The Debugger Summer 2000

Table of Contents

Editor's Notes

From the Chair - Dr. Gary L. Buterbaugh

Carol's Corner - Carol Miller

News from Tompkins Lab - Joseph Shyrock

New Faculty? Yes and No - Therese D. O'Neil

The Times They are A Changing? - Charley Shubra

Voice of the Alumni - Jim Wolfe

May 2000 Graduation

Computer Science faculty

EDITOR'S NOTES

You will notice a couple of new things in this issue. One has to do with Carol's Corner. Because Carol so frequently gets information about job openings from alumni (and also sometimes gets information about alumni who are looking for a job), it seemed like a good idea to highlight this information in some way. We have been highlighting alumni names by making them bold for some time. The job information is now being highlighted by putting it in italics. We imagine that many of you scan over Carol's Corner looking for the names of people you know, to find out about the latest events in their lives; the bold probably helps. In a similar way, you should now be able to scan over Carol's Corner and pick out the job related information, if you are looking for a job or are looking for someone for fill a job you have.

The second change is scattered throughout the issue and is not yet complete. We have started putting thumbnail portraits of the people who write the articles in with their words. This action should make it easy for you to visualize who the writers are. But, this practice is not yet complete; we have not yet acquired portraits of Joe Shyrock and Charley Shubra - some people are a little camera shy.

In addition to the standard articles in this issue, we have an article by Charley Shubra about a new direction in our ever-evloving curriculum. We have a self-introductory article from Tess O'Neil. Tess has been a temporary faculty here for a long time, teaching the COSC 101 course - so many of the alumni may not know her. As of this Fall, Tess becomes a permanent faculty member. We also have an article that follows up on last Spring's survey, the one that ask you if you had any opinion about the possibility of Computer Science moving to the College of Business and Technology. This is a report on the alumni responses and a short explanation of what the basic issues are (and what they are not) regarding such a move.

Jim Wolfe, Editor

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Gary Buterbaugh's picture From the Chair
Dr. Gary Buterbaugh

This article is for ALUMNI! If you have graduated from the Computer Science Department and have wanted to give something back to your department, read on. No, you will not be asked for money!

For about twenty years now, the Computer Science Department has been offering a course in Software Engineering. Most of you will remember it as CO 319 - it will change to COSC 319 this fall as we go to a new university-wide course registration system. Dr. Shubra introduced this course and several of our faculty have taught it over the years. The opportunity to teach this course has never been mine, but because of a set of circumstances, that will change this fall. One important component of this course is that it is "Writing Intensive" and requires that the student do a significant amount of writing and that the faculty member teaching the course give a significant amount of feed back. In the past the professors have given students an opportunity to do one or two rewrites, have had the students use the university's Writing Center (including the On-line Writing Center), and have had the students use Peer Reviews. For this fall semester, I would like to add an "Alumni Review" component. This is where your help is being solicited.

So the search is on for alumni who are willing to work with one of the students in COSC 319, read his or her paper(s) (depending on how many alumni we get to participate), and provide feedback. This should only take about twenty minutes to half an hour per paper for this type of review. Although guidelines would be provided and I would be available for help and questions by e-mail; many of you might be better at giving feedback than I would be. Most of you have done significantly more writing than you had expected to do; and your writing skills have probably increased dramatically. In addition, many of you are use to the type of feedback that managers, supervisors and project leaders give you personally on your writing. Therefore, you could provide really valuable feedback; and it would cost you little in time and energy.

You also might really enjoy the topics on which the students will be writing papers. They are:

Serious failures of software development projects in the past decade including the extent of the failure and the reasons for the failure.

Computer crime, its impact, types of crime, prevention, and software design to protect against.

The future of Software Engineering (AI, Capability Maturity Model,
Cleanroom Techniques, Extreme Programming, Formal Methods, Immigration and the shortage of Software Engineering Professionals, Stabilize and Synch (Microsoft's approach), SWE Ethics, and SWE Licensing).

Ideally it would be good to get one alumnus for each paper, but that would mean that about seventy alumni would need to be involved. So I would settle for the involvement of twenty-four or five, one for each student. We can use e-mail, or faxing if necessary, to get information to you and from you.

If you would like to be involved with this project or if you have questions about the project, please contact me by e-mail at glbuter@grove.iup.edu or phone me at 724-357-3000. Your interest and help will be greatly appreciated!

