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.