Software practitioners as full-time faculty

Over the years, we have hired, as part-time faculty, software professionals from the local industry to teach some of our courses, especially the ones that have a focus on practical issues, or deal with tools and techniques used in industry, or have a focus on large design/implementation projects modeled on ones that our students might be expected to work on following their graduation. Recently, the College of Engineering introduced a new faculty track, the clinical-track, intended for individuals whose primary interests are in such matters as industrial practice and standards, rather than mainly academic research. The intent is to allow the hiring of well-qualified individuals, i.e., people with terminal degrees in Computer Science and Engineering, who have a strong interest in teaching, who have a primary interest in computing practice rather than pure research, and who have several years of industrial experience. Such individuals would, because of their special insight into the techniques, tools, and topics that will be of particular interest to industry in the next few years, make an important contribution towards preparing our students for employment following graduation from our program. The clinical-track allows us to attract such individuals to our faculty.

We have already hired one person for this track and, as the opportunity arises, will consider hiring additional clinical-track faculty in the future. More accurately, some administrative steps have to be still completed before the clinical-track is formally in place. But the individual in question has been hired and has been working since Autumn 2004 on a ``visiting appointment''; he will be moved to the clinical-track once the administrative steps are completed. During 2004-'05, this individual has been actively involved in various courses in the program, especially those that concern computing practice including a capstone design course.

We also continue to hire, on a part-time basis, practicing software engineers from local industry to help in teaching some courses that have a heavy practical component to them. All such courses have a full-time faculty member as coordinator.