| Fireside Chat a Success! | April 24, 2007 |
Thank you to everyone who came last night. The Indian food from House of India was excellent and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Thank you also to Dr. Goldman for coming and talking about the new ACM Programming Contest Independent Study for next semester (email Ken Goldman if you are interested). Lastly, thank you to Dr. Roman for coming and speaking and answering questions for us. For those of you who couldn't be there here is a recap of what he said, courtesy of Adam LaMore.
On Faculty:
-Increase faculty size
--Currently largest department in SEAS
--Currently hiring to raise number of faculty from 25 to 30
--Looking to hire more CoE professors
----Offer already extended to 1 new professor
----Offer extended to a professor focused on human computer interfaces
--Also looking to bolster the area of security
--There is now a comprehensive faculty evaluation in all of SEAS that evaluates each faculty member based on his or her teaching ability, research ability, and advising ability. These are being used to determine promotions and pay raises.
--Now have fewer adjunct faculty, a school wide directive
On Undergraduate Education:
-Effort to improve undergraduate education, spearheaded by Ken Goldman
-Want to have more of a studio environment
--Less lectures, more time spent in labs (Example: CSE 330)
-Increase interdisciplinary collaboration and education
On Graduate Education:
--Looking at a one year master's degree to enable graduate students to study other things concurrently
-Now offering a Ph.D.
--All doctoral candidates must have at least 1 semester has a T.A. ----Mostly for core courses, such as CSE 332
-Looking at interdisciplinary master's degrees
--Bioinformatics with medical school
--Digital art with art school
--Computational informatics with business, economics, etc.
--Prof. Roman is currently working with the School of Social Work to look at how to improve disaster management
Other Discussions:
-SEAS is looking to hire a new assistant dean for information technology
--Would manage all computing resources, including the CEC, CTS, and the administrative website design group
--Would likely separate the clearly define the functions of each:
----CEC = educational resources, including computer labs
----CTS = research resources
----The rest would be responsible for administrative resources, such as department websites, etc.
| Fireside Chat | April 21, 2007 |
This is a reminder that the annual ACM Fireside Chat will be this coming Monday, April 23 at 6pm in McMillan Cafe.
Fireside Chat Agenda:
1. Indian Food
2. State of the Department (Professor Roman)
3. Discussion/Questions/Comments about courses, hiring, etc.
Following the Fireside Chat, for those who are interested, Dr. Ken Goldman will be holding an informational meeting for those interested in preparing for the ACM Programming Contest, possibly on a group independent study basis. The regional contest will be held in the latter part of the fall semester.