What the what? UF gets rid of computer science!

[Beach Runner]

Forbes slams UF for getting rid of computer science to save money while increasing their athletic budget:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevens...ce-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/

What were they thinking? Oh, they weren't thinking.

 

[beachmouse]

I couldn't find UF's athletic department budget for 12-13, but you can find the 09-10 one by visiting Jeremy Foley's wikipedia entry. Which makes me think the Forbes story is oddly simplistic.

1. UF got $6.4 million in tv rights from the SEC that year. The Department kicked back $6 million into the UF general fund that same budget year. So for that year, they were effectively already funding the computer science and, I dunno, romance languages department. Would not be surprised if there was a similar contribution to the general fund again.

2. In that budget year, there was a big push for cost containment and everyone was urged to try to cut 10% from expenses. But there are some thing that are going to inherently grow if you're fully funding scholarships. That budget notes a $1.4 million increase in scholarship funding due to tuition increases (ie. hold harmless scholarship numbers in existing sports) and add 14 scholarships for women's lacrosse. So figure that at least a million of this year's increase is simply maintaining the same number of funded scholarships slots because they've got to count their 15% tuition increase there.

 

[Beach Runner]

Yeah, I agree. After getting more info from fellow Gators, football is self-funded and pays for all sports at UF. Forbes should have gotten their facts right.

But getting rid of computer science? Crazy due to the need for more CS majors in the US. Even my son-in-law and his colleagues at GT are angry that this has happened to their fellow CS students at UF. SIL has a year left at GT for his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering. If his advisor at GT had to stop doing research, my SIL would have to find a new Ph.D. advisor and essentially restart his research for his dissertation. Probably he'd have to transfer to another school. He'd throw away two years of work plus have to pay tuition for two more years. Selfishly, grandbabies for Big D and me would be delayed for two more years.

The Florida legislature is just crazy. They have approved a new polytechnical university in Florida which will cost a heck of a lot more money that the $1.7M that they've saved by cutting back CISE at UF.

 

[SGB]

The Forbes article is misleading and doesn't appear to be completely factual.

http://www.eng.ufl.edu/news/uf-statement-made-april-23rd-2012/

Here's the info from UF: http://www.eng.ufl.edu/files/2012/04...-Plan-2012.pdf

What I've gathered from reading other articles and UF's statement is that the research component only will be eliminated from the CLAS program and be consolidated with the COE program, leaving the engineering college the only research arm for computer science. Degree programs will be available in either college, but the hard-core research will be left to the COE. The teachers in the CLAS program will actually be spending more time teaching. UF isn't the only university to divide up computer science in this way.

 

[Beach Runner]

The Forbes article is misleading and doesn't appear to be completely factual.

http://www.eng.ufl.edu/news/uf-statement-made-april-23rd-2012/

Here's the info from UF: http://www.eng.ufl.edu/files/2012/04...-Plan-2012.pdf

What I've gathered from reading other articles and UF's statement is that the research component only will be eliminated from the CLAS program and be consolidated with the COE program, leaving the engineering college the only research arm for computer science. Degree programs will be available in either college, but the hard-core research will be left to the COE. The teachers in the CLAS program will actually be spending more time teaching. UF isn't the only university to divide up computer science in this way.

I agree with you on the Forbes article.

But computer science is more software oriented, whereas computer engineering is more hardware oriented. There is a need for research in both areas. Efficient algorithms as well as efficient hardware. Hardware has advanced exponentially such that many of the old paradigms in CS due to hardware limitations don't exist any more. Writing algorithms hasn't advanced as quickly IMO. For example, even with supercomputers, only 47 Mersenne primes have been discovered. Totally ridiculous. That's a software and mathematical problem. Our son-in-law has realized that math is the key to software efficiency. So even though he has finished his Ph.D. qualifying exams for computer engineering at GT and doesn't have to take any more classes, he is taking as many math and computer science courses as possible. He just got a $50,000 grant from Mathworks to write simulation software for autonomous drones in MATLAB. That's more math and computer science than computer engineering.

UF is cutting out computer science. No faculty member at a research institution like UF wants to teach. They got their jobs there because of their research skills. The younger faculty members will be able to get employment elsewhere to continue their research interests so that they won't fall into the black hole of not doing research. But faculty members in their late 40's and beyond will have trouble getting employment elsewhere. Sad.

How can the Florida legislature approve a new polytechnical university that will cost a heck of a lot more money than the 30% cuts in the UF budget that resulted in axing computer science? Some politics going on there.

 

[Truman]

only 47 Mersenne primes have been discovered. Totally ridiculous.

I'm with you on this one honey. UF obviously has no clue.