I graduated from UF in 2007 and have in no way since kept up with departmental politics, but as of then, CISE was a bit of a Frankenstein creature. As an undergraduate, if you were looking for a computing-related degree, you had five possible majors to choose from:
* Computer Science (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; CISE Department)
* Computer Engineering with Software Emphasis (College of Engineering; CISE Department)
* Computer Engineering with Hardware Emphasis (College of Engineering; ECE Department)
* Electrical Engineering (College of Engineering; ECE Department)
* Computer Information Sciences (College of Business; CISE Department).
So basically, the CISE department was answerable to three different colleges, and some of those colleges offered very-closely-related degrees that weren't in the CISE department.
As for myself, I started out in Computer Engineering with Software Emphasis. I later switched to Computer Science. The reason for this change was that I wanted to double in Mathematics, which belongs to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Having a double major is a lot easier when both majors are in the same college, because you then don't have to worry about satisfying conflicting and redundant gen. ed. requirements.
So, as a CISE alumnus, I have a vested interest in maintaining the reputation of that department, and this reorganization sounds likely to damage it. However, the status quo (as of 2007) is a mess, and this change might overall be for the better.
I can't deny that the department being cut back is a good one. But sometimes there isn't room for all the good departments.
I plant 4 tomato plants every spring. In a few weeks I pull up 2 of them, even if they are thriving. There is only so much soil, water and sunlight to go around.
I'm also a 2007 alum, and I steered clear of CS as an undergraduate because of the confusing organization you describe above. If that organization wasn't so confusing, I would have tried CS out (vs. the econ BA I hold right now and the MSCS I'm working on now).
The department may have problems, but shutting down research throws the baby out with the bathwater. Degree consolidation would go a long way to improving student enrollment.
I graduated in 2002, and the situation was even more convoluted then.
There was no "Computer Science" major available; the traditional CS curriculum was known as "Computer and Information Sciences", which, due to the acronym, can be confused with a MIS-equivalent degree (I once had a manager who insisted that I show him the course catalog for my major to prove I studied the relevant CS topics). The MIS/IT curriculum was offered as "Decision and Information Systems".
And despite the CISE department being a part of the College of Engineering, the CS curriculum was offered as an independent major only by the liberal arts and business colleges. I opted for the business college, so my actual degree is "Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a major in Computer and Information Sciences", wording which is rather poor at conveying that this is indeed a CS degree.
I don't think they got around to renaming the degrees until 2004-2005.
I graduated from UF in 2004. This was the exact reason why I did not pursue a degree in computer science alongside my finance degree. The only course I took in the computer science department (Something like Problem Solving with MS Office) was completely unorganized. I picked up my programming background on my own and in graduate school.
The two Computer Engineering Degrees (software and hardware) are to be combined into one that has N (not yet decided) tracks that will be supported by "certificate programs."
So, now you reduce by one clearly defined separation and increse by n-1 less well defined certificate programs.
I graduated from UF in 2009, with degrees in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. UF was running into huge budget issues, which they mostly took out on Liberal Arts. At the time, the Computer Science department was under Liberal Arts and Sciences, not engineering.
The department chair at the time, Sartaj Sahni, responded by cutting teaching funding and letting some of the best teachers go. UF had a few teachers without PhDs, which reduces a university's ranking in US News & World Report. Of course, these teachers were the ones that REALLY cared about teaching, since they didn't have research distractions. These teachers were replaced with postdocs who lack the experience needed to teach at a major institution.
I don't know how you can have a solid program if you slash your best teachers to save research, then slash your research to save teaching. Doesn't make sense.
Letting go of your best teachers sounds like a brutally flawed decision. The only reason I am now getting back into learning programming after a 8 year hiatus, is because of how great my untenured lecturer was in teaching us and inspiring us in the ways of C programming.
If not for him, there would be far fewer students from my school who would have stuck with programming. In 2004, we made a facebook group called "Everything I know about C I learned from [insert guy's name]". From what I can tell, the number of former students in this group keeps growing every year. He is beloved by all his current and former students, and I would vehemently protest to the school/department if he ever got cut prematurely for any reason.
As a 2004 graduate of UF (ECE, not CISE) this news worries me. Can anymore more familiar with the situation explain whether or not this more about consolidating ECE/CISE, or if this is just a simple gutting of the computer science at UF.
Many schools suffer the issue of CS being extra-engineering, and then having a "computer engineering" department within engineering, and you end up with quite a bit of duplication. I'm hoping that this is simply part of a consolidation process.
