The Countdown (with apologies to Keith Olbermann)

We're "down to the wire" as exams get under way and the semester ends. Today we had the Holiday Party at the 163 William Street campus. Thanks to Jonathan, Freddy, and everyone who worked to put the event together. It was a nice way for all of us (staff, faculty, students and some of our colleagues in the non-profits with which we work ) to get together and play "guitar hero" and eat lots of food.

I attended the NYC SIM Holiday dinner on Monday evening, where the person who registered me took one look at my face and said (more or less) "I thought that was you-you taught me data base in 1993." Pasquale Cirullo graduated with an MS in IS in the early 1990's and I haven't seen him since. He's now a Senior Vice President at Grey Advertising and active in the NYC SIM Chapter. I hope to see more of him. Later in the evening another SIM member recognized me as her data base professor, and now Marianne Mulvihill-Galvin and I are connected on LinkedIn.

I also attended the Fairfield-Westchester SIM Holiday Dinner last night, where I sat next to Ken Zimmerman, President of Chateaux Software and discussed the three schema database model and the advantages of beginning design with a conceptual model, and how that alligns with Zachman's framework (really-that's what we talked about!) so this has been a week of work by day and attend professional association dinners at night.

I met with both the Westchester and New York faculty and staff members to discuss my conversations with Geoff, my reorganization plans and what I've learned so far from my lunches with faculty.

I presented two different proposals for reorganizing the academic side of the school: 1) by discipline, which would be computer science and information technology (information technology would consist of a merger of the technology systems and information systems faculty), with one chair for each discipline across campuses or 2) by location, which would be Westchester and New York. An alternative would be to have one campus house computer science, and the other campus to house information technology. I was encouraged when a faculty colleague basically said, either one will work, chose one and let's get on with it!

You can comment on these ideas here or in an email, however you are most comfortable.

I plan to circulate a discussion draft of a document outlining the reorganization right after Christmas, and to continue the discussion during the early part of the Spring semester, with a reorganization announced in March to be implemented by Fall 2009.

Unfortunately I couldn't attend the luncheon honoring faculty members with 20 and 30 years of service to the University. Mary Courtney, Bonnie Gartner were recognized for 30 years of service and Marie Iadavaia was recognized for 20 years of service. Congratulations to you!

Don't forget the Annual Awards Ceremonies held in Pleasantville on Tuesday, New York on Thursday and at the Graduate Center on Friday of next week. I'll be attending those; I'll be in New York on Monday and at the Graduate Center on Wednesday for the CLOUT Closing Ceremonies.

I hope to see you at one of the Annual Awards Ceremonies, or on one of the campuses next week. I wish all of us a wonderful holiday season, which for me begins on Sunday evening, December 22, which is the first night of Channukah, and ends sometime right after New Year's Day.

I wish us all a happy holiday and a peaceful New Year.