I introduced in my last post the University of Florida's radical proposal to dismember the Computer Science department. As a reminder, the proposal as described by Save CISE was to:
In this second installment, I wanted to feature some of students' responses to Dean Abernathy. They had so many meaningful stories to share that I had a hard time narrowing it all down to give you a little overview about the devastating impact his proposal would have if passed. Without further ado, here's some of what they had to say:
"I am a Masters student at the CISE department. For me, coming to the US to do my Masters and be taught by the excellent faculty here at University of Florida CISE department was the realization of a long held dream. I came to University of Florida because of the strong Machine Learning and Vision Research group. I cannot stress enough that research was the deciding factor for me as it will be for a lot of students coming from my country. During the two semesters of my stay, I was taught by excellent professors in Algorithms, Graphics and Databases. [...] I can look back at myself last year when I arrived here and I cannot recognize that person. The faculty here is the reason for that."
"This plan proposed hampers the entire pool of opportunities that the students can have and can result in one thing – UF is backing out from producing any more computer science researchers to the world in a country that is so technically advanced. I really can't imagine how things would go about with professors distributed all over place in the university and students enrolled in a department that has only teaching but no research. It can only leave the system in a worse state of confusion and defame."
"Up until 2 weeks ago I was considering continuing my education and applying to pursue my PhD here at UF, I guess that option is off the table for me, even if CISE will survive current budget attack, I would not feel confident joining a program with such a scar on it’s face."
"I wanted to continue with higher education by coming to the United States since it is well-known as having the best opportunities in research. That's how I ended up as a PhD student here at the University of Florida. I have left my home and family. To be honest, it is not easy emotionally to live somewhere far far away from your home, especially when your mum gets sick, your sister gives birth, or your cousin gets married. You miss all these things in order 'to have a better education and research opportunities.'
Then suddenly in one day, you learn that your department is going to have its mission changed to be a teaching department. Unbelievable! Such a thing is far far away from my imagination even in Turkey which is a developing country. If I had known it before, I definitely would not have come here. Why bother when I have sacrificed so much by leaving my home?"
"During my masters, I applied for the PhD program at UF and few other schools in US, and I got PhD admission from UF and other two schools. I decided to pursue my doctoral research here, because I found that CISE has very good professors who are doing active research in the field of machine learning. In addition, I learned that our professors are actively collaborating with different departments such as the department of Statistics, Bio-medical and ECE, which is very important for a researcher in an inter-disciplinary field such as machine learning.
However, in the current situation, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to continue my PhD program here in CISE, because every faculty member, including my advisers' future is uncertain with this new budget proposal of Dean. In addition, starting from my PhD program, I was working as a Research Assistant at CISE, but I'm not sure how long my funding agency will support me. With the change in the TA policies, it will become difficult for me to fund myself for my PhD."
"While professors do admirable job during class hours and in their office hours, I was able to do better in courses because of TAs. I remember going to every TA’s office hours and got as much help as I could. It was because of those TAs that I mastered my skills in coding. They played an important role in programmer that I am today."
"I've also come to realize during all these years that a solid foundation in computer science research is the reason why CISE attracts such a diverse set of students and faculties from all over the world. As I work on my parallel approximate string search algorithm, I can't help but to think that it would not have been possible without all the inputs that I received from every professor of every course at CISE. Dean Abernathy's proposal is going to destroy what CISE means today for me."
"My personal experience is that the CISE courses are unique in that they have an intensive project and programming component to them. This has made each one of them truly valuable both in my learning and current research. And as a TA myself, I can imagine the amount of work that needs to go in behind these, and I know these components are only made possible by the strong TA-supported nature of these courses."
"I come from south Mississippi. After Hurricane Katrina my dad lost his house and my family was in dire straits. Meanwhile I was off at college, studying hard but feeling like I couldn't contribute to the family's well-being. Eventually I got a job doing research with a small remote sensing company through a University RA. This lead to more research through NSF, and eventually to grad school. I had several options for Grad school, but after visiting UF and meeting my future advisor I was sold. Now I can say confidently that I LOVE GAINESVILLE! and I LOVE UF! I turned down 2 other fellowship offers to come here. My current fellowship allows me to really help out my family and I feel like I make a big difference. SAVE CISE!"
"This time last year, I was considering which to choose from all the admissions I’ve received. The basis of my decision is nothing but the department’s faculty and the curriculum of the program. For the strong stuff and the bright career future implied by the curriculum I came oversea from China to UF with my dream, with my whole family’s hope and investment."
"It broke my heart to see our respectable professors walk onto the street and fight with all the young people to save the department to which they devoted themselves. Me and all my classmates are forced to protest under the pressure of final exams due to the Dean’s short notice and her malicious intend. We suffer from the anxiety each day since the announcement of the proposal. The sufferings and unjustness imposed on us will never be forgiven unless the right decision is made at last."