Yep. University of Calgary went the opposite route a few years back and shut down the computer engineering degree stream. I'm actually not sure what the effects of that were, I'll have to ask my coworkers (some of whom are graduates of that degree).
The fertile environment for software tech companies in Gainesville and Florida as a whole will be severely damaged.
Is Gainesville really that fertile a ground for software startups? Moreover, will reducing research funding at University of Florida necessarily make the existing environment for startups worse? For example, what if the savings are invested into a greater emphasis on teaching?
Is Gainesville really that fertile a ground for software startups? Moreover, will reducing research funding at University of Florida necessarily make the existing environment for startups worse?
UF has a very strong entrepreneurial community. Grooveshark[0] and Hype Machine[1] were both founded by Gator alums.
I can imagine that reduced research --> lower quality RA opportunities --> reduced interest from undergrads, thus shrinking the number of undergrads interested in CS or tech startups.
Affiliated? Yes. Two separate entities though. They do not receive any funding from the University. In fact the UAA has made a profit consistently for quite a while and has returned $6-8 million/year to the University.
So, yes the UAA gives ridiculous amounts of money to coaches, but they are making a decent ROI.
As a 2002 graduate, it pains me to see this. More so, when they are saying that they will cut the TA funding. I got through college because of my TA scholarship, and I still have fond memories of teaching the undergraduates. Some of them are still friends.
We also did some nice research in my Masters, a lot of concepts(Grid/cloud) which we are currently using in our Startup.
In any case, I just hope the department and the University come through this with their reputation intact.
Did you complete undergrad in '02, or were you a TA at that time? I completed my CISE undergrad in '02 and thought it was an excellent program, despite the convoluted organization.
As an aside, what does your degree actually say? The '98 catalog didn't actually have a "computer science" program, and the CS curriculum was offered as "Computer and Information Sciences" via either the business school or CLAS. Do you ever get people confusing your undergrad degree with the equivalent of MIS? (IIRC, the MIS-equivalent was DIS at that time.)
There are over 400 graduate students here in the CISE department at UF. With the cuts to all TA funding plus half the research faculty instantly being forced to stop research in addition to those faculty who do not wish to remain as teaching only faculty there will be 200+ of us graduate students leaving. At over $10,000 a year in tuition, the loss of these 200+ graduate students tuition is far in excess to what the college of engineering as a whole stands to save by consolidating and gutting the department. Next year instead of a $1.3M deficit to plug they will have an additional 2M+ less in tuition revenue alone. I would love to see where the dean decides to turn to next to "consolidate." This is not a sustainable approach to a budget deficit because she is greatly devaluing the degree in the eyes of the current students and we are going to transfer elsewhere to finish our degree programs. She can honestly apply the 5% budget cuts across the board to all departments and let everyone take a small hit or irrevocably damage computer engineering at UF and still have a budget issue.
Computer Science programs have many different roots. I think the most common is for them to grow out of Electrical Engineering departments where they end up tightly coupled with Computer Engineering, lots of hardware emphasis, etc. But they can also grow out of departments like math or information / library science. Then they may end up fairly far from the engineering departments.
I really hope that they're simply consolidating Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and CISE (Computer & Information Science Engineering) into a single department and keeping existing faculty.
As a 2010 graduate (CISE - I wanted a mix of engineering and liberal arts), this is quite troubling to me. I remember when they announced that they would be laying off a number of faculty members (mostly lecturers) -- some of whom were the best instructors in the entire department. Now they're getting rid of research in the name of teaching? What a farce.
Step 2: make faculty ask to be in other departments (with the dean's approval of course)
Step 3: make all faculty who can't get other departments to take them have a 100% teaching appointment and set TA budget of the department to $0. Effectively convincing all those cranky guys you wanted to get rid of to leave the university.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Success!
Then add the Ph.D. program back in and wait 25 years for it to rebuild.
For those of you who have a "vested" interest in the reputation of a department you graduated from many years previous (and by many I mean more than a year ago) and are worried about its reflection on you.
Perhaps, instead, you should concern yourself with your personal professional achievements and credentials post graduation and how those reflect on you. To me that seems like a MUCH more productive use of your time.
This seems like a concern to future and current students; rather than alumni.
// Light-hearted jab at UF alumni
Leave it to a Gator grad to be worried about keeping-up appearances.
I think that I've gotten jobs despite, not because of, my UF degree. But the skills that have let me get those jobs were burnished in research labs in the CS department. Research labs that will go away if the dean's plan goes through.
Some of us just don't believe in pulling up the ladder after we've climbed up it. Having an active department turning out competent graduates is good for us as alumni, good for Florida, and good for the field of computer science.
