CoC creates two schools

The College of Computing recently announced that it would be splitting into two different schools both under the original college umbrella. There will now be a School of Computer Science and a School of Interactive Computing. It was determined that the continuing growth of the program and its research facilitated a change at this time.

Dean Ellen Zagura, the head of the School of Computer Science, said "The College of Computing was created with the intention that at some point it would contain schools."

The College of Computing, which was created in 1991, has always operated under the idea that they would follow the traditional route of creating multiple schools within a given college.

"That was part of the vision from when the College of Computing was created," Zagura said.

However, the current point in time was one of the primary motivators for the college.

"The primary motivator is to recognize that the College of Computing and computing as a field has grown to the point that it makes sense to divide it up into separate intellectual disciplines," Zagura said.

Each school will deal with a different aspect of the field of computing. Zagura notes the differences between each side.

"The School of Computer Science contains the roots of computing. Areas like computer theory and computer systems with a broad definition." She said. She went on to say "Interactive computing has a focus on the ways in which computing interacts with the rest of the world. That encompasses human computer interaction, graphics, and robotics," Zagura said.

Zagura goes on to comment on how this will affect the day to day activities of the college. "I don't think it will change on a pragmatic level. Students will still take classes with the same sorts of professors they were taking classes with before."

The main focus of the split is the graduate student population. Zagura states that the reason for this is because of the nature of most of the emerging degree programs. "The new degree programs that come through the schools are most likely to be graduate degree programs," she said.

According to Zagura, graduates would be more likely to be effected on a day to day basis than undergraduates by the formation of two schools. She says that this is because of the Threads Program.

Zagura said "We want the undergraduates to be affected by the Threads Program. The Threads Program is the big deal with respect to the undergraduate experience." She goes on to say that Threads was a significant redesign of the undergraduate program.

Despite the fact that undergraduates are not affected by the split they are still exposed to both schools within the college due to the threads program. However, she did say that undergraduates will be exposed to the split through undergraduate research and symposiums. In addition she also points out the Computational Media major offered by the college.

"The Computational Media degree program is going to be housed in the School of Interactive Computing and LCC. So those undergraduates will feel their home as the School of Interactive Computing," Zagura said.