CISE Starvation – Not “across the board” after all

Dean Abernathy released an announcement  May 1,  reversing her previous position on the proposed budget cuts. The new plan  under consideration was to equally distribute the $1.4M budget cuts across all departments in the college.

Here is the report from The Gainesville Sun.

Link to Dean Abernathy’s letter.

Link to Dr. Ritter’s letter to Students.

We felt then that this could have been a victory for SAVE UF CISE. However, we had been through several unexpected turns in the last few weeks, so, borrowing from Dean Abernathy’s letter,  we announced that, “cautious optimism was under consideration.“

Our caution was wise. The plan laid out out by Dean Abernathy on May 10 at a College of Engineering Department chairs meeting claimed to be an “across the board” 2.9% cut.  In the case of CISE, the 2.9% was taken from CISE base budget at the beginning of 2011-2012.  This amounted to $190,000. However, CISE has also been told that at least 2 positions that were included in the above base budget,  but were due to become vacant in 2012-2013 due to retirements etc. will not be replaced. This amounts to an over 8% recurring cut for CISE.
No other department has been slated to lose positions to the best of our knowledge. In fact, only one other department will lose even one position.

The new plan is decisively not an “across the board” cut. While less draconian than the “CISE dismembering plan” of Apr. 11, or the “Hostile takeover by ECE plan of Apr. 25,”  it is decidedly worse than any true across the board cut. The new proposal aligns well with the Dean’s CISE starvation strategy prior to  the April 11 attack.

We have come back to Square One.

You might ask:

What original analysis of the “state of the college” and of “growth areas”  led Dean Abernathy

to propose each of the plans that have been proposed this spring?

to move positions  out of CISE into other departments (this is clearly a recurring cut to CISE)?

to not let CISE  in on any of the 12 strategic plan hires so far?  

You might also ask:

What does the Dean propose to do when our interim chair steps down on July 1?

Will CISE areas get any of the remaining strategic plan positions, or endowed chair positions currently advertised?

What of the Harris Corporation endowed chair that is specifically earmarked for CISE and has been languishing for 3 years?

Our cautious optimism appears to be under consideration forever.

“Off the table”, “set aside” ? (Recent news: CISE chair rejects Harris-Abernathy “hostile takeover,” CISE left out of Chairs’ Budget Planning)

On April 25 UF President Machen declared that Engineering Dean Abernathy had agreed to set aside the previously announced radical proposal to destroy research in CISE, split it apart, and attack academic freedom,  the Abernathy Plan (see page 3).

Many observers saw this as a tactical ploy to diffuse and
separate the highly visible SAVE CISE campaign from the campus-wide  SPEND THE RESERVES campaign  in reaction to Machen’s choice to translate the budget into an immediate crisis  in which permanent changes had to be made.

Machen’s edict announced that the departments of ECE and CISE should make a plan for a joint organization.  This joint organization looked similar to earlier  unjustified attempts (by budget or academic considerations) of destroying
CISE autonomy and identity that were  unanimously rejected by all faculty and that Dean Abernathy had declared to be off the table (April 28 2011).

The only justification appears to be  that “Computer” and “Engineering” appear in the names of both departments. Apparently the difference between software and hardware is not acknowledged at UF.   The glib spin focuses relentlessly on acronyms.

Given only 48 hours by the Dean, on Thursday April 26, the CISE faculty embarked into a good faith effort together with the ECE faculty, and in consultation with both chairs, to address the  budget issue, a purported $1.35 million shortfall,  in conjunction with  restructuring. It was noted that restructuring is the least favored approach by all stake holders — students, alumni, large parts of industry, faculty — and that other alternative plans meet the same budget goals. Nevertheless, a substantive CISE memorandum of understanding  (MoU)  for forming a school with ECE was delivered by Friday morning, April 27.

Meanwhile, the  ECE faculty negotiators were apparently unaware that their memorandum had already been written by their ECE chair  John Harris, who was earlier outed as one of the ghostwriters for the Abernathy Plan. John Harris’  ECE MoU amounted to the proposal unanimously rejected April 28 2011 by all CISE faculty.  All around, John Harris’  MoU was judged  non- constructive, and preventing the way forward along the lines outlined in Machen’s concession. In response, Dean Abernathy  declared on Friday that she would write the MoU by herself over the weekend.

Dean Abernathy’s MoU, on Monday April 30,  surprised many by being almost identical to John Harris’  MoU. On closer inspection this similarity was exposed. Evidently, neither the Dean nor ECE chair John Harris were aware that authorship is tracked in Microsoft Word documents. The authorship and modification stamps  of the Dean Abernathy’s proposal revealed that what the Dean’s MoU was the document written by John Harris.  Only 14 minutes of effort went into a minor modification –  also written by John Harris!

