

University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department - goldensaucer
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/22/university-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/

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mmuro
As someone who works for a university, I can say that in some cases the
athletics budget is completely separate from the educational side of things.
They are independently funded and draw no resources from education.

I do not know if this is how UF handles its budgets.

~~~
aik
There has to be a connection between them. The athletics draw no resources
from education, but how can this be so? Instead of increasing the budget of
athletics, why can't the education budget be increased instead?

~~~
mmuro
The education budget is set by the state (mostly).

Athletics gets money from donors, ticket revenues and private funding. This
allows them to spend as they see fit.

~~~
_delirium
At some schools the athletics program gets considerable tuition revenue as
well (in the form of a tacked-on "athletics fee"). UF seems to have one of the
lower fees ($57/yr), though when multiplied by 50,000 students, that still
works out to a bit under $3m/yr. It appears (see sibling comment) that
athletics contributes back some surplus to academics, though, so may be a net
positive at UF. Not true at all schools, some of which have much higher than
$57/yr charges (e.g. UVA's $650).

~~~
culturestate
The "athletics fee" at UF covers student athletic facilities - gyms, tennis
courts, etcetera - rather than sports teams.

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dhconnelly
Here's the email that Georgia Tech College of Computing dean Zvi Galil sent to
the president of UF:

[http://saveufcise.wordpress.com/letter-from-dean-of-
college-...](http://saveufcise.wordpress.com/letter-from-dean-of-college-of-
computing-at-georgia-tech-and-division-director-of-nsf/)

~~~
ja27
I don't really understand the structure of the different departments teaching
computer science and engineering at UF, but it certainly sounds like a bit of
a mess and over-due for a reorganization.

Even Georgia Tech, the first school with a College of Computing, still has a
split with Computer Engineering still part of the College of Engineering but
traditional Computer Science and everything else in the College of Computing.
USF (Tampa) has both Computer Science and Computer Engineering in a single
department within the College of Engineering, which seems to me to be about
the most efficient structure. UCF (Orlando) had a Computer Science department
in the College of Arts and Sciences and a Computer Engineering department in
the College of Engineering but merged them together into one school a few
years ago.

~~~
engineur
UCF has School of Electrical Engineering and Computer science which falls
under College and Engineering and Computer Science.

------
herdrick
There's more to it. See HN's previous discussion, ten days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3832685>

~~~
beedogs
All that seems to indicate, to me, is that the entire college is run terribly.

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pedalpete
This article misses the reason behind closing the CS department. Was it
completely due to budgetary concerns? Or was the University having difficulty
competing with other CS schools. The article mentions the Florida
Polytechnical University, has the creation of this school meant that their
aren't enough CS students to fill classrooms at both colleges?

Though I, like most, was initially shocked that a CS school would be closing,
maybe their is more to it than just budgetary cuts.

~~~
kls
I think Georgia Institute of Technology only being a few hours away would be
the bigger issue. GIT has a pretty significant ranking usually popping in and
out of the bottom of the top 10 slot. Being from FL I know a lot of people
that want to remain somewhat close to home and that are looking for a good
program tend to apply there over UF. What is strange is that UF was generally
in the upper ranks of Florida CS programs after FIT fell off the map in the
early 90's. As well UCF's program has been getting better and better over the
years. I don't know where they rank but I do know they have been improving
maybe UCF siphoned off a bit of their Central Florida recruits, which I would
imagine contributed quite a few in head count. USF did not have a great
program when I was in Tampa but things could have changed, as that has been
over 15 years ago.

~~~
ja27
I don't think GT has any real effect on UF. Different states, different
budgets, and really, a different level. UF is the big public engineering
school in the state. Every other public university in the state is always
fighting for the budget scraps after UF gets theirs. USF does have a decent
program, but not great. It could benefit tremendously from more investment by
the state. Faculty salaries are not competitive and make it difficult to
attract and retain top talent.

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newbie12
The federal government forces Florida to spend billions on Medicaid. Mandatory
Medicaid increases are driving education cuts in budgets in nearly every
state.

"Governments’ general support for higher education 25 years ago was nearly 50
percent greater than state spending on Medicaid. That relationship has now
flipped: Medicaid spending is about 50 percent greater than support for higher
education. If higher education’s share of state budgets had remained constant
instead of being crowded out by rising Medicaid costs, it would be getting
some $30 billion more than it receives today, or more than $2,000 per
student." \-- <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19orszag.html?_r=1>

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tzs
Not so fast. UF has something like 3 or 4 departments that, to an outside
observer, would appear to be CS. The College of Engineering has a couple,
which appear to differ depending on whether they enphasize hardware or
software, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has one, and I think
there's another one out there somewhere.

The one they are cutting seems to be the only one that does non-hardware
research and offers graduate degrees, so losing it is a loss. The other (or
others) that deal with the non-hardware side of CS seem to be only teaching,
not research, and aimed at undergraduates.

