Carnegie News Briefs

Strategic Vision process

The Sept. 3 investiture ceremony launched the strategic planning process with more than 700 students, faculty, staff and alumni joining discussion groups that helped shape the nine focus areas. Since that time, facilitators Steve Cross, Chet Warzynski and Bill Rouse have met with other groups including the Georgia Tech Advisory Board and the Parents Advisory Board to broaden input and generate “big ideas” as to what Georgia Tech should look like 25 years from now on its 150th anniversary.

The original nine topics will be reduced to seven with the combination of the two research topics and the two education topics. Subcommittee co-chairs are conducting meetings during the next six weeks to shape the content of their first draft, which will be due in December.

Breakfast with President Peterson

President Bud Peterson began hosting small groups of faculty, staff and students for breakfast in his office one or two times per month. Each breakfast will be an informal, unstructured time when the president can meet and engage in conversation with people from all areas of campus. Administrative leaders were asked to suggest faculty, staff and students to form a pool of potential guests.

High-performance computing

Tech is implementing a transparent, collaborative and faculty-centric governance model for acquiring, managing and supporting high-performance computing resources used for a fast-growing portfolio of scientific research. Over the past 18 months, a group of faculty representing multiple colleges has worked to create a framework for hosting, allocation and support that will conserve campus resources.

Implementation is currently under way with replacement of a large resource hosted in an off-campus site, and will continue with expanded capacity in the Rich Computer Center. In addition, the model provides for a smaller facility dedicated to investigating and supporting next-generation heterogeneous architectures for computing. For information, contact Ron Hutchins in OIT.

ARRA update

Program sponsors have awarded more than $20 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to Tech, with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) providing the majority of funding. Among the programs funded, topic areas range from research fellowships and global education to devising new research instrumentation and CAREER awards.

To date, the largest award received is $2.5 million from the NSF. This award, for “Operation Reboot,” is an effort in the College of Computing seeking to transform a preliminary group of 30 IT workers in Georgia into high school computing teachers.

Provost’s retreat

On Oct. 5, several academic administrators, faculty and students attended the annual Office of the Provost Retreat. The theme of the retreat was “Understanding the Academic Experiences of our Undergraduate Students.”

The day focused on three main topics: Student Experience Studies, Grade Analysis and Academic Integrity. The presentations and lively conversations that day initiated what will be a continuing campus discussion of these topics­—follow-up actions will be announced shortly.

Dean searches

The Ivan Allen College dean search committee has been working with a search firm to build a pool of candidates. They will be meeting in late October to begin reviewing applications and nominations. More information is available at
www.iac.gatech.edu.

The College of Computing dean search committee is collaborating with senior faculty to identify potential candidates for the position of Dean of the College of Computing. More information about the search is available at www.cc.gatech.edu.

As part of an ongoing effort for enhanced communication by the Office of the President, Office of the Provost and Office of the Executive Vice President for Administration and Finance, this feature provides a brief snapshot of issues and projects of interest to the campus community.

Carnegie News Briefs will be published monthly in The Whistle. Questions can be directed to Jennifer Herazy.