January-February 1995

This past month has been a sad one in the department. On December 15, 1994, Gary Latimer, Barb's husband of thirty years, died of a heart attack while playing basketball.

On January 23, 1995, Dr. Maury Eggen's father passed away in his sleep. He was 83 years old.

The Department of Computer Science and all the friends of both Barb and Dr. Eggen extend their sincerest condolences to the bereaved.

<<DEPARMENT>>

<<NEWS>>

<Disregard the following message if you (a) are reading this via email or (b) do not have access to email.> If the deparmtent does not have your email address, you risk missing out on department news, info, jokes, and other interesting tidbits. You have been warned. This notice, should you choose to heed it, instructs you to send Barb (blatimer@trinity.edu) a short note containing your current email address. Good luck. This newsletter will self-destruct in two minutes.

We still have a significant amount of grant money to spend, so this month, the department will begin benchmark testing new equipment. Dr. Pitts and Dr. Howland conferred and decided that the new machines must be powerful, fast processors with 3-D graphics capability. Also, some of the money will go towards purchasing new Head-Mounted Displays. (No good buying excellent equipment if you can't see the results.) Faculty and students will get a chance to test several computers, starting with the Hewlett-Packard 735/125, a high end processor with a built-in Z-buffer and graphics piping capability. Several people have accounts on this machine now, but have yet to render judgment. Among the other machines to be tested are Silicon Graphic and SUN graphics engines.

The Council on Undergraduate Research has accepted Trinity's bid for membership. The research done in the Department of Computer Science now appears in CUR's national database, which collects information on the research process itself as well as the results. Trinity can compare its program to other undergraduate research programs in the country. In addition, Dr. Pitts has been granted an individual recognition in CUR, as the chair of the department and the principle investigator in the research program.

January 25, 1995 saw the year's first ORGANIZED meeting of computer sicence majors, minors, and interested students. Forty-five people crammed into a classroom to share food and conversation. Over plates of fried chicken, potato salad, and other munchies, Dr. Pitts discossed research and thesis options, graduate schools, fellowships, and employment. The meeting was a success and the food was so good that several people wished for a meeting every week.

Speaking of graduation, the number of eligible graduates in this department is the largest in several years. Twenty-one seniors ar eligible to graduate in May with a degree in Computer Science. Some are double majors who will remain at the university for additional semesters, but with (about) 21 graduating seniors, the anticipation is about to choke everyone.

In addition to the Charles Babbage Award for academic excellence, the department has established a new award for graduating seniors. The Turing Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research will be given to the student who has shown the most innovation, drive, and excellence in their research project. The department will announce the names of the recipientsof the Turing Award and the Charles Babbage Award at the Honors Convocation later this semester.

The Deparment's Job Announcment Bulletin Board is full and has spilled onto the wall. Dr. Pitts would like to take this opportunity to remark that when he recieved his Ph.D in 1971, his starting salary was $13000 annual. Today, Bachelor of Science graduates from Computer Science at Trinity now have starting salaries between low $30K and low $40K (which is only slightly less than what he makes today). No, he's not bitter. Really.

<<FACULTY>>

<<NEWS>>

Dr. Howland's appeal to the Committee on Promotion and Tenure was one of the strongest ones ever sent to the Committee, with approximately 25 letters from alumni in his support. On January 30, Dr. Pitts and Dr. Howland recieved a confirmation letter from the Committee. Congratulations to Dr. John Howland, now Full Professor of Computer Science at Trinity University. Dr. Howland, Dr. Pitts, and the remainder of the department would like to personally thank all the alumni who took the time to send their letter of support. Without their testimony, this appeal might not have been successful.

The Dr. and Mrs. Z. T. Scott Faculty Award recognizes an outstanding faculty member based on excellence in teaching, research, and other contributions to the Trinity experience. Dr. Howland is nominating Dr. Gerald Pitts for the Scott Faculty Fellowship. If you agree with Dr. Howland that Dr. Pitts deserves this award, please join him with you letter of nomination of Dr. Pitts for the Scott Award. Your letter should be addressed to Dr. Charles White, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and should include your personal experiences with Dr. Pitts' teaching, research, advising, etc. Please send or email your letter to Barbara Latimer here in the Deparmtent of Computer Science.

Dr. Pitts has had three publications since the last newsletter. In December of last year, the Conference Proceedings of the WNNSNN published his paper, "Education: The New Role for Virtual Reality." Also, the SCS Simulation Multiconference will take place in April in Phoenix, Arizona, where Dr. Pitts will contribute two papers. The first is entitled "Virtual Reality: Triage Training Extraordinaire," and the second one, co-authored with student Scott Swank, is entitled "Extended Immersion in Virtual Modeling Through Sound Packaging."

The CSCI department will make a good showing at the Small College Computing Conference. Dr. Eggen, Dr. Hicks and Dr. Howland all had papers accepted to the conference. Dr. Eggen's paper is titled "Teaching Numerical Methods Using Scheme"; Dr. Hicks wrote "The Role of Object-Oriented Paradigm in the Undergraduate Curricula," and Dr. Howland Titled his paper "A Laboratory Computer Science Course for Liberal Arts Students." The conference will be held in Shreveport, Louisiana in April.

Addittionally, Dr. Hicks will be teaching several seminars at the Texas Computing Education Association Conference on February 9, 1995.

<<STUDENT >>
<<NEWS>>

Professors are not the only ones who publish. This semester, eleven students are seeing their work appear in several conferences. Nine students have submitted papers to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Brita Munsinger, Scott Walnum, Scott Swank, Scott Francis, ScottMcCaskill, (anybody else see a pattern here?) Michael Rankin, along with Morgan Orceyre, Greg Gerard, and Mark Lewis are awaiting acceptance notification from the conference. The Small College Computing Conference is reviewing an abstract sent by Pat McGonigle. Congratulations to all those who are seeing their hard work rewarded.

Hard work is rewarded in other ways as well. Brita Munsinger has received a fellowship award which gives her full tuition and stipend to one of a numbe rof graduate programs. Lisa Breytspraak has moved up from a part-time job with Anderson Consulting to a full-time management position. Jim Smelley has received an excellent job offer pending graduation, but I seem to corner him long enough to ask him about it...

Barb's "Clinton Clock"

is still screwing up non-CSCI students. Its hands and numbers are backwards, so anyone not used to dealing with the bass-ackwards way computers operate is completely lost when they try to read the time.

Written andproduced by

Ashley Smith

"Red meat is not bad for you. It's the furry, blue-green meat that is bad for you."