Dr. Skjellum Launches "From the Chair's Desk"

Welcome to the new Computer and Information Sciences Web pages, and to the first edition of my column. As Chair of CIS, I want to let you know some of the exciting goings on in our department, with our students and alumni, from time to time. This new web infrastructure - the most advanced in terms of content management and flexibility - is designed to serve students, professors, and alumni, with fresh, interesting, and up-to-date information about our department offerings, majors, and events.

First of all, Computer and Information Sciences as a BS degree is on the rise. Enrollments, down nationally since 2001 by as much as 50% across the board, are up 20% in our undergraduate program in the last year, following a national trend of recovery in Computer Science undergraduate studies. We are happy to find more and more UAB undergraduates choosing Computer and Information Sciences, and we see daily evidence of the exciting job opportunities and graduate school choices available to our students, both locally and nationally.

Second, job opportunities are superb in the Birmingham area, as well as nationally for Computer Science. If you're not sure about choosing a CIS major, or your helping someone decide about their major, come visit us to learn more. As some of you may have noticed from our logos, this is the 40th Anniversary of the Computer and Information Sciences Department at UAB. Activities for this calendar year include lectures, a reception after the May graduation for new graduates, and a historical perspective of the first 40 years of Computer Science teaching, research, and service in Birmingham. We plan to hold an open house in the year to get as many alumni back to campus as we can as well. Dates will be announced soon.

Among our goals for 2007 are enhanced undergraduate and graduate recruitment. Among graduate students, we expect to reach our 40th PhD (coincidental with our 40th anniversary) and graduate a record number of new PhDs this year. As these students graduate, we'll be looking for new students to pursue research in our core areas of Data Mining, Knowledge Discovery, Software Engineering, Parallel/Distributed/Grid Computing, and Artificial Intelligence.

Other activities for 2007 include our kickoff of an internship program that involves industry directly with the CIS students and the department to help place students - as early as their first semester as freshman - into rewarding (learning and paying) positions in local industry. This cooperative effort - with local industry providing the driving force - is designed to ensure that our graduates have practical work experience beyond the classroom, skills to help ensure their high competitiveness at graduation.

Our department is undergoing an IT revolution in High Performance Computing, Virtual Computing, and Visualization. Please come visit us for a tour.