"Our department has many famous people - fellows of the IEEE, ACM. People who have authored textbooks that are considered CLASSICS, and which are used not just in USA, but worldwide (e.g. Dr. Sahni's books on data structures and algorithms). We have researchers whose papers have given rise to sub-areas within their fields. We have researchers who have collaborated with people from the departments of management and operations research and finance, with people from molecular biology and genetics, with people from mechanical engineering. This rich diversity will soon become history if the dean's proposal gets passed."
"Today I received an e-mail from a junior from my undergraduate school. He had received admission letters from both UF CISE and Brandeis University, and he asked me which is better. I would really like to recommend UF if there isn't such a proposal. Now I am not even sure what will happen to me. So what should I do?"
"I came to the states and got my Masters from University of Southern California and came to UF for my PhD. I came to UF for its good reputation and the fertile research environment it has. My embassy has to OK the universities that I study in based on their rankings so that my degree gets validated. I remember them telling me that it's a good thing that I went to UF because they don't accept PhD degrees in Computer Science from other universities in Florida.
The dean's decision will tarnish the CISE department's reputation that it has even in other countries. It will also kill the great research environment that the CISE department has and consequently even affect the computer science job market in the state. SAVE CISE!"
"The CISE department has been my home since I came to UF in 2006. Knowing nothing more than simple HTML and CSS, I was determined to move in the direction of software engineering. Six years and two degrees later, I am about to leave feeling confident in my knowledge of computer science and look to further my studies while I am engaged in my career as a software engineer. This has been made possible due to the dedicated staff, who have aided me towards graduation, and the professors, who have spent long hours researching not just for their own benefit but also to improve the quality of my education by infusing that research into classroom discussions. Had my professors only been allowed to teach and not conduct their research, I would have still managed to learn, but it would be diminished from that which I received."
"The Dean's Budget Cut Plan threatens to take away everything I love. The truth is: I will not stay at UF if this proposal passes the faculty senate vote. Every faculty member's fate, including my advisor's, is uncertain. I am a fourth year PhD student who has passed the qualifying exams in my department, but without the ability to continue my research AND without proper funding, I wouldn't be able to stay at the University of Florida. I estimate that moving to another university would set my graduation date back by at least two years while I complete course requirements and qualifying exams in another department at another school. There is no value in any degree that I would earn from an eviscerated department. I cannot and will not stay and suffer the emotional, academic, and professional embarrassment of knowing that the department that I love has been destroyed."
"Last summer I did an internship at NVIDIA. At the end of my 3 months stint there, I was offered a position that promised me over $100,000 in my first year there. I turned it down. I turned it down because I also had an opportunity to stay back and do a PhD at CISE under Prof. Tim Davis and Dr. Sanjay Ranka."
"A stripped down teaching only department is not what I had in mind when I made a decision to come here. It is such a disappointment to me that research is being restricted. When I first heard the proposed changes, I did not take them seriously, to be honest, because I thought no university would want to be without a Computer Science Department, it just didn't make sense to me."
"When I interviewed at UF, one of the professors asked me why I had applied to UF but not UT Austin. After all, UT Austin is a Top 15 school, and I would not have to leave behind my entire life. The answer was research topics. Research topics at UT Austin were all well-established computer science topics. These topics simply did not interest me enough to pursue a PhD. UF, on the other hand, had professors working on emerging fields outside the realm of traditional computer science. For example, I was initially attracted to UF by Dr. Sumi Helal’s work on creating the GatorTech SmartHouse. The SmartHouse provides assisted living to senior citizens through the use of cutting edge sensors and computers embedded throughout the house. What finally made me choose UF was Dr. Ben Lok’s work on virtual patients. These virtual patients are being used to improve medical education across the country. This research is so successful that it has spun off a startup company located in the new Innovation Hub."
"At UF, I have had the privilege of interacting with some of the most brilliant minds in Computer Science while I carried out research and took up courses which are abreast with the industry. This experience allowed me to get a job in the prestigious Intel Corporation, and it is solely because of those faculty who have worked tirelessly to make this department one of the best in the country in many areas of computer science. The current proposal to eliminate this world renowned department is irrational and I would like to fight for this department which has given so much to me."
"Research is the core of CISE department. Without research, we are no difference from any other schools (or you can say online courses) that simply teaches students how to program. The Dean's budget cut proposal will eliminate the CISE department by removing its core and turn it into a degree mill. Computer science is more than programming. It is a scientific way of problems solving."
"Three years ago, I came to the CISE department at UF with the offer of a graduate assistantship. Since then, I have always wanted to be a teaching TA. On one hand, it's good practice for any potential academic job. On the other hand, I kind of like the feeling of teaching people in my own way and interacting with them. My friend who was a teaching TA told me it was really a precious experience. However, the CISE department has stringent requirements for teaching TAs, and in my first two years, I didn't get one. I wasn't too worried though because I'll have more opportunities to become a TA in the future. However, with the dean's budget cut proposal, all TA positions will be eliminated. What I have been excited for is gone."
