Cis Board of Advisors Meeting

CIS BOARD OF ADVISORS MEETING

Minutes by J.Mincar Friday-Saturday, April 3 - 4, 2009

ATTENDEES

CISBOA: Alethea Pratt, Jen Mincar, Jim Cottrell, Dana Harris, Adam Myatt, Andy Hurd, Gary Wager , Jeff McGrath, Lynne Fisher Kemp, Andy Harradine, Justin Sipher, Jeff Crump (attempt via phone)

Faculty: Timothy Fossum, Mike Bristol, Brian Ladd, Charlie Marshall, Susan Haller, Galen Pletcher, Maggie Madden (Provost)

Students: Patrick Skelley (Hudson Valley student, possible incoming), Ammon Burtrum, Eric Hutchins, Bryon Dashnaw, Andrew Barkley (Sp?), Jessie , Phylicia Gordon, Greg Jones, James Snow, BC , John Roberts, Dan Wilson, Killian Meehan, Adam Clark, Steven Green, Ja Martin (sp?)

Special Guest: MaryPat Root (Associate Professor, Onondaga CC)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS/AGENDA

Friday, April 3 [TRAVEL DAY] 6:00 pm Informal Get-together with CS students and faculty -- Dexter’s Cafe

Saturday, April 4 8:30-9:15 am Continental Breakfast – Dunn Hall Theater Lobby

9:15-10:30 am Board Meeting – Dunn 102  Round the room introduction – Alethea Pratt  Hails and Farewells – Alethea Pratt o Graduating seniors – Aaron/Phylicia/James o If there are things we can do to help these seniors, they should let us know. Aaron is looking in Spain (but open to US), Phylicia is looking in Theater and tech; both are open to ideas and assistance. o Recommendation from board and faculty: . Use social networking tools like LinkedIn and Facebook . Explore government agencies (FBI, NSA, etc.). Hiring opportunities and grants still exist despite today’s competitive environment . Explore energy field. . Look at Federal Cyber Security work that Buffalo has won a scholarship opportunity for. This pays for your masters and requires two years of service (Tim).  Introduction of officers – Alethea Pratt o Alethea Pratt – Chair o Rob Gray – Vice-Chair o Jen Mincar - Secretary  CIS BOA Scholarship Fund – Tim Fossum o $40,000 fully funded and raised by board. . Will provide two scholarships. . $1200/year (in general) awarded. . It is not a needs based scholarship. . Greg is the scholarship recipient. Other recipient left the school. . Tim would like to see this fund go up to $80000, but we can discuss this later. It is not a need based scholarship. o Number of requests for scholarships is up 20% this year. Plattsburgh and Geneseo are giving better scholarships, yet they don’t have large endowments. o Mike mentioned that the University might make up the difference between the projected performance of the fund to the actual (6% vs. 3%).  Budget update – Tim Fossum/Galen Pletcher o $5.7 M budget reduction in State funding across the org without cutting permanent positions. Open positions won’t be filled. o $3.7 (77%) lies in academic affairs . But no cutting programs, no cutting staff . Computer Science/IT budget was reduced over 25% (verify) o Teaching load is high at SUNY Potsdam 24 hours a year compared to other campuses. Galen is looking at trying to reduce this by alternating teaching load each year. This will hold despite cuts. o OCC – 15 is considered full-time, everyone teaches on average 18. o HVCC – 33 for year is considered full-time, (one instructor has a load of 33 per semester. They get paid $900 for every hour over 18 per semester). o Endowments taking hits.  S-STEM Grant Proposal Update - Tim Fossum o We applied for NSF scholarship need-based for Junior/Seniors transferring from community colleges. Total grant: Approximately $500000. (85% for students/15% for admin) o Request. Averages $8200.00/student. 8 scholarships per year for 2 year. o Haven’t heard yet. They are waiting for stimulus money. o Tim is forbidden to ask about this because of his former relationship with them. After Aug 18, 2009 he is allowed to ask. o OCC has a STEM grant. They apply faculty members as mentors to scholarship recipients and they allow the money to follow the student, not the institution. Different from the Potsdam application. o Thanks to other colleges for letters of support MaryPat at OCC  Articulation agreements update – Tim Fossum and Susan Haller o https://cs.potsdam.edu/CS/transfer . 7 schools have signed up . Broome CC & Cayuga will be added . Also working with CUNY and other city colleges. o Board involvement . Could the board help by working with the CC , visit with the colleges, visit on a routine basis. Get organized around this. . Action item: Have the board organize something around articulation agreements with CC’s, building local relationships, and work at transfer or resume days. Have a break out around this. Let’s do a map to determine where the map is of where the board members are. They should contact the employment center or if it’s transfers contact Susan to get the contact at the CC. Tim will send a note to the Board members to see if they can get interest to help with the CC relationship. (Tim) . Action item: Also invite department chairs to our BOA meetings from the articulation meetings (thank you MaryPat for coming to this). (Tim) o Marketing . This is a good area to invest in. Transfers in are good ROI. Public vs. Private is good ROI. Personal contact is very important. . Show that transfer is successful. Even though it’s tough economic times, the comp sci/It industry is still good. Job recruiters want applicants with experience. Potsdam offers Capstone program. BOA focuses on Internships. This helps marketability when you graduate. North East Analytical is offering internships right now. o Guiding the Transfer Students . At what point do we go after the transfer student? First year or second year? Shouldn’t we go after first year? Yes, and the colleges are working with the students to do that. That’s why these agreements are important so that the advisors are working with the students to guide them from the beginning. . HVCC has resume building days where alumni are brought in to help students build resumes. . Investigate TANG (Technology Area Networking Group) o We need to let these colleges know that we have an infrastructure that help with job placements, advising, writing job recommendations, etc.

