Fwd: CISE Department at UF Needs Your Support!

[Shivashankar Halan]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shivashankar Halan <shivashan...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 4:09 PM
Subject: CISE Department at UF Needs Your Support!
To: aashis...@gmail.com, abhij...@gmail.com, abhish...@yahoo.com, abishek...@gmail.com, ame...@gmail.com, amit.ma...@gmail.com, anura...@gmail.com, balaji.su...@gmail.com, bing...@gmail.com, chirag...@gmail.com, deep...@ufl.edu, lachwan...@yahoo.com, elane...@gmail.com, wan...@us.ibm.com, gaura...@gmail.com, gskh...@facebook.com, tan...@gmail.com, k...@patheticgeek.net, komal...@gmail.com, lau...@gmail.com, madhu...@gmail.com, manas....@gmail.com, g.me...@gmail.com, m...@cise.ufl.edu, mta...@ufl.edu, om.d...@gmail.com, p...@stanford.edu, prasad...@gmail.com, priyan...@gmail.com, rajn...@ufl.edu, rajnee...@gmail.com, sramk...@gmail.com, ranji...@gmail.com, ravi.ti...@gmail.com, rkk...@seas.harvard.edu, rohi...@gmail.com, psag...@gmail.com, sameep....@gmail.com, shalabh...@gmail.com, shantan...@gmail.com, shr...@gmail.com, v.sh...@gmail.com, sid...@gmail.com, somnath....@gmail.com, buk...@gmail.com, sva...@gmail.com, sudarshan...@gmail.com, smil...@gmail.com, uja...@gmail.com, 25.v...@gmail.com, cool...@gmail.com, vinutha...@gmail.com, wench...@gmail.com, lixia...@gmail.com, ya...@cise.ufl.edu, zhax...@yahoo.com, raj.a...@gmail.com

Dear UF CISE Alumnus, 

The UF CISE department, as you may have already heard, is in dire straits. The Dean of the College of Engineering has proposed a budget cut plan which, if approved, will eliminate all research from the CISE department, scatter half its faculty across other departments  in the College of Engineering, and eliminate all TAs, consequently destroying the quality and ranking of the department, as well as the value of your degree.

We write to you today to inform you of the details of Dean Cammy Abernathy’s proposal; furthermore, we encourage you to attend the meeting “The University of Florida College of Engineering Innovation Award Ceremony and UF Alumni Reception”, Tuesday, April 24th, 5:30 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel, Palo Alto, which the Dean will attend.  If you are interested in attending this meeting and showing your support, please join our Google Group: groups.google.com/group/save-uf-cise-sv-alumni-collaboration. Details of the proposal and its negative effects can be found in the attached document. Please remember, this proposal is not a merger of the CISE and ECE departments as the Dean frequently misrepresents it. The Dean's proposal instead removes research from CISE and leaves it a teaching-only department. 

We really need your support! Every voice counts!

- CISE @ UF

[Shivashankar Halan]

Please read though suggestions from an alumni not from the bay area and do the needful.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Venkatakrishnan Ramaswamy <cool...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: CISE Department at UF Needs Your Support!
To: Shivashankar Halan <shivashan...@gmail.com>


Shiva,

Quite frankly, I don't see why the wheel needs to be re-invented.
There isn't time for this. A lot of the alumni are married and have
kids and it takes a couple of days worth of work for the arguments to
sink in and for one to counter them effectively. Trust me, when you've
promised to take the kids to the beach and clean the garage, stuff
like this does not take precedence. We have to pre-package everything,
so this is done with least effort from their side. Obviously, they
will read the pre-packaged stuff to convince themselves that it makes
sense, but this should need no more than half an hour total.

I think our message to alumni has to be very clear.

1.  That the current plan will kill all research in CISE, make it a
teaching-only dept. Those faculty with some interdisciplinary work may
be invited to join ECE, ISE or BME. The rest will be forced to teach
full-time and this will cause a mass exodus of the good faculty.
CISE, as we know it, will be destroyed.

2. What the alumni (i.e. YOU) can do to help.
   (a) Attend the Palo Alto meeting with the Dean on Tuesday 5pm. To
register, please call blah.
   (b) You guys should attach a *one-page* pdf with half a page
describing the basic features of her plan and the second half a list
of unanswered questions that you can suggest may be asked at the Palo
Alto meeting. In essence, suggest that what each alumunus who is going
will do is to print this page and show up at the meeting, and ask the
questions one-by-one.

I don't see another way to have a bigger impact. We have to try to
force everyone to stay on message.

Oh and Feel free to forward my messages to whomever you wish to.

Best,
Venkat

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Shivashankar Halan

<shivashan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Venkat.
>
> We have sent out an email about the registration.
>
> We did not elaborate on what needs to be done by the alumni because we
> wanted the alumni to come up with these ideas. Like you have done. I know
> you aren't in the bay area... but why don't you send out your ideas to the
> group. It would work wonders for the folks there to see an alumnus say this
> as opposed to us saying what they need to do.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 4:48 PM, Venkatakrishnan Ramaswamy
> <cool...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hey Shiva,
>>
>> I hope this finds you well, crazy times notwithstanding.
>>
>> I just had a couple of comments about the Palo Alto meeting.
>>
>> My understanding was the people who wished to attend the Palo Alto
>> meeting need to Call Tara Wind at 352-392-6795 to register. Would this
>> be made clear in the google-group? You guys should consider sending
>> out another email letting people know, because if they don't register,
>> they probably cannot show up at the meeting.
>>
>> Secondly, I think from the email it is unclear, what exactly you want
>> the alumni to do. Saying "show your support" is usually code for "give
>> us money", which turns most people of for semi-understandable reasons.
>> In essence, we need a very clear strategy. Most alumni will not have
>> the time to sit all weekend strategizing on the google group and this
>> requirement, I feel, will deter participation. What is necessary is a
>> list of pointed questions that when asked to the Dean will make it
>> amply clear to the audience that her plan lacks substance and will
>> make clear to her that she does not have the audience's support. You
>> guys have already been soaking in the kinds of arguments she has been
>> making and so it must be very clear what the specific weaknesses are
>> in those arguments and what questions will elegantly expose those
>> weaknesses. These have to be given to the alumni, I think, in an
>> easily digestable form, which would mean a concise half to one page
>> document exactly describing the key weaknesses in the plan and a list
>> of questions that remain unanswered and are therefore ones that you
>> would suggest be asked to the Dean at the meeting.
>>
>>  For example, here is one: The FL legislature has made clear that this
>> is a one-time cut that they expect will be met by the Universities
>> tapping into their reserves. In spite of this explicit clarification
>> by the legislature, the UF administration is treating this as a
>> recurring cut and is not utilizing reserves to tide us over. Another
>> is the argument that without a strong research component we will still
>> be able to attract the best students with a teaching-only department
>> and that this is what people in industry would prefer. The questioner
>> could ask how many present in the room agree with this notion. I doubt
>> too many would raise their hands. That would, for example, be a clear
>> show of dissent to the Dean's plan. After this, the Dean would be
>> forced to defend herself. You can pick out several such things from
>> the material and letters already posted.
>>
>> Finally, you guys are doing an awesome awesome job with the whole
>> thing and I cannot stress how inspired many alumni including me are by
>> what we are seeing. We would like to help too. Let me know if there
>> are more ways I can contibute.
>>
>> Best,
>> Venkat