Recent news:  The CISE chair rejected this MOU and  wrote to the Dean that  “the faculty correctly views the proposed MOU as a hostile takeover of CISE by ECE, and in particular by John [Harris] … I  don’t wan[t]  my name associated with the person who agreed to sell out CISE.  Unless I can be convinced that meaningful negotiations can continue, I request
that you honor my decision to resign my position as acting chair May 7th, 2012. Sorry that I can’t make your day a happier one. I had great hopes a week ago”

He adds: “ps. another way out is to let CISE be it’s independent department, give them a percentage of cuts they have to take and distribute the rest to other departments
just as you were going to do when discussing the EECS model.”

This morning (May 1),  Dr. Ritter was unable to attend a meeting of College of Engineering department chairs with the Dean, and  (as customary) requested CISE Associate Chair Steve Thebaut to do so in his place. The Dean asked Dr. Thebaut to leave the meeting, saying: “This is a meeting for Principals.”  This effectively left CISE without a seat at the college table, during a crucial budget planning meeting of the chairs.

Author stamp of Dean’s April 30 MoU

So where does that leave the CISE stakeholders?  The CISE good faith effort has been met by stonewalling. An old merger plan declared off the table by the Dean last year has been dusted up and put back on the table. How much can we trust that the Abernathy Plan set aside yesterday will not be set in stone  tomorrow when good folks go back to the university’s business of teaching and research  and stakeholders look away for a moment ?

Together we must move forward, forcefully, assuming that Dean Abernathy and Co. have not learned from being chastised by the public and by Machen’s concession.  We have no choice, we must keep the heat on!

New articles from The Washington Post and GeekMom

NATIONAL PRESS COVERAGE:

The Washington Post: Athletics 1, academics 0: A guest post (May 10)

GeekMom: Computer Science Department’s Uncertain Future at University of Florida: Student Reactions (May 4)

ComputerWorld: Fla. university writing new computer science plan, cites ‘overwhelming’ backlash (April 27)

MORE NATIONAL PRESS ARTICLES AVAILABLE HERE

A Good Faith Effort by CISE

Thanks to outcry from SaveUFCISE supporters, on Apr. 25, President Bernie Machen wrote a letter to the UF community removing Dean Abernathy’s budget cut plan from consideration. In that letter, President Machen suggests an alternative proposal for a unit that comprises both ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and CISE (Computer and Information Science and Engineering) “that also would address issues raised during recent discussions, namely, clarify and enhance degree offerings while preserving the research mission in both computer science and computer engineering, achieve efficiency in teaching and bring faculty workloads in line with other departments of the college.”

The letter’s concluding statement: “I ask the faculty, students, and the administration of all colleges to work in partnership to identify the savings and keep the colleges on track in their quest for continued excellence in education and research.”

In keeping with this statement, CISE faculty agreed to put a few alternative budget cut plans forward, one of which would be for a joint CISE-ECE unit following the Berkeley-model.

Meanwhile, the CISE chair Gerhard Ritter communicated to the CISE faculty an extremely difficult Friday 5pm deadline for coming up with a MOU (memorandum of understanding) for the joint CISE-ECE unit.

In the face of this pressure, the CISE chairman and a committee of CISE faculty have worked amicably, in good faith, for several hours for the past 2 days, in consultation with chairman John Harris of ECE as well a parallel commitee of ECE faculty, to hammer out the details of a memorandum of understanding that would be agreeable to both faculties. ECE chairman John Harris, in the meantime, circulated a document written several months ago, for the governance of a joint CISE-ECE school.

Today, (Friday, Apr. 27), the CISE committee, after consultation with the CISE faculty released a document of their memorandum of understanding, incorporating all the requests in the president’s message, stipulations of the CISE chairman Gerhard Ritter, stipulations of ECE Chairman John Harris that he provided during his  meeting with the CISE committee 2 days ago, many requirements of the ECE faculty committee, and the requirements of the CISE faculty. Read the highlights of changes to the current structure.

Other alternative proposals are being prepared, including those that enjoy a high level of support from our external stakeholders, in time for the University-wide May 7 deadline for sending in all proposals to the central administration.