We Want To See You!(and give you the opportunity

to see us and your fellow alumni)Join Us For

A Homecoming
Alumni Breakfast

Saturday, October 14, 2000
Third Floor Stright Hall
8:30 am until 11:00 am
It's free !!!

You must make a reservation
by Wednesday, October 11

Call Carol at 724 357-2524 Or

E-mail her at camiller@grove.iup.edu

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Carol Miller's picture Carol's Corner
Carol Miller

Happy End of the Summer Everyone

I hope everyone is having as nice a summer as we are here in Indiana. This has been the most comfortable summer we've had in years; and you won't hear any complaints from me. If every summer could be like this, I just might stay here.

We are sad to be saying goodbye to Ralph Grove. He is moving to Virginia to teach at James Mason University. Before he left, it took a little time off to get married. He and Nuray had a beautiful wedding on July 30. They left for Virginia on August 1. Mary Micco spent a month in Australia and is now in the Bronx, New York, working with the disadvantaged children. She should return on August 20. John Cross spent a couple weeks in England with Peter Martin who taught here for a semester. Jim Wolfe traveled to San Francisco and areas west. Tia Watts took a trip to South Carolina and then went camping out west for two weeks. Gary Buterbaugh is planning a trip to California when Summer II is over. I think that's about the extent of the traveling here within the department.

Now, before I get to the new news, there is some old news I need to share. In the Spring issue, I forgot to mention the Christmas cards we got, and I certainly don't want to forget them. They were chock full of news and really nice pictures.

Brian (5/93) and Mindi Lawton sent greetings along with a picture of Briana and Kevin. I could not believe how much those kids have grown since I saw them. Kevin looks very much like he did (like his mother), but Briana looks like this svelte blonde teenager. I'm sure her father would not agree with me; but, lets face it, she'll be his little girl until she's 40. Right, Brian??? Thanks Brian and Mindi so much!!

Judy (Lipnicky) Diehl (5/87) and Dave Diehl (5/88) also sent pictures of their children. They had two new additions to their family this year. Tierney Susan and Kristin Valerie were born on September 3. Tierney was 4 lb. 12 oz. and 17 1/4 inches and Kristin was 6 lb. 2 oz. and 18 1/2 inches. They were welcomed home by big brother Brett who is 3 and big sister Nicolette who is 6. Nicolette just started kindergarten last year and she really loves it. She also loves her 2 new playmates. You should see this picture!! The kids are all little blonds with curly hair.

Jason Livingston (12/95) and Jennifer sent a picture of Emma. She was all dressed up in her Christmas outfit, and she looks like a little dollbaby. Thanks guys!!! Does Emma still have her web site?

Janie (Pike) Kustaborder (5/92) and Ron sent pictures of Amber and Heather ... more about the Kustaborders later.

Bev (Green) (5/85) and Mark Landry (5/85)sent a picture of Justin and Ryan and (yes, I'm going to say it again), Justin looks exactly like his mother. I'm still not sure about Ryan, but I think maybe his mother, too. He's a little harder to figure. At any rate, again, thank you for sending the picture!

And, now on to the new news:

Dan Danka (5/99) not only gave me the latest on himself, but also some others you might be interested in. First, Dan has left PPG as of July 12th, and started with Applied Systems Associates (aSa) on July 24th. Applied Systems Associates are a smaller software company based in Murrysville, PA which is only 15 minutes commute for Dan, as opposed to the 1+ hour commute to Pittsburgh. Plus Dan thinks it will be a better opportunity. Thanks for letting us know, Dan and please keep me posted on how it's going.

Some of the other news Dan gave me: Kathy Scott (12/98) left PPG and moved back to Eastern PA. She's also now working with a smaller software company, Target Software. (More about Kathy later.)

Mike Klanica (12/98) left Rite Aid in January to work for Print Cafe which is another smaller software company and is located in the Strip District. (Also more news about Mike later.)

Some not so good news from Michelle (Emery) Davis (5/87). She got notification that she was part of the Merrill Lynch layoff. Now, before you feel too sorry for her, she and the kids have been spending all their spare time at the beach and pool and practicing taekwondo and kickboxing! Also, remember that Michelle lives in Ponte Verda Beach, Florida. Now, doesn't that make it just a little bit hard to feel real bad about this. If anyone would like to send her your sympathy, her e-mail is davismi@edcomember.net or michelle_emery_davis@yahoo.com. Well, Michelle, seriously, I hope something comes up for you soon. I know when you're used to being part of the work force, it's a little difficult to be put in the situation you've found yourself. Please let me know if you get back to work. Thanks for letting me know.

