Back row L to R: Brittany Bruno, Cheryl-Annette Kincaid, Srivamsi Tarigopula, Xiaohui Li, Prasanti Kolan
Front Row: Mitra Mahdavian, Maria Ascencio, Lisette Zounon, Kavya Katam |
The CSE department is pleased to announce the first class of CSEagles
who will act as ambassadors for the department and mentors for incoming
freshmen. The CSEagles program includes a $500 per semester scholarship
and is funded by a grant from the Technology Workforce Development
program.
The first group will serve for the Spring 2006 semester and then new
applications will be accepted for the Fall 2006-Spring 2007 academic
year. The first group includes Cheryl-Annette Kincaid, Maria Asencio,
Xaohui Li, Srivamsi Tarigopula, Brittany Bruno, Lisette Zounon, Mitra
Mahdavian, Kavya Katam, and Prasanti Kolan. Please congratulate these
young women on their selection.
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Undergraduate Forum Rescheduled for Feb. 8 |
Dr. Ryan Garlick and David Keathly, CSE Undergraduate Advisors,
have rescheduled the Undergraduate Advising Forum canceled in the Fall due to
inclement weather. The forum will be held Wednesday, February 8 at 2:00
pm in room F223 at the UNT Research Park.
The advisors will discuss new degree requirements, catalog year issues,
and other changes from the course restructuring in the Fall of 2005.
They will also discuss the new online forums for advising. Bring your
questions and concerns. Refreshments will be provided.
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Advisor's Corner |
David Keathly and Ryan Garlick |
The Spring semester has begun and soon the weather will be calling you
to spend more time outside. Before you succumb to the whisperings of
nature's calling, here are some items for your consideration.
Undergraduate Advising Forum - we had to reschedule this from the Fall
due to the weather-related school closing. The forum is now scheduled
for Wednesday, February 8, at 2:00 pm in F223. Bring your questions and
concerns.
Canceled Sections - Many of you experienced canceled sections of some
courses at the 3000 and 4000 level during the Fall and now Spring
semesters. There are two situations that conspired together to create
this problem. The first is the "bubble" of low enrollment that occurred
about three years ago with all the telecom layoffs in the DFW area. We
had a much lower enrollment during that year, and the "bubble" has been
making its way through the course schedule each year. We should be just
about out of it now. Changes in university policy also affected the
Spring semester as we were required to cancel low enrollment sections at
the end of regular registration rather than after the 12th class day. So
classes were canceled before late enrollment or Add/Drop. The lesson
here is to register during early or regular registration - Don't Wait!!
I know of at least two classes that would not have been canceled if the
late enrollees had only registered earlier.
Class Schedules - There were a lot of questions this semester about
instructors, class schedules, and other concerns. You have many
resources available to help you. The printed schedule of classes is
often not very accurate because it is prepared at least a semester in
advance. Many times and classes change and instructors offer special
topics classes that do not make it into the print catalog. The schedule
available on the CSE website at http://www.cse.unt.edu
is usually much more accurate. Also you can find printed copies of the
schedules for the current and future semesters on the table at the front
of the main CSE office in NTRP F201.
CSCI 3100 and CSCE 2610 - there has been some confusion over the
Computer Organization course formerly CSCI 3100 and now CSCE 2610. Since
this course changed from an upper level class to a lower level class,
there are some special options available for those of you on degree
plans for catalog years 2004 and beyond who still need this course. You
can come by the CSE office and receive permission to take the course
under an advanced number, CSCE 4950.700. Summer 2006 is probably the
last time we will offer this option, so plan ahead!
Academic Alert, Probation, and Suspension - Although we all hope it
never affects you, sometimes circumstances are such that your grades
slip and you find yourself on Academic Alert, Probation, or Suspension.
If you are having problems in a course be sure to come speak to one of
your advisors, the earlier the better. Perhaps we can avoid these
circumstances. If you find yourself in this situation, come talk to us
about how to relieve it as quickly and painlessly as possible. Often we
can help you adjust your schedule to get you off of alert or probation
quickly.
Catalog Years - Each of you has, or will have a degree plan. The degree
plan is tied to the requirements for a certain academic year catalog. In
2005 we changed the requirements for the Computer Science Degrees. For
some of you it may be beneficial to "upgrade" to the more recent
catalog. You can only do this once and in the forward direction; you
cannot go back later. The new 2005 degree plan is actually 3 fewer hours
at 131 than previous plans at 134. The new plan requires CSCE 4410
Software Development I, but only requires one Advanced Technical Writing
course. Other course requirements will depend on when you upgrade and
what courses you have already completed at that time. Come to the
Undergraduate Advising Forum and we will discuss all the differences in
more detail, or make an appointment with an advisor to review your
situation.