~~~
dhconnelly
Right. So they're cutting the department that has graduate students,
researchers with NSF Career Awards and ACM fellowships, and brings in lots of
money in research grants.

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robrenaud
> the well-established fact that research-active faculty make better teachers

Does anyone have a citation for this well established fact?

~~~
wtvanhest
My experience is that they tend to be negatively correlated with a good number
of outliers.

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fuzzypickle
Hey guys, UF student here.

Here's what was actually sent out to UF students about the decision. The link
goes to the budget cut proposal. Currently the president of the University
(Bernie Machen) is petitioning the state government to allow for tuition hikes
above the already annual limit of 15%.

[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwzZsds2XcGnMWFpcnFiNEhvQkk/...](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwzZsds2XcGnMWFpcnFiNEhvQkk/edit?pli=1)

~~~
VigUi7vv8G2
They can't get by with a 15% annual tuition hike? Jebus.

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VigUi7vv8G2
Back when I was in school, the CS dept was kind of ghetto. We had an old run
down kind of grimy building, while the Computer __engineering __department had
this massive new building with great architecture. We also had a research
facility that was some kind of interdisciplinary engineering thing - all
people did was program but it was part of the engineering dept and probably
had as much money as the entire CS department. At least a lot of CS students
got to work there. Seems like CS invents all the stuff and engineering gets
all the money to actually use it :P \---

"Meanwhile, the athletic budget for the current year is $99 million, an
increase of more than $2 million from last year. The increase alone would more
than offset the savings supposedly gained by cutting computer science."

Okay, I'm not a fan of sports but universities spend money on their sports
programs because they are PROFIT CENTERS. First of all, they sell tickets to
the games, which makes money. Second of all they foster 'school spirit' which
helps in getting donations.

If you look at Penn State (before the whole scandal) there's a perfect example
of how that plays out. People donate to the school because they are nostalgic
for the time they spent going to games and so on. It's stupid, IMO but it is
what it is.

So really, saying people Universities should cut sports and focus on academics
is like saying the government should save money by cutting the IRS's funding,
or that drug companies could save money by cutting advertizing. No, those are
the things that __make money __. If you spend less on them, you have less
money overall, not more.

Again, I'm not a sports fan. I'm just pointing out the reality.

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spoiledtechie
disclaimer: This is a political rant from the articles facts.

This is a huge opinion article with a little bit of fact sprinkled over it
accusing Gov. Rick Scott of doing the wrong thing.

For anyone that has been to Florida or knows what Florida Economics are
currently, I think Rick Scott did a good thing. I think more so, the
University staff ought to be to blame.

For some fact. Florida's economy has been hit the hardest out of almost every
state except Nevada. But with budget cuts, Nasa employees being laid off, a
staggering 18% unemployment, roughly 25% of children homeless/living in motels
or living in poverty, and Florida's homestead/business taxes being some of the
highest in the country, he is only trying to cut government spending to the
levels it should be lowered to. Instead of blaming a governor for his cutting
of education, maybe this article should look at how he is trying to rescue a
state from over spending so that taxes can be lowered so the economy may
rebound a bit.

~~~
_delirium
A bit of a quibble: Florida has high taxes in some areas because it's one of
only 7 states with no income tax. Overall taxation, considering the no-income-
tax part, is pretty low, and its state+local spending is roughly in line with
that of other states.

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ShabbyDoo
What I don't understand about U of F's decision is that computing is like
mathematics in that it's a basic competency necessary for competence in many
other disciplines. Shouldn't the graduates of the school's "Design,
Construction, and Planning" school know something about programming so that
they are not entirely intimidated by the idea of customizing the behavior of
AutoCAD? The Education school -- how will it produce graduates capable of
teaching high school computer science courses? One can easily come up with
other examples.

Perhaps it is sufficient to hire a cadre of instructors to teach basic
courses? Such a decision historically has been vilified by faculty unions
intent on ensuring that research professors with PhD's are not replaced by
"lesser" means of instruction. Never mind that many faculty despise teaching
introductory courses where much of the workload is administrative and their
specialized knowledge is barely put to use.

What I don't understand is how U of F seemingly thinks it acceptable to imply
to the public that it taking steps which eventually will make it incapable of
teaching basic computer science to any of its students. Surely, U of F's PR
department would be horrified to convey parallel messages regarding its math
department. Maybe we are all missing some important facts?