I was planning on transferring to UF next fall to get a bachelors in Computer Science. It worries me how little the university cares about Computer Science if they're planning to make such a decision. I personally would like to thank everyone who signed this for rallying against such actions.
Let us think - how is an engineering department taught by mostly non Engineers? Odd I know, but rumor has it CISE does it. Not so with EE/ECE. BTW, CISE instructors are welcome to join EE/ECE - most of their research is done together already anyway. But hey, who cares about figuring out all of the details, lets just make this a sensation like all the other BS news.
The department is "Computer and Information Science and Engineering" - only a subset of the department consists of what would be generally regarded as "engineering", and the people teaching engineering courses have the relevant expertise in their fields.
"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?
I'm a current UF student, and what the hell?! The presidents of UF and FSU are lobbying the government to allow the universities to increase tuition without limits (ie, without asking the Florida Legislature again), and UF comes out with this? Is this their way of sending a message to the Legislature? "Don't approve our tuition hikes and this will happen"? They're asking for a tuition hike to make UF more "competitive" nationally, but how does eliminating a research department and cutting faculty who are great teachers but not PhD's make you more competitive?
I'm in no way associated with UF, but I don't think the answer for why this is proposed is too difficult.
Take this:
CISE, the only department at UF engaged in Computer Software research, will become
a teaching only department, and inevitably, its ranking, reputation and enrollment
will plummet.
[+] [-] dfranke|14 years ago|reply
* Computer Science (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; CISE Department)
* Computer Engineering with Software Emphasis (College of Engineering; CISE Department)
* Computer Engineering with Hardware Emphasis (College of Engineering; ECE Department)
* Electrical Engineering (College of Engineering; ECE Department)
* Computer Information Sciences (College of Business; CISE Department).
So basically, the CISE department was answerable to three different colleges, and some of those colleges offered very-closely-related degrees that weren't in the CISE department.
As for myself, I started out in Computer Engineering with Software Emphasis. I later switched to Computer Science. The reason for this change was that I wanted to double in Mathematics, which belongs to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Having a double major is a lot easier when both majors are in the same college, because you then don't have to worry about satisfying conflicting and redundant gen. ed. requirements.
So, as a CISE alumnus, I have a vested interest in maintaining the reputation of that department, and this reorganization sounds likely to damage it. However, the status quo (as of 2007) is a mess, and this change might overall be for the better.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|14 years ago|reply
I plant 4 tomato plants every spring. In a few weeks I pull up 2 of them, even if they are thriving. There is only so much soil, water and sunlight to go around.
[+] [-] achompas|14 years ago|reply
The department may have problems, but shutting down research throws the baby out with the bathwater. Degree consolidation would go a long way to improving student enrollment.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Gormo|14 years ago|reply
There was no "Computer Science" major available; the traditional CS curriculum was known as "Computer and Information Sciences", which, due to the acronym, can be confused with a MIS-equivalent degree (I once had a manager who insisted that I show him the course catalog for my major to prove I studied the relevant CS topics). The MIS/IT curriculum was offered as "Decision and Information Systems".
And despite the CISE department being a part of the College of Engineering, the CS curriculum was offered as an independent major only by the liberal arts and business colleges. I opted for the business college, so my actual degree is "Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a major in Computer and Information Sciences", wording which is rather poor at conveying that this is indeed a CS degree.
I don't think they got around to renaming the degrees until 2004-2005.
[+] [-] BrentRitterbeck|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uf_cise_alumnus|14 years ago|reply
The two Computer Engineering Degrees (software and hardware) are to be combined into one that has N (not yet decided) tracks that will be supported by "certificate programs."
So, now you reduce by one clearly defined separation and increse by n-1 less well defined certificate programs.
[+] [-] guelo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] excuse-me|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshhart|14 years ago|reply
The department chair at the time, Sartaj Sahni, responded by cutting teaching funding and letting some of the best teachers go. UF had a few teachers without PhDs, which reduces a university's ranking in US News & World Report. Of course, these teachers were the ones that REALLY cared about teaching, since they didn't have research distractions. These teachers were replaced with postdocs who lack the experience needed to teach at a major institution.
I don't know how you can have a solid program if you slash your best teachers to save research, then slash your research to save teaching. Doesn't make sense.
[+] [-] hkmurakami|14 years ago|reply
If not for him, there would be far fewer students from my school who would have stuck with programming. In 2004, we made a facebook group called "Everything I know about C I learned from [insert guy's name]". From what I can tell, the number of former students in this group keeps growing every year. He is beloved by all his current and former students, and I would vehemently protest to the school/department if he ever got cut prematurely for any reason.
