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April 25th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda TAMPA, Fla. — The University of Florida announced this past week it will drop its computer sciences department, giving the school an extra $1.7 million jingling in its pockets. This cut means elimination for all graduate and research programs and all teaching assistant positions.
The department includes approximately 610 bachelor students, 400 master’s students, 130 PhD candidates, and 32 tenure-track faculty members. The dean of engineering, Dr. Cammy Abernathy, proposed a budget cut of 20 percent, and suggested students currently in the department would be moved to a hardware department and should expect to receive a software degree. The 20 percent cut makes up about 2 percent of the college’s budget.
Carl de Boor, a professor in the department, wrote short letter to the university’s president: “I have just learned that your school of engineering is in the process of dismantling a research department with national standing, developed and nurtured over many years, that brings in over 1M* [* the actual figure is closer to $5M] per year in research money and whose subject and results are absolutely vital to modern engineering, disrupting the careers of good people and interrupting, perhaps critically, the training of future professionals. What were you thinking?”
UF students have already created a website in hopes of saving the department. The online petition brought in more than 1,500 signatures in less than 24 hours. Students have received support from many, including Dr. Zvi Galil, the current dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, and Dr. Peter Freeman, the founding dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and former Assistant Director of NSF for Computer Information Science Engineering, as well as Eric Hanson, a senior manager at Microsoft.
Jacob Covington, a freshman at UF, is currently an electrical engineering major, with the hopes of becoming a computer science minor, but with this proposal, that won’t be possible.
“It’s not affecting me personally, but anyone that has to leave the [computer science] department will be moved into the electrical engineering department, so it affects my classes. The students who want to focus on computer science have to work it in with electrical engineering now,” Covington said.
Where the leftover funds will end up in the question left in everyone’s mind. Many look to the athletic department, which just this year took in about $99 million, an increase of more than $2 million from last year.
Abernathy has extended the comment deadline on the proposal to May 7. Until then, students say they plan on doing all they can to fight the proposal, including a march and rally with United Faculty of Florida (UFF).
The online petition has more than 7,000 signatures; the students’ goal is 7,500.
“It’s not a university issue, it’s a government issue,” Covington said. “We’re losing millions of dollars every year and now its effecting a large group of students.”
For more information and up-to-date coverage, visit saveufcise.wordpress.com.
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