New articles from G’ville Sun, Orlando Sentinel, and Hernando Today

LOCAL PRESS COVERAGE:

The Gainesville Sun: Plan merging UF engineering departments hits snag (May 2)

The Gainesville Sun: New UF CISE proposal not all that new (April 28)

Hernando Today: Residing in an alternate STEM universe (April 27)

Orlando Sentinel: UF drops idea of breaking up computer science department (April 26)

MORE LOCAL PRESS ARTICLES AVAILABLE HERE

Today’s Dean Fact 4/27

Who could be Ghost-Writing Dean Abernathy’s Misrepresentations of CISE?

This email was sunshined as part of a public records request. It is from the current Chairman John Harris of ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering), to Dean Abernathy. ECE is the department with which CISE is supposed to make a decision about forming a school today (4/27). The faculties are currently being  forced to rush this decision through in 2 days. John Harris is slated to be the first director of this school consisting of over 70 tenure track faculty members.

The email was written 2 days after

One Step forward (two steps back?)..

In an email sent April 25, 2012, the President of the University of Florida, Bernie Machen, stated that Dean Cammy Abernathy’s restructuring plan is now off the table.

In spite of this promising announcement, the future of CISE is uncertain.

Several proposals are being generated supporting CISE autonomy, but an official position has not yet been reached. On April 25, we were cautiously optimistic.

President Machen has however strongly favored one alternative proposal that involves some form of conjoining of ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and CISE.  This proposal is supposed to address the College of Engineering’s budget cut.

In this climate of anxiety and uncertainity, CISE faculty have been working hard with ECE faculty to explore the details and hence the feasibility of such a proposal.  They have been forced to arrive at a decision in just 2 days. Their guiding principles include a preservation of CISE’s unity (of faculty, students and programs), core identity, culture and freedom to grow in its chosen direction.

Here is a history of previous attempts at  merging/forming school of ECE and CISE  at UF. Here is an analysis of the structures for these departments at 61 AAU universities. The CISE department at UF has consistently demonstrated its excellence.

All alternative proposals exist ostensibly solely because President Machen interprets these budget cuts as recurring. A successful proposal should include two key features. First, the proposal must emphasize the long term importance of Computer Science and Engineering. Second, the proposal must address permanent budgetary constraints.

We trust in the wisdom of the State Legislature and the Board of Governors that the budget cuts are one-time cuts, and that the University of Florida should, “continue to tap their reserves year-round in order to save course offerings, retain faculty, and account for enrollment growth.” UF has at least $111 million in unrestricted reserves.

Now is the time for our supporters to  call for  robust support and autonomy for Computer Science and Engineering at UF.  By doing so, the  University as a whole  will gain significant collaboration opportunities, the City of Gainesville will vastly improve its edge in the competition to become the Silicon Valley of the South-East, and the State of Florida can make a shining example of its flagship Computer Science research institution.

Please, join us in this call.

CISE GATORS: A human chain around the earth to save CISE.

On Apr 15, we successfully built a human chain around the CISE building. Now, we plan to build a human chain around the earth to SAVE CISE. Please send the photo to gatorsmile@gmail.com and tell us where you are !

Our dear alumni just created an event called “A human chain around the earth to save CISE”, they plan to collect the photos with a “SAVE CISE” logo all around the world to create a photo WALL for showing their support.

The link to the facebook event is here, please check it out and Join!

“Abernathy Plan” off the Table

In an email to the UF community today, President Bernie Machen stated that in response to pressure from students, faculty and external supporters of CISE, the “Abernathy Plan” is decisively off the table. This was one of the primary demands of the SaveCISE community to the administration.

Thanks to the support we have gotten so far, we now have an improved atmosphere conducive to moving forward.

The administration (President, Provost, Dean and chairs of ECE and CISE) have laid out the broad parameters of an alternative proposal. Among other plans, the Faculties of both departments are seriously discussing the details, and hence feasibility, of a Berkeley-style model for ECE and CISE.

One of the stipulations of the CISE Faculty is that any alterations to the current CISE TA policy would be a deal breaker. Another stipulation is that CISE faculty, students and programs remain together as a unit.

We would like to reiterate that the only thing that is certain at this point is that Dean Abernathy’s plan is no longer in consideration. We rely on your continued awareness and support during this delicate time.

SaveCISE remains in solidarity with the broader SaveUF movement in response to university-wide budget-cuts.

Save AFA, Education, Journalism and Music Libraries. At Smathers Library, Room 1A.

PAST  EVENT

Dean of Libraries, Judy Russell is holding a town hall meeting in Smathers Library Room 1A seeking input regarding a 5% budget cut to the libraries. This would include the closing of:

- Architecture & Fine Arts Library
- Education Library
- Journalism Library
- Music Library

For more info, see her 5% reduction plan at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/IR00000719/00002 (page 45):

“The initial $295,000 cut for the University Libraries listed above could