ECE Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes for October 8, 2009

1. The Minutes of the October 1, 2009 meeting were approved.
2. The Committee reviewed the GSLIS proposal for a new undergraduate major in "Informatics," and the response of the ECE and CS department heads about their concerns with the name. The Curriculum Committee shares the Heads' concerns about the name, and strongly and unanimously opposes the degree name "Informatics." This will be both misleading and confusing to most people, and could endanger the reputation and recruitment of both our world-class Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs. The Committee takes a stronger stance than the Heads' letter and feels that even "Information Science" is misleading; the Committee suggests that "Library and Information Science", in accordance with GSLIS's mission and name, is much more appropriate. The Committee noted that some claims in the proposal, namely that the proposed degree would prepare students for careers as
   • Computer Systems Analyst, and
   • Computer and Information Systems Managers
   are unrealistic; the preparation is not adequate for the key technical aspects of such careers.
3. The Committee reviewed and approved the ECE 408: Applied Parallel Programming course proposal by Wen-Mei Hwu. The Committee also proactively approved offering it in Spring 2010 as an ECE 498 course while awaiting College approval, but noted that Wen-Mei needs to submit a formal ECE 498 proposal.
4. ECE 498 SL was approved for the Spring 2010 semester subject to minor editing of the catalog description.
5. The Committee adjourned at 1:48 PM.