Abstract:

Serving as a Department Chair requires managing a broad range of day-to-day activities while maintaining a focus on long-range goals and planning. I will discuss my approaches to ensuring a positive work and educational environment for faculty, students, and staff, as well as targeting continued excellence and growth for the future of computing. In my talk I will describe my approach to leading and growing a successful Computer Science Department, both day-to-day and longer-term. For faculty this ranges from faculty hiring, tenure, and promotion to the running of faculty meetings. For students it includes major and non-major curricula, student advising, and department activities. For staff it includes thoughtful performance assessment and encouraging personal and professional growth. Most fundamentally, however, the job is about Computer Science, and I will attempt to share my sense of "taste" in CS - What makes good work in CS, and what are some key intellectual challenges that we face? By the end of my talk I hope you will leave with a better sense of what a department under my leadership would feel like, and more generally, a better sense of what makes me "tick" as a scholar, teacher, and administrator.