10:30-11:00 am Break – Dunn Hall Theater Lobby

10:45 am- Noon Board Meeting (continued) – Dunn 102 1. ACM Update – James Snow (President) o Projects – gaming projects o Meetings: 3-4 people at each meeting/ still growing o Thinking about doing some sort of workshop (Javaswing) o Dan Wilson has provided some music aspects of the game, there is some cross discipline effort to bring in the music , gaming and other activities. 2. Capstone Project Reports o Phylicia Gordon 1. DMX Console and (Nintendo) DS Remote 1. Motivation : Theatrical lighting: Using a Wireless communication device to control individual channels for theatrical lighting o Ammon Bartram – Factor an integer. To implement Quadratic Sieve with sieve step in parallel (push his understanding of computational theory) 1. Lessons learned: implementing theory really forces you to understand the theory. 2. Investigate Amazon Academic cloud service for more CPU power. o Outstanding job by Phylicia and Ammon! Noon-1:00 pm Lunch – Dunn Hall Theater Lobby

1:30-3:30 pm Board Meeting – Dunn 102

 Communication with board and students o CIS Alumni and web portal off CIS home page. o www.potsdamcisboa.com . Registration pw: gobears o Students should sign up for this if you haven’t been out there. o Community Directory listed out there o List of events and documents o  Bylaws changes o Membership: Paragraph 1: amend ‘Board committee’ to ‘Board chair’ o Membership: Paragraph 1: ‘In agreement with’ to ‘consultation with’ o Membership: Paragraph 1: add ‘non-voting’ after ex officio, o Membership: “The board will be made up of no fewer than 10 active, voting members, in addition to ex...” o Active, voting member: “is involved in one or more of the following activities during a calendar year:” o Add emeritus member definition . Emeritus members should be included in this – Jim to send to me. o Membership, paragraph 5: “agreed upon by the board and the member” (not faculty). o Add: Under extraordinary circumstances a member may be asked to leave by the board executive committee. o Add “Concurrent with re-election of officers, membership will be reaffirmed by the board”. o Add to agenda for next board meeting to reconstitute active memberships. o Paragraph 4, Change leave ‘may be granted by the Executive committee’. vs. Will be granted. o Last sentence on first page reappointment can be made upon request by the board member (not faculty). o Meetings: . Remove the word biannual o Motion is to accept changes ; voted all in favour o Motion to reaffirm active membership at Fall meeting; seconded. Motion carried. . Process is to announce the fall meeting and that we will be reassessing board membership . Let us know what your level of participation is going to be. . Board members will be expected to declare their intentions on board participations.  Community College articulation o Ideas to put together system wide conference (and possibly a grant) to gather people developing articulation agreements. . There is a grant for creating a common understanding across the SUNY system of what it takes to build pathways from the 2 year to the 4 year degree. o Susan has worked wtih 14 community colleges, three of which do not map well into Potsdam’s curriculum structure o She showed some examples of 2 year degrees with some colleges that may not work well toward articulations. SUNY system 2-year programs have little auditing or consistency. . Some