Annual Report 2005

SEIDENBERG SCHOOL OF
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Annual Report 2005

INTRODUCTION

2005 was another busy year for CSIS. The most exciting event - the biggest in the school's history - occurred in September when the Pace University trustees renamed the school the Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems , honoring Ivan G. Seidenberg, the chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications, Inc. who made a $15 million gift to help endow the school. His donation represents his long-standing commitment to Pace's mission of providing opportunity for students. Part of the new gift will create a new Seidenberg Scholars program, making it possible to recruit the brightest students and finest scholars in the country. The remainder of the gift will be used to advance faculty research and fund new initiatives.

In 2005, Julia Khan Nomee (Technology Systems) and Darren Hayes (CIS Coordinator) joined the faculty while Dr. Dietrich Fischer left to serve as the academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies. Undergraduates became increasingly involved in community service activities while graduate students presented more papers at professional conferences than ever before and had them published in numerous proceedings and professional journals. The MS in Information Systems and the MS in Internet Technology were revised to reflect the evolution of subspecialties in their domains and a new online AS in Applied Information Technologies: Telecommunications Networking was introduced. The innovative DPS in Computing marked its 5th anniversary.

The dean was appointed national Commissioner, Computing Accreditation Commission, ABET, Inc., the national organization for the accreditation of computing, engineering and applied science programs. Faculty brought in nearly $500k in grant money/equipment including an IBM Blade Center , a sophisticated piece of hardware that supports high performance, server-side computing. The Pace Computer Learning Center rebounded with new offerings such as those in Project Management. Both the CLOUT program and NACTEL, with its baccalaureate students and new associate's degree program, continued to thrive.

Three major events filled the CSIS calendar in the spring. Once again the school hosted the Lower Hudson FIRST LEGO League Tournament, a robotics competition for 9-14 year-olds, in Pleasantville while the Trendsetters Conference on Nontraditional Careers for Girls drew more than 600 participants to the New York City campus. The annual Leadership and Service in Technology Award Reception, the school's major fund raising event, marked its 10th year by honoring Shaygan Kheradpir, CIO of Verizon Communications, and raising $143k in support of the CSIS Endowed Scholarship Fund.