Feel free to come by and see us for any career or degree related
problems or questions. We are here to help you!
Ryan Garlick and David Keathly, your Undergraduate Advisors.
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Help Lab Available for Students |
Students in Computer Science and Engineering have a valuable tool
available to them just down the hall — the CSE Help Lab. Located in Room
F205 at the Research Park and open typically from 9 am to 5 pm, you will
find a number of CSE Graduate and upper division students able to help
you with a variety of problems and subjects. The Teaching Assistant or
Grader for each of your classes will hold office hours in this lab at
posted times to assist you with specific course assignments.
Other help lab staff can assist you in learning how to access and use
the various computing resources available in the CSE department. A
variety of different computer systems and printers are also available
for your use. Be sure to make the Help Lab a regular stop throughout the
semester whether you need help with a particular class or just how to
make the best use of the resources available to you.
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ACM Invites Your Participation |
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by John Rizzo, ACM Chairman
The UNT chapter of the ACM invites you to take part in exciting
opportunities throughout the semester. The ACM will be hosting several
Engineering Week events, including the UNT TopCoder programming
competition, and more to be announced later, so look out for flyers
announcing events, as well as ACM meetings.
We are expecting to hold a meeting within the next few weeks to discuss
guest speakers, events throughout the semester, as well as programming
contest opportunities, so be sure to check out the UNT ACM website at
http://acm.csci.unt.edu
for updates. ↑
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IEEE Computer Society News |
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by Danny Hall, IEEE Computer Society President
The IEEE Computer Society would like to welcome everyone back from a
hopefully safe and happy holiday break. We have lots of events going on
this semester and would like to have anyone who is interested to please
feel free to join us. Our first meeting will be held sometime in the
next two weeks to start planning for Engineering Week (the last week of
February) and to start preparing for new officer elections.
We will also be continuing with our Computer and Network Security
briefings, better known as "Defense Against the Dark Arts." These
briefings are very informative on how to better secure your personal
computer, computer systems that are used by companies, and the Networks
that are used by all.
So please feel free to stop by the Council of Engineering Organizations
(CEO) office and inquire about any events that we have or may have going
in the near future. Good Luck with all your classes this semester and
watch for our fliers showing when and where our meetings will be held.
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Faculty News |
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Dr. Parberry Gives Presentations at Purdue University and
on Microsoft's "Nerd Boat"
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In January 2006, Dr. Ian Parberry made back-to-back trips to give
presentations on his computer game programming research. First he was
at Purdue University from January 11-14 where he gave two talks. The
first was a research presentation: "Three Research Topics in
Entertainment Computing." Dr. Parberry's second talk, "Experience With
an Industry-Driven Capstone Course on Game Programming," was from SIGCSE
2005.
After he returned from Purdue, Dr. Parberry attended a Microsoft
Academic Days conference from January 18-23 on Enhancing Computer
Science with Gaming Concepts & Technologies. He was invited to give a
talk on "SAGE: A Simple Academic Game Engine". More information about
SAGE can be found on the LARC website at http://larc.csci.unt.edu/sage/.
You can read about "The Nerd Boat" in THIS
article published in Forbes on January 31, 2006.
The conference was attended by approximately 200 academics and industry
representatives and explored the use of computer games to teach and
conduct basic research. The conference was held on a cruise ship to
Cozumel. Since he was an invited presenter, Dr. Parberry's trip was
paid for by Microsoft. With public conference sessions during the day
and private meetings with Microsoft people during the evenings, Dr.
Parberry came home completely exhausted but energized to teach his
students here at UNT. ↑
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CSE Faculty and Staff Recognized for Service |
In December 2005, four members of the Computer Science and Engineering
department were recognized for their years of service to the University
of North Texas. Dr. Tom Irby was the first faculty member hired by Dan
Scott, founding department chairman of the Department of Computer
Sciences. Dr. Irby received a set of crystal bookends marking his 30th
anniversary at UNT. He has seen the department grow from a Masters in
Computer Science program with fewer than 20 students to a comprehensive
program with almost 800 majors. Dr. Irby has seen many changes to the
department, including the creation of the Bachelor of Arts in Computer
Science, Bachelor of Science in both Computer Science and Engineering,
the Masters of Computer Engineering, and the Ph.D. in Computer Science.
He serves as the Undergraduate Coordinator and teaches many of the
beginning courses for the department. He has taught over 10,000 students
during his career.
Dr. Kathleen Swigger was recognized for her 25 years of service in the
CSE department. In 2003, Dr. Swigger was appointed Associate Dean of
Research for the newly formed College of Engineering. She still teaches
at least one course each semester in her area of research. This
semester she is teaching a graduate class in Computer Human Interfaces.
Dr. Tom Jacob received a plaque recognizing his 20 years at UNT. Dr.
Jacob came to the department in 1985 and served as Chair from 1997 to
2001. He is currently teaching an undergraduate course in Program
Development and an Operating System Design course for graduate students.
Pam Vincent is the undergraduate secretary for the department. She
received a glass plaque commemorating her 15 years of loyal service to
UNT. Pam handles all undergraduate student affairs and coordinates the
activities of the front office.
Please congratulate these faculty and staff members and thank them for
their service to our department! ↑
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Other Faculty News |
Robert Akl, Assistant Professor, presented the paper entitled "Capacity
Allocation in Multi-cell UMTS Networks for Different Spreading Factors
with Perfect and Imperfect Power Control" at the IEEE CCNC 2006:
Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, in Las Vegas, NV, in
January.
David Keathly, CSE Lecturer, presented a paper entitled "Setting Student
Expectations with a Majors-Only Programming Course" at the TWD Best
Practices Conference sponsored by the TETC and the Texas Coordinating
Board for Higher Education at SMU in January 2006.
Keathly was also recently selected as the Region 5 Chapter Activities
Board Coordinator for the IEEE Computer Society. Region 5 included
student and professional Computer Society chapters in Texas, Oklahoma,
Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and portions of New
Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
Saraju P. Mohanty, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, presented his latest
research finding as two papers recently at the 19th IEEE international
conference on VLSI Design in Hyderabad, India in January 3-7, 2006. The
two papers are titled, "Modeling and Reduction of Gate Leakage during
Behavioral Synthesis of NanoCMOS Circuits" and "A High-Performance VLSI
Architecture for Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Algorithm."
Dr. Mohanty chaired a session at the 8th International Conference on
Information Technology (ICIT) 2005, held at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa,
December 20-23, 2005 hosted by Orissa Information Technology Society
(OITS). He will be the program chair of the next year CIT conference
(CIT 2006) to be held December 18-21, 2006 in Bhubaneswar. Dr. Mohanty
is a donor member of OITS, which is aggressively engaged in various
activities for the growth of IT (Information Technology) in Orissa.
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College of Engineering News |
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National Engineers Week 2006 to be held at Research Park
February 20-24 |
Please help get the word out about Engineering Week to recruit students
and promote the college. There are many exciting events taking place
including guest speakers, contests, open houses, free food, and much
more.
On Tuesday, February 21, TopCoder will be hosted by the Department of
Computer Science and Engineering at Research Park. On Wednesday,
February 22, the College of Engineering will host a free buffet lunch
for students, faculty, and alumni in the lobby of the College.
The College of Engineering will sponsor a career fair on Thursday,
February 23. Companies that are scheduled to attend include Dal-Tile
Corporation, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Frito Lay,
Raytheon and many more. For more details on the career fair, please see
http://web2.unt.edu/ceo/events/2006/careerfair.php.
Industry, government, and educational institutions, along with invited
faculty and students, will participate in an Environmental Scan of
Technology on Friday, February 24. The purpose will be to discuss how
the requirements for engineering education have changed and how the
College of Engineering must proceed in the future to meet the needs of
business and industry.
The ACM and IEEE Computer Society are planning to sponsor contests and
other activities. For an updated schedule of events, please check the
E-week information page at http://www.cs.unt.edu/~garlick/eweek.htm.
More details will be added daily. ↑
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Scholarship Applications Due March 6 |
The UNT College of Engineering awards scholarships to qualified students
who major in engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and
engineering technology. Scholarships are available to incoming
freshmen, transfer students, current undergraduate students, and
graduate students.
Current undergraduate students must:
- Be accepted as a full-time student in an Engineering program at UNT.
- Have a minimum UNT cumulative grade point average of 3.2 (on a 4.0 scale).
- Be in good standing at the University.
Scholarship awards to graduate students will be decided on the following criteria:
- GPA.
- GRE.
- Degree sought.
- Area of concentration (i.e., is this a research area that the faculty
is involved in).
- Letters of recommendation.
Interested students must submit an application by March 1, 2006. For
more details about these College of Engineering scholarships, please see
THESE
scholarship guidelines. ↑
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The CSE Student Email Newsletter was assembled and produced by
Genene Murphy and Don Retzlaff. It is a publication of the
UNT Computer Science and Engineering Department. Contact the department
at newsletter@cse.unt.edu.
http://www.cse.unt.edu UNT
Computer Science and Engineering Department - February 2006
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