🚀 go-pugleaf

Just wanted to add a bit more TUNS perspective to this thread.

The prospect of a merger with Dal has some interesting aspects for
students at both Universities.

Dal students should be concerned about losing access to other faculties,
and it sounds like you are doing a good job of voicing those concerns.

Aside from the very real concern of location, remember however, that you also 
gain access to an excellent Electrical Enginneering department as well as a 
fairly active grad level program in CS.

The TUNS degree is not so tilted towards applied  study as some seem to 
believe.  There is a fair portion of theoretical study. The mixture of the 
two departments would hopefully increase the level of study in terms of 
both applied and theoretical.  Hopefully to a level higher than either can 
provide currently.

From my perspective:
As a result of this merger I would look forward to access to a much broader
range of courses in fields outside of CS, as well as a larger faculty in CS.

I am concerned about our co-op office.  I hope that it could survive any 
potential merger relatively unscathed.

The concern about resources is a bit unfounded I believe.  I don't believe
Dal would lose, and it might even gain in its level of resources 
overall.  I think TUNS students could have the same concern.  Especially
is regards to control over our resources.  That is one of many issues that 
will have to be worked out once the Presidents set up the basic structure.

In some ways I feel a bit miffed about so much of these talks occuring behind
closed doors.  However, I fully recognize that this is probably the only way
this merger will ever get done.

Regarding the issue of physical isolation, I feel that this would have happened
eventually.  Over the past few years it has been getting increasingly easier
to transfer credits between the Universities.  Students have already been
managing to take courses between campuses.  The issue to me isn't distance.
It is having one registrars office which makes up an intelligent time table.

I must say that I haven't been a huge fan of the TUNS administration overall,
but I am very concerned about the administration after a merger. There are 
some aspects of being part of a larger University that aren't appealing.
I think the positive aspects are worth it however.  The students and faculty
at both Universities should begin talking amongst themselves and to each other
about what they want as an end result.  Once the high level organization
is hammered out (and I think we should be left out of that) we will hopefully
have our chance to influence the final shape of the resulting programs. 

The general feeling at TUNS (that I have picked up) is that the CS people
generally think it is a good idea if done right. I have heard that Engineering
is generally not pleased. Though I don't know how true that is (anybody
else wish to say anything on this matter).  I haven't heard anything from
the Architecture crowd.

J. Keast is right that we should share info as much as possible.  Also, the 
earlier the serious concerns of students at either U. are raised the better.
Have the student societies of the two departments talked at all yet?
Would this be useful? 

Anyways.. I guess we live in interesting times.

-Paul Evans
4th year TUNS Computer Science student.