~~~
Xuzz
While this sounds nice, the truth is that most people do _not_ need — or, in
most cases, want — to code, or even to know how their computers work. As time
goes on, the levels of abstraction increase, not decrease. And with things
like the iPad and Windows 8, we can see that moving ahead for us right now.
Computer science is not a "basic competency" — it's an extremely complex,

So I don't think it's weird at all for computer science to be thought of as
less important, and certainly less popular. And I also don't think that's a
bad thing; while I'd certainly think computers are cool, a computer science
degree/programming knowledge is already unnecessary for almost all
professions. As time goes on, the _need_ to, say, customize AutoCAD, is only
going to decrease: the computer itself will make the task easier.

~~~
mjn
Among the general public, possibly, but that's also true of mathematics. Among
scientists, it looks like it's going the other way to me, approaching math and
statistics as something that many people need to know at least a little of.
Even over the past decade there's been a significant shift. In the early
2000s, most bioinformatics research was done by biologists in collaboration
with computer scientists, with the biologists providing only the biology side
of things. Today, it's increasingly common for biologists to be expected to
understand and work with the tech side as well. At the very least, if you're a
younger researcher working in a data-heavy area (and maybe even if you aren't
that young), people expect you to be able to write some Python, interface with
SciPy, and navigate matplotlib.

~~~
Xuzz
I'll agree with that. The scientific data sets are only going to get bigger.

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ja27
The "brand new" university mentioned is horrible journalism. The "Florida
Polytechnic University" has been around for 24 years. It's been part of USF
(Tampa) until now, when J.D. Alexander strong-armed it away from USF
(threating USF's funding in the process). Now it will be nominally independent
but closely affiliated with UF.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_South_Florida_Pol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_South_Florida_Polytechnic)

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chwahoo
I'm surprised that CS doesn't bring in enough funding to justify itself on
those grounds alone. I'm a CS grad student, but I'll confess that I don't know
much about UF's program.

As for article asking the reader to imagine the outcry if they cut football or
other big sports, the ones that would cause an outcry are probably immensely
profitable. It's a fair question whether college athletics has gotten too big,
but it's almost entirely irrelevant to this article.

~~~
walexander
It's very relevant to this particular article because it's nerd linkbait.

I, personally, can't see a reason why a CS program would not be a priority for
a university. I, personally, am also not an administrator at UF and don't need
to have an opinion on it.

I'm sure this will pop up another 10 times this week though, as if there is a
war on computer science.

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ahi
That will do wonders for UF employment/salary stats.

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SagelyGuru
Whoa! $1.7M for a computer science department and $90M+ for football? Whatever
the funding sources may be, the comparison of the figures alone shows the
general spending priorities pretty clearly. I bet the football team has no
shortage of applicants either.

Could it be that such priorities are a contributing factor to the high
unemployment rate?

~~~
lbrandy
UF's football program's 'budget' is a red herring. It's a profit center for
the university. It doesn't "cost" 90M. It pays for itself, and a great bit
more.

~~~
SagelyGuru
That may be so but it only proves my point. I was not talking about costs to
the university but about the fact that people don't mind paying 90M+ for
football but they do mind paying 1.7M for computer science. Whatever the
channels for the payments may be.

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Vitaly
frankly I could never understand all this sports obsession with US
universities. universities are there to teach science, sports deserve their
own and separate institutions.

~~~
danssig
Because money. CS education might make _you_ rich but a successful sports
program makes the university rich.

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kenrikm
IMO. This is PR stunt, It's standard OP in Florida to threaten to close stuff
due to budget constraints. I can't remember a single case where they actually
did even if they did not get the budget increese/tax hike that they said they
needed.

~~~
blue_lobster
I'm not sure if you are referring to the state budget or university budget
here, but the university closed the nuclear engineering department a year or
two ago due to budget reasons, the remnants of that program are in Materials
Science now.

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kingkawn
Great PR move by the University to draw attention to the cuts. I hope.

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gringomorcego
<http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/revcomp/>

You dumb fucks

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JosephHatfield
If they really want to cut spending, just leave CS alone and just cut football
team. :)

