Bordeaux named associate dean in engineering

Bordeaux named associate dean in engineering

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

Rice University has named Janice Bordeaux its new associate dean of program development in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.

Janice Bordeaux

Bordeaux, adjunct associate professor in psychology, is a noted expert on learning and assessment in higher education. She joined the school of engineering in 1999 to oversee Rice’s response to sweeping changes in national engineering accreditation standards. In her new position she will apply similar program development and evaluation methods to schoolwide initiatives.

“An organization can have the best strategic plan in the world and still fall flat if it fails to accurately assess its progress — or lack of progress — toward its goals,” said Sallie Keller-McNulty, dean of the school of engineering. “Janice has proven that she can tap the right constituents, ask the right questions and synthesize the right information to find out if a program is on track, and we’re going to use that ability at a broader level in the school of engineering.”

Collaborating with faculty and students, Bordeaux has designed and implemented new methods of outcome-based program assessment in response to pioneering accreditation standards from ABET, the national accreditor for U.S. applied science, computing, engineering and technology degree programs. With an outcome-based assessment approach, ABET wanted to move away from evaluations based solely on program inputs — dollars spent, number of faculty, etc. — and focus instead on learning outcomes, Bordeaux said. But assessing learning outcomes — like ability to form and solve problems, apply research and design processes, participate in teamwork and effectively communicate ideas — is harder than it might seem. Faculty must first articulate a set of objectives they hope to achieve with the high caliber of students at Rice. Then, they must engage their constituents — students, alumni, employers, graduate schools — in an ongoing critical exchange of ideas on ways to strengthen the program.

“I have learned a great deal about the customary and new kinds of learning that are valued by the engineering community,” Bordeaux said. “I’m excited about using an outcome-based approach to address some of the larger strategic issues faced by the school in today’s global environment.”