontroller curriculum by consolidating two separate classes into one. The single microcontroller course eliminated redundant material in the program and forced the course to target its effort on the essential material.

4. The number of units allocated to the first semester of the senior capstone course (ECE 498a) was raised from one to two. Increasing the units assigned to ECE 498a has motivated the students to put more energy into the capstone course and has allowed the program to enhance the design content in the course.

5. An industrial advisory group has been established in the ECE department. The advisory group has meet a couple of times in the past few years. The group provides input and direction to the Computer Engineering program from an industrial perspective.

6. A senior portfolio writing activity has been introduced into the second semester of the capstone course (ECE 498b). The portfolios are evaluated each semester by a panel consisting of engineering faculty and industrial representatives and non-technical readers from academia and industry. The portfolio process has documented an improvement in our students' writing ability over the past few years.

7. The ECE department has created two computer-based classrooms or laboratories that students in our Computer Engineering program can utilize. The facilities also provide our faculty with state-of-the-art instructional capabilities that they can use for course specific instruction. The student feedback from these two rooms containing up-to-date computer resources has been very positive.

8. The ECE faculty have recently modified the educational objectives of the Computer Engineering program. The program will continue to evolve the educational objectives to reflect the characteristics and qualities our graduates should possess a few years after graduation.

9. The advising group in the ECE department continues to improve their impact on the Computer Engineering program. The advising group recently expanded to include two full-time advisors for our undergraduate students. The number of students the group continues to advise remains high. In addition, the advice is timely, accurate, and useful.