"Engineering department taught by non-engineers"
You mean because CISE profs don't take the FE/PE? Is it because they haven't taken the order of the engineer oath?
What makes one an engineer?
According to the proposal "Roughly half of the faculty will be offered the opportunity to move to ECE, BME or ISE."
The dean also stated several times and faculty must be accepted into this different dept. So it is not clear who which faculty will be allowed to continue research.
"The planet is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star "
How is the gravity about the same as earths if the planet does not spin, or is the planet spinning at the same rate that it is revolving around it's star, like the moon. So I guess gravity does not just come from the centripetal force. Are there any other forces that contribute to planetary gravity? If not the planetary year should be very small.
You can find other years here http://trec.nist.gov/proceedings/proceedings.html