[+] [-] dillona|14 years ago|reply
Does this really happen? This attitude that if you don't have a PhD you must be stupid is incredibly annoying.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iopuy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lbrandy|14 years ago|reply
Many schools suffer the issue of CS being extra-engineering, and then having a "computer engineering" department within engineering, and you end up with quite a bit of duplication. I'm hoping that this is simply part of a consolidation process.
[+] [-] ahelwer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quanticle|14 years ago|reply
Is Gainesville really that fertile a ground for software startups? Moreover, will reducing research funding at University of Florida necessarily make the existing environment for startups worse? For example, what if the savings are invested into a greater emphasis on teaching?
[+] [-] achompas|14 years ago|reply
UF has a very strong entrepreneurial community. Grooveshark[0] and Hype Machine[1] were both founded by Gator alums.
I can imagine that reduced research --> lower quality RA opportunities --> reduced interest from undergrads, thus shrinking the number of undergrads interested in CS or tech startups.
[0]http://grooveshark.com/
[1]http://www.hypem.com
[+] [-] wtvanhest|14 years ago|reply
People in Silicon Valley don't worry about what happens in LA.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] checker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rockarage|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ScottBev|14 years ago|reply
So, yes the UAA gives ridiculous amounts of money to coaches, but they are making a decent ROI.
[+] [-] cmadan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nutanc|14 years ago|reply
We also did some nice research in my Masters, a lot of concepts(Grid/cloud) which we are currently using in our Startup.
In any case, I just hope the department and the University come through this with their reputation intact.
[+] [-] Gormo|14 years ago|reply
As an aside, what does your degree actually say? The '98 catalog didn't actually have a "computer science" program, and the CS curriculum was offered as "Computer and Information Sciences" via either the business school or CLAS. Do you ever get people confusing your undergrad degree with the equivalent of MIS? (IIRC, the MIS-equivalent was DIS at that time.)
[+] [-] smcdowel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luser001|14 years ago|reply
Core competence and all that.
It even has an odd name like CISE (Computer and Information Science and Engineering).
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120411/ARTICLES/1204198...
[+] [-] ja27|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uf_cise_alumnus|14 years ago|reply
http://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=CISE
[+] [-] ryguytilidie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axelav|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kobs|14 years ago|reply
As a 2010 graduate (CISE - I wanted a mix of engineering and liberal arts), this is quite troubling to me. I remember when they announced that they would be laying off a number of faculty members (mostly lecturers) -- some of whom were the best instructors in the entire department. Now they're getting rid of research in the name of teaching? What a farce.
[+] [-] uf_cise_alumnus|14 years ago|reply
Step 1: move graduate programs to ECE
Step 2: make faculty ask to be in other departments (with the dean's approval of course)
Step 3: make all faculty who can't get other departments to take them have a 100% teaching appointment and set TA budget of the department to $0. Effectively convincing all those cranky guys you wanted to get rid of to leave the university.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Success!
Then add the Ph.D. program back in and wait 25 years for it to rebuild.
Sounds like a great plan to me.
[+] [-] rlovelett|14 years ago|reply
Perhaps, instead, you should concern yourself with your personal professional achievements and credentials post graduation and how those reflect on you. To me that seems like a MUCH more productive use of your time.
This seems like a concern to future and current students; rather than alumni.
// Light-hearted jab at UF alumni
Leave it to a Gator grad to be worried about keeping-up appearances.
Go Knights!
[+] [-] rokkaku99|14 years ago|reply
Some of us just don't believe in pulling up the ladder after we've climbed up it. Having an active department turning out competent graduates is good for us as alumni, good for Florida, and good for the field of computer science.
[+] [-] wtvanhest|14 years ago|reply
Go Knights!
[+] [-] Xyzodiac|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raphman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmse17|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gormo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christangrant|14 years ago|reply
"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?
[+] [-] stuartkingxuyi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lectrick|14 years ago|reply
God I hate that state. The most idiots per capita I've ever encountered.
[+] [-] michaelty|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nobleach|14 years ago|reply
I left Gainesville in 2010 and that entire freaking town has one of the most ANTI-progress sentiments I've ever seen.
The one shining star on the horizon will be the construction of the University's 40 acre tech hub. Let's hope they don't flub that one.
[+] [-] no-espam|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsanchez1|14 years ago|reply
It doesn't!
[+] [-] ColderRichs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kfcm|14 years ago|reply
Take this:
and add this:http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120331/ARTICLES/1203399...
Can you say "diploma mill"? Good; I knew you could.