🚀 go-pugleaf

Here are some of my concerns... 

Owen Hertzman (hertzman@Atm.Dal.Ca) wrote:

: 1)  It seems to me that if a merger takes place, students from both 
: campuses should be encouraged to take classes at both places (and 
: adequate transportation should be provided so this can happen).

	How do you adequately transport students from one HUGE campus, to
another campus downtown in the 10 minutes we have for class changes?  Don't
forget about Profs who can't tell time (we've all had'em), traffic jams, and
Nova Scotia's weather.  Who pays for this transportation?  Could it ever be
efficient enough that students would CHOOSE to use it?

: 2)  It has always been my contention that many CS students benefit from 
: adressing practical problems (whether in Engineering or in the Physical, 
: Chemical, Biological or other sciences).  A merger should help with this.

	Not only in the other sciences, but in all Arts, Sciences and
others.  Computer Scientists increasingly need to understand the other
worlds of academia, and industry.  Neural Networks came about through work
with Psychology... All my relevant employment to date has involved finding
out what I need to know from a non-techie, in THEIR language, and only then
applying my computer skills.  
	Isolating CS from it's natural companions (those mentioned, plus
Math) by both Faculty and Geography doesn't seem reasonable.

: 3)  On the flip side, it strikes me (a someone who took on anEngineering 
: degree on a campus with many other sstudents) that the benefits to the 
: TUNS students in coming to the main DAL/KINGS campus during their 
: engineering programs, for electives and/or for social interaction, will 
: be very beneficial.

	Again... the geography is an isolation problem.  How do you convince
students from a "Downtown Campus" to come up to Dal/Kings?  Or vice versa?
Who wants to spend their time running between classes and dealing with our
weather?

: I have certain reservations about the merger process, especially 
: regarding total computing related resource allocation.  However, I think 
: those issues will be fought out by those mainly inovlved.

	Which is another problem I have... resource allocation is the least
of my worries, but your hope that those issues will be fought out by those
mainly involved seems, hmmm... VERY optomistic considering how we were
informed and asked to be involved in the process to date.


My concerns are then:
1: Geographical isolation (from the others arts and sciences, and the campus)
2: Administrative isolation (from the other arts and sciences)
3: Academic questions (will Dal offer a B of Computer/ing Science. BSc in
CS?, how do you do combined degrees, double majors, concurrent degrees? what
will the courses look like?  Do we maintain the full flight of courses
offered at TUNS and Dal - merging only those that are similar?  Does the
mathmatical end of computing get cut for a more practical/technology flow?)

My hopes are:
1: A good prof/student ration
2: Closer association with both Academia and Industry 
3: A Coop program which can offer spring/summer classes
4: A enhanced program offering an increased range of classes
5: Greater resources, with better accessibility

That's all for now!
-Marni
--
Marni Tuttle | tuttle@ug.cs.dal.ca | Look! http://www.ug.cs.dal.ca/~tuttle/ 
'95/96 President of DSCSS | Dal Grad '96 | BA English | BSc Computing Science
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown