Save Tulane Engineering

TwoEven · Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 26

The PR machine churns out another one sided story:
Tulane was just given a new supercomputer.

http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=6355

Good thing we have, wait no, we DON'T have computer scientists...
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Malcolm Hutson
Computer Science 07

wclarkson · Site Admin Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Posts: 38

This just shows what happens when you treat Tulane as a business. There went the Tulane we all knew and loved.

Tulane just cut off both of its arms to save the body (according to S. Cowen) , but then went out and bought a wrist watch. What kind of logic is Tulane using to justify such an expense. I thought we were in financial exigency. This is ridiculous.

Oh, and by the way. I think Ducky Reiss would have been livid at the thought of eliminating the engineering department.

ih8scottcowen · Joined: 09 Jan 2006 Posts: 36 Location: New Orleans, LA

i'll be you guys a dollar i can hack in there faster than you.....any takers? Wink

"don't get mad, get even"

phmccain · Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Cincinnati OH

Latin American studies........
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B.S. Chemical Engineering
Tulane Class of 1980

lob · Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 17 Location: New Orleans, LA

For Ducky's debut, LSU sent their "director of the Center for Computation and Technology". The State sent the Commissioner of Higher Education. Tulane is represented by two people, neither of whom are "Tulane scientists", both of whom are liasons for "external affairs". This says something about how each of the institutions represented views itself.

"The future of university research in Louisiana--and the kind of economic development that can accrue as a result--looks bright indeed" said the State Commissioner. Might that future include research projects that bear directly on issues brought forward by Katrina, such as coastal erosion, soil mechanics, or fluid mechanics? If so, Tulane's role would be limited to providing access to Ducky for other institutions--make that "world-class" access.

An "interim chief information officer" had a comment, which made me wonder what kind of qualifications the CIO organization at Tulane will be looking for to manage and develop its information infrastructure.
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W. Stuart Lob
BSME 1982, MSME 1984

perturbed1 · Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 87

Yes I have been curious why we have an interim CIO who is a law school professor with seemingly zero background in IT.

Most the schools IT systems are still using ssn's as identifiers and none of the databases can talk to each other and of course we saw what there disaster recovery plan consisted of last Fall so there ought to be plenty of work for whichever LSU and UNO grads they have to hire Smile

TheCzar35 · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 55 Location: New Orleans, La

Tulane has gone mad. The first they announce that the will be sponsoring the Tulane Engineering Forum in June with the theme of "Costal Engineering", but they are cutting CE and all the other fields related to this issue and now they buy and IBM P5 Supercomputer and they are cutting the very department that could give them future Tulane educated IT employees along with the technical support for such a system.

cleeland · Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 6

perturbed1 · Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 87

I am afraid you are right cleeland. Bur my question - "Is it when the ssn's are misappropriated or because the ssn's have been misappropriated?"

Whatever. It is pretty clear that Scott's main criteria when filling administrative slots is absolute loayalty. If he pulls up short there could be 30 broken noses at Tulane. I guess he is not unusual in that regarde but the draw back for any leader who operates that way is he lives in a closed loop. Even his bad ideas get applauded.