The Council on Academic Affairs approved a new electrical engineering major at its meeting Thursday.

Presenting the proposals were Douglas Brandt, the pre-engineering program coordinator and engineering professor Jie Zou.

Currently, the pre-engineering program consists of students being at Eastern for 2-3 years and completing their degree at another university. Brandt said the goal of this new major was to keep Eastern students longer.

There will only need to be one faculty member hired to make this program happen, because the physics department and the pre-engineering program are coordinating their own faculty to make this happen.

Digital systems and design, signals and systems, feedback and control systems, semiconductor device physics, senior design and an electrical engineering internship program, which will hopefully be guided by the new faculty hire, were several of the potential courses that were proposed to the CAA.

CAA Chair Stacey Ruholl updated members on the naming committee that is charged with looking at renaming Douglas Hall.

This naming committee the Faculty Senate recommended to look at Douglas Hall was called together by Eastern President David Glassman and includes various chairs from organizations on campus as well as other members.

The committee has been charged with looking at the Faculty Senate’s recommendation to rename both Lincoln Hall and Douglas Hall to The Lincoln and Douglas Debate Hall East and West respectively, and will make a recommendation to  Glassman later this year.

Brooke Schwartz can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].