Summary Notes of the CISE IAB Meeting, held Thursday October 14th 2010 (draft)

  • Several key conversations were sparked by Dr. Sahni's CISE department update; there are ongoing challenges with messaging around the available Computer Science programs and degrees between the College of Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The board is very interested in getting this resolved so that the messaging is very clear to prospective Computer Science students, we believe the current state has impacted computer science enrollment in both colleges.
  • The IAB strongly prefers that the colleges offer a BS in Computer and Information Sciences or some other degree name but not a "BA"; we believe the BS coupled with a rigourous curriculum in math and science as well as heavy emphasis on software programming is the way to go; we believe this degree can coexist with the Computer Engineering degree which is the traditional engineering core with heavy focus on hardware. The degrees complement each other.
  • Additionally, we had a good discussion regarding the need to possibly spend some time better articulating the role, mission and objectives of the CISE IAB. The IAB board members would like the role of the board to have impact in helping the CISE department achieve its goals as well as the broader college of engineering, beyond just ABET accreditation. The chair (Rhonda Holt) has volunteered to take a pass at redrafting the charter and will distribute for input from the IAB membership and CISE department as a starter for this dialog.
  • The department has also asked for more IAB participation with the students by doing more presentations at the ACM meeting that we previously moved to the Wednesday evening proceeding the IAB meeting. This meeting provides a forum for direct interaction with students and provides the opportunity for IAB members to talk about the many career opportunities that exist for engineering students; the IAB asked that we be included on email communications regarding ASCIE and ACM events, so we are more informed about opportunities to interact with and support these organizations.
  • The IAB members are also interested in more engagement with the CISE faculty; we would like to have input into the topics for the faculty presentation; we are all usually working on a variety of technical issues in our professions that we would love to get some help solving; these interactions can help facilitate potential CISE/industry joint research.