classes may have to do double duty across various majors. . What can we do with these types of schools or students that want to come from those schools? SUNY-Potsdam will work individually with those students. . When SUNY says that you have a 2 year degree, it implies that it will transfer into a 4 year program and the student should be able to graduate in 4 years. . How do program reviews happen at each of the community colleges? . Do we need to align with everyone or should we just focus on the ones that have the same vision as us. . Quality not quantity. . AS vs. AAS  AS is meant for transferring  AAS is meant to terminal . State University Transfer Guarantee – an opportunity to continue full-time study at a four year State University college is guaranteed to all NYS residents who transfer directly from a degree-granting State University or City University of NY two year college with an associate in arts (A.A.) or an associate in science (A.S.) degree. . Discussion ensued around 4 year vs. 2 year job readiness  We need to make sure grads are marketable.  We’re adding the Bachelor of Science program to address Potsdam’s CS marketability.  Our BS program will not be much different from BA program.  Information Technology is a broad industry; we can help give students opportunities to explore ways to apply what they learn, fulfill their interests, and are ready for employment. . What about accreditation for SUNY-Potsdam computer science dept ? Brockport, New Paltz & the centers are the only ones that are. SUNY system is accredited, not all of the programs are. NOTE THAT SUNY-POTSDAM is an ACCREDITED COLLEGE.  Our program is creditable, however, expense, and time of faculty and workload to gain accreditation is a large workload.

3:30-4:00 pm Break

4:00-4:45 pm Board Meeting – Dunn 102  Report of the Chair – Tim Fossum ○ BS modification to BA program rather than new program. (shorter process, maybe by beginning of Fall 2009 semester) ○ Dr.Marshall will be on sabbatical in the Fall of 2009. When he returns in the Spring he will be half time for 5 semesters and then he will be retiring. ○ Campus finances does not allow us to replace his hours so dept. will be operating at 88% efficiency. ○ IS Security program has been put on hold because we can’t hire new faculty and we can’t start it with current staff. ○ CMPT courses vs. CIS classes ○ CMPT (computing skills) classes offered within business program. They are not going to be offered anymore, but the Computer Science classes may ‘adopt/administer’ these classes. Skills classes, like spreadsheets, etc. These could be cash cows and also recruiting tools into CS majors.  Computer Science dept is most expense major to have on campus right now. We have a 25% increase in number of students 30 to 48 students. Lots of classes require basic computer knowledge. ○ Need to consider digital forensics class.  Wrap up – Alethea Pratt o Future Items o Determine Date for Fall Meeting  Agenda for FALL, 2009 Meeting (October 2&3, 2009)  Reconstitute active BOA members ○ Note that current members must declare their intentions (we never determined process)  Resume building or mock interviews for students – Andy and Adam will work on this agenda item.  Follow up with Justin on coalition with 6 other schools. NEXT MEETING: OCTOBER 2&3, 2009

6:30 pm Dinner – Mama Lucia’s (west of Market Street, across from bus station) They have HUGE meatballs.