Current CISE Status

May 31, 2012 by saveufcise 0 Comments

-[ Updated June 7, 2012 ]-

The current Acting Chair, Gerhard Ritter, is due to step down on June 30. On Wednesday June 6, 2012, Provost Joe Glover and Dean Cammy Abernathy announced that Dr. Paul Gader will be CISE’s new Interim Chair. A process for selecting a permanent chairman for CISE was also discussed. See previous posts on the topic below.

During the June 6 meeting, the Dean was asked about the 2 positions that CISE will lose . The Dean’s latest plan calls for an 8% cut for CISE: since the Dean’s budget cut plan submitted to the university refers to the removal of an Engineering faculty position as a cut for Engineering, the removal of CISE positions must by the same token count as a cut for CISE. This contradicts the Dean’s latest budget cut statement to the College that 2.9% cuts will be “uniformly distributed” across the College of Engineering departments. During the June 6 meeting, the Dean was also asked about resources available for the permanent chair search in one year’s time.

Despite the fact that at least 6 new “strategic plan” faculty positions have been advertised directly by the College of Engineering Administration (not by its departments) as late as March 2012, the Dean replied that “..those two [currently CISE] positions have been promised to BME..,” and “..I have no further resources..” giving no further details. For further details that are inconsistent with the Dean’s statement, read more about strategic plan positions and other ample resources that are available to the College of Engineering

President Machen’s statement after the final Board of Trustees meeting on June 7 indicates that during the coming year, some of the budget cuts for the College of Engineering will be covered by reserves. Given previous statements by the central administration that the reserves are essentially under the control of the colleges, this would imply that some of the cuts for the college of engineering will be covered by the College of Engineering reserves.

Could Dean Abernathy please elaborate exactly which department’s cuts will be covered by the reserves? More precisely, how will department within the college will be cut, and how are the College of Engineering’s currently available resources being used?

[May 31, 2012 post]

The current acting Chair Gerhard Ritter was told by the Dean in early May, to “talk to the Provost” concerning what would happen when he steps down on June 30. The Provost who was unusually present at the College of Engineering Faculty council meeting on May 17th was asked about it, but the discussion centered around the process laid out in the Engineering Constitution for selecting a Chair. When asked again on May 26, Provost Glover replied that he would be talking to the Dean about various issues on May 29th (after the Open Faculty Budget Forum called by the central administration, the day after Memorial Day weekend, during a tropical storm). He wrote back, saying he would only meet with the department if the Dean was present, and asked if “it was still interested.” The meeting was scheduled for June 6 when several faculty were away on travel.