Univerisy of Florida Cuts Computer Science Department

[sourlemon]

The University of Florida, which this month announced a plan that would gut its Computer and Information Science and Engineering Department.

These include eliminating all graduate and research activity in its computer science department. Some of the department’s faculty will be scattered to other departments, and some will have their jobs converted to full-time teaching/advising positions with a much higher teaching burden. The school plans to cut the department’s entire teaching-assistant budget.

Quotes from NY Times.

Get the full coverage on Save UF CISE and sign its petition.

I still find this shocking even when I opened the webpage again. If this was posted on April 1st, I would have wait for announcement that it's just a prank. But seriously? They're cutting the whole research CISE department at this time, when IT business is booming?

 

[sourlemon]

Something else interesting from the website:

CISE is generating 17% of the college’s primary source of income (weighted student credit hours) while only costing only 10% of the college. The Dean herself admitted during her Apr. 12 interview with students that the CISE department has the highest revenue/cost ratio in the college.

I'm really interested in the rationale behind this budget cut.

 

[Evo]

Please note the article in the OP was updated to remove the reference to football.

 

[D H]

I'm really interested in the rationale behind this budget cut.

Call me jaded. I suspect they are cutting a red herring free.

Suppose that instead the UofF administration had proposed to completely eliminate the Classics department. There would have been a minor outcry but in the end the department would be toast. On the other hand, converting one of the school's most prominent / most successful research departments into a teaching-only department raises the hue and cry that completely eliminating something like classics would never accomplish.

 

[rootX]

I believe there's quite a bit of overlap between CS-Math and CS-Engineering in general. The news articles seem to over-hyping against the school's decision.

 

[Vanadium 50]

One thing to be aware of is that UF has two Computer Science departments: the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering.

The plan is to move all the research into EECS, and to make CISE a smaller department focused on teaching. Reading between the lines, it means that if you are in CISE and have a substantial research grant, you'll be moving to EECS. If don't have a substantial research grant, you'll stay in CISE where you can count on teaching more courses.

I don't want to say this is a good idea or a bad idea - just that it is a different idea than what is being reported.

As an aside, this is what happens when the University cannot, by statute, raise tuition but the state cuts its share of the funding.

 

[sourlemon]

Evo, thanks for cleaning up the thread.

Thank you for the info Vanadium. I didn't realize there are two departments. I don't know why they would split things the way they did. I feel EE is a completely different discipline than CS. You do have CE, but...why have a CISE department then? Is that for researching only? The situation still sound confusing to me with a few articles and information I read on the university website (unless the uni info has reflected on the changes).

I was pretty shock when I saw the article. I probably should have done more research on the topic before posting. Lolz, looks like I got homework for the weekend.

 

[AlephZero]

Hey, they can always come to the UK and do some really useful academic reserach in a new startup department. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17814100

The US doesn't have a monopoly on disfunctional acadamia

 

[f95toli]

Hey, they can always come to the UK and do some really useful academic reserach in a new startup department. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17814100

The US doesn't have a monopoly on disfunctional acadamia

It is not a department, it is a centre. It is NOT the same thing. it is quite common for a number of research groups from various departments to come together to form a "centre" of some sort, but these are mainly "virtual" (no one moves office) and usually just means that they apply for grants together as a unit, share post-docs and PhD students etc.
Sometimes these centres are quite short-lived, i.e. one round of grant money.
Where I work (a research institute in the UK) we have a few centres, some small (a few people that also work on other projects) and some a bit larger and more ambitious.