A New M&S Engineering Program With A Base In Computer Engineering

The reality of the current academic climate, in particular faced with drops in enrollment over the next decade as a result from drops in birth rates, is forcing hard choices for small programs such as the Modeling & Simulation Engineering (M&SE) program at Old Dominion University (ODU). The quality of the program and its benefit to its constituents do not offset the impracticality of continuing such programs. Two primary options for such programs are closure or consolidation. ODU decided on the latter course of action for M&SE. Due to the computational nature of the existing program, a decision was made to place M&SE as a major under the Computer Engineering degree. This paper presents the justification for this decision and the resulting curriculum and the hard decisions made to allow it to fit under computer engineering. A discussion of feedback from constituents such as the industrial advisory board for the existing M&SE program is included.