I talked with Warren Hilton (5/95) one day. Warren is still in Maryland at the University of Maryland and absolutely loves his job, and now is thinking about working into an internship supervisory role, if he can. I hope everything works out for you, Warren. And, as you probably remember, Warren's now a married man and is a great believer in the institution of marriage. And, he attended the wedding of another CompSci alumus this summer - on June 3 in Allentown - Brent Cramer (5/95) got married. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail. Just kidding, Brent! Warren said Brent and Jennifer had a wonderful wedding and she's a very lovely girl. So, the approval rating is way up there, Brent. Warren also told me Brent is still working at PPG, but is now working for PPG rather than the consulting firm he had been working for. We need an update here, Brent.

I heard from Jason McCombie (5/98). Jason had been working for Keystone Bank but, at the time of his e-mail, thought he might be losing his job since Keystone just merged with M&T Bank out of New York. M&T has their own computer staff, so Jason thought the potential for employment would be small. But, he wasn't real concerned; he said there are more and more possibilities popping up every day and he'd be fine. Jason also had a big announcement - he told me he was getting married on June 10 and actually should be married now. He married a girl he met in December, got engaged soon after. Jason said that since they were still together, she must be able to put up with him; and he'd better grab her. But, all kidding aside, he said she is wonderful and he couldn't dream of a better partner. Congratulations, Jason!! I'm very happy for you. Please update me on the job situation when you get a minute.

I heard through the grapevine (Tom Cunningham) that Ricky Wells (8/99) was in town over the 4th of July weekend. He's working in St. Louis in the aviation field. He's working on cockpit displays for FAA approval and will be moving to LA in the Fall. Ricky, if you're out there, send me some details!

A little birdie (Kari (Robson) Kehune (5/98) told me Ross Cooper (12/98) and his wife are the proud parents of a baby boy named Ian Christian. So, Ross, when are you going to give me more details???

And, speaking of Kari, she is doing well and is still with PPG. She and Greg are still living near Natrona Heights with the dogs and the birds. I talked with her for a bit one day and occasionally see her mother at Widdowson's Jewlers here in town, but I don't very often see Kari. We'll have to get together and do lunch one of these days, Kari.

Here's a story you'll all enjoy. Remember last time, I told you about Andy Weiss (5/93) quitting his job with Cornerstone Software????? Well, guess where Andy is now working - Cornerstone Software! Andy said he'd been with the new company (Orbit) for fourteen weeks and not one week had gone by that his old boss at Cornerstone hadn't contacted him to try to get him to come back. Finally he offered him something he could live with - working from home. He still has to go into the office one or two days a week (which means that 50-mile commute again), but Andy said two days a week isn't as bad as five. Andy loved his job with Cornerstone and I'm sure he's really happy to get back there, though. The rest of the time he can stay home and play with Eva (just kidding Andy, I know you spend your day slaving for Cornerstone). He's added some new pictures to Eva's web site. If you're interested in checking them out, go to www.evarose.com. I checked them out and they're worth looking at! Thanks for the update Andy - wonder what the future will bring - keep me posted.

Todd Campbell (5/98) moved. He's still in West Chester, though - probably moved on up to the East Side. Nothing else has changed in Todd's life, however. I did double check. The only thing he'll admit to is that he is considering getting a Siberian Husky soon; and he's managed to wreck his car once or twice. He's still working at SMS. Thanks for the update, Todd, let me know if anything else changes.

Dave Rhodes (5/88) sent me an e-mail. His company was looking for some employees. He's working for a company called Management Science Associates located in the Point Breeze area of Pittsburgh. They work with marketing data, building data warehouses. He's been there for about 1 year and a half and prior to that he was with Westinghouse for 8 1/2 years. Dave's job at Management Science is as an Oracle DBA; but he also does some development. And, Dave was looking for some people to hire. I called a couple people to let them know of the opening, but don't know if anybody contacted you, Dave. Dave thought maybe some of our alumni in the Pittsburgh area might be looking. If anyone would like more information on Dave's company, they are on the web at www.msa.com. Thanks, Dave for getting in touch.

Which brings me to another thought. If anyone out there is looking for another position or thinking of relocating, send me e-mail and tell me what you're looking for and where. Occasionally I get a call from a company (like Dave) looking for some people and sometimes I have names and sometimes I don't. If I know you're looking, I can let these companies know.

The Kustaborders (Janie (Pike) (5/92) and Ron) are still kicking. The girls are great, Amber is into being a two year old. Janie said she's very verbal, and they have had some very interesting conversations. She's been learning how to ride a little bike that is only about 12" high but wasn't having much luck pedaling and steering at the same time. Poor little kid still has a blocked tear duct so next August she will be going back to Hershey to have surgery (bone trenching). But, they're going to make it a vacation, and spend a week going to Hershey Park, the zoo, all the fun things, and then just finish up with the surgery. Makes sense to me. Heather is doing well. She was pretty sick in January/February and fell a little behind the development curve; but she is regaining quickly. Janie said the two girls are great sisters. The family also had a good, but busy 4th of July holiday. They met Janie's sister and her family at Idlewild (the amusement part near Ligonier). Janie said the kids had a blast, and so did the adults. On Sunday, they went to the Pittsburgh Zoo and then headed for Erie for the rest of the weekend and left Amber for a visit with her grandparents. They got back to State College in time for the fireworks. Janie, that makes me tired just reading it! But, the rest of the week was very quiet for them without Amber, and Heather missed her big sister. Meanwhile, Janie still likes her new job with Minitab. Thanks, Janie!!

Gary Buterbaugh (along with the Rice Twins (5/81) got e-mail from Ken Whiteley (5/81) who had read Deb's request to hear from people, and wrote to let them all know what he's up to; which means I, in turn, can let you know . He's working for Intel in Portland OR as an engineering manager. The business group he works for is Intel Online Services and they're in the "Internet hosting" business where they host customers' Web sites in Intel data centers around the world. The engineering organization is responsible for developing the various hosting platforms (servers, OS, database software), the proprietary software that defines Intel's offerings vs. competitors', and software for running the data centers -- monitoring, security, backup/recovery. Ken's been at Intel for almost three years. Prior to that, he worked for a small software company near Philadelphia, whose software product Intel purchased and which moved Ken to Intel in the first place. Before that he worked in New Hampshire, and prior to that, worked near Philadelphia for a couple of different companies. Among all that, he took off nine months and studied Greek and Hebrew as well as other things at a seminary. That's when he realized how much he missed software engineering, and went back to it for good. On the personal front, he got married in 1985, to Jane, who taught high school math for three years, until they decided to start a family. And, what a family. They have Eric - 11, Joel - 9, Scott - 7, and Leah - 4; and Ken says that phase is now finished. The older two boys are good athletes, and Scott likes fishing He said Leah is simply a girl, for which Jane is particularly thankful. They are active in Greater Portland Bible Church. Jane teaches second grade Sunday School, and leads the "Moms In Touch" prayer group at the kids' elementary school. They both sing in the choir. Eric will be starting in the junior high youth group this summer. It sounds like a very busy and active life. Thanks, Ken for getting in touch. I know a lot of people out there will be interested in hearing how you've been doing.

I don't have any details yet, but Tim Ferro (12/97) got a new job in Chicago. I'll let everyone know how and what he's doing as soon as he writes me.

Another person who gave me a surprise was J.C. (Caler) (5/90) Anama. JC decided it was time I was updated on her name. Boy, was she right about that. JC got married over a year ago. She met Dave at Mellon in April, 1995, starting dating later that year, got engaged in '98, and got married April 17, '99. JC was contracting at Mellon when she met him. He's originally from Trenton, NJ and went to school at Duquesne. He's now a Senior Programmer/Analyst at Federated Investors. They are living in Pittsburgh (Lincoln Place). They are enjoying married life and are very happy. JC said he's the best thing that could have happened to her. I'm very happy for you, JC. I wish you the best! She's still working in Pittsburgh, as a consultant for Cotelligent. The old company she had worked for, PBC, was bought by Cotelligent, a much larger company. For the past 2 1/2 years, she's been consulating at Copperweld (tubular steel manufacturing) which was recently bought by LTV. She started as a Tandem applications programmer/analyst and for the last year has been working as the Cognos Administrator for 3 divisions of LTV Copperweld. She's working with windows based software and really likes it. In a nutshell, she creates and maintains catalogs and multidimensional cubes, and provides user support for the software. And, anyone who remembers JC will remember her son, Matt. Well, Matt's married now and living and working in the Boston area. They were married at an old inn at Sturbridge Mass; JC and Dave went up for the wedding and had a chance to go to Old Sturbridge Village. Matt and his wife are both working in the computer industry. JC and Dave even get to Indiana every once in a while, but only on the weekends. They've taken over the ownership and care of her grandfather's farmhouse which is in the area. So, of course, you know that I've urged them to get here for the Homecoming breakfast. Thank you so much JC, for all your exciting news.

Also had e-mail from Bill Monti (12/98) with an update on his life since IUP. After graduation, he went to work for Rite Aid in Harrisburg where, after a few months, joined their e-Commerce team that was to build a new, full-service online pharmacy. Well, that never happened. Rite Aid partnered with drugstore.com and Bill went looking for work elsewhere since staying meant writing COBOL and JCL and he didn't want to do that. He ended up as an "Internet Search Engine Analyst" for dsports.com, the Internet arm of Dick's Sporting Goods in Pittsburgh. After a few months, he started doing programming as a "Technology Developer" and, since the majority of the development is outsourced, Bill is the only on-site programmer for dsports. He is developing in HTML, ASP, JavaScript and creating and administering databases. On the personal side, he's getting married this fall, one week after homecoming (that means they'll be available on homecoming and can come to the breakfast :-)), to Kate Adamson, who is also a December '98 IUP grad. She majored in Physical Education/Sport. They've been together for almost 2 1/2 years now. Kate is actually working here in Indiana, at the hospital teaching adult wellness and cardiac rehab classes. They plan on living in Pittsburgh after they're married, though, so she is going to start looking for a new job in Pittsburgh. Bill is currently sharing a house with Dave Prohaska (12/98) in the North Hills area, not too far from Kathy Scott (12/98) while she was there (see below). In Harrisburg, Bill shared an apartment and worked with Mike Klanica (12/98) on the e-Commerce team at Rite Aid. Coincidentally, Mike and Bill are getting married on the same day. (So, Mike can come to the breakfast, too.)

I also have a correction to make from last Spring's edition. I called Cindy Mahan (5/84) Cindy Barnhart and she isn't Cindy Barnhart, she's Cindy Kissel. Cindy Conrad (5/84) is Cindy Barnhart. I apologize to both of you. It's the first mistake I've ever made! Thanks, Cindy (Kissel), for pointing that out to me.

Had e-mail from Dan O'Donnell (12/87) to let me know what was up with him and with Deana Griffith (5/86) since they both called me about a year ago. At that time they were working together and they're still working together - Dan is now working FOR Deana. They work for Aventis, Deana as an employee and Dan as an IS contractor. However, the company has recently gone through a merger, the sight is moving to New Jersey and they'll both be unemployed this fall; Deana has an end date for Sept. 15, 2000, but Dan will be there until closer to the end of the year. They'll be looking for jobs very soon (preferably, somewhere between Reading & Western Philadelphia Suburbs, Dan said he could do Wilmington, DE.). They both have several leads & shouldn't have any problem finding employment; but I'm putting out the word; so, if anyone knows of anything down that way, let me know or send e-mail to Dan at Daniel.ODonnel@aventis.com. On the person front, Dan's family is doing fine. Mariah is now 9, Brianna is 7 & Ian is 4; and he says they keep Mary Ann & him very busy. Dan also admits that they keep Mary Ann busier (wives all over the world will worship you Dan). Dan's brother Doug, his wife & son are living right down the road from them. Thanks so much, Dan, for keeping me informed. I wish you and Deana both luck on finding jobs; and please, both of you, let me know.

As I promised earlier, I have an update on Kathy Scott (12/98). She left PPG on May 25 and moved to Bethlehem, PA. She accepted a job with a company in Allentown called Target Software (www.targetsoftware.com). She left PPG to be closer to her family, plus her boyfriend, Brandon, will be in medical school in Valhalla, New York, and the Lehigh Valley is only about 1 1/2 -2 hours from there. Kathy was and is interested in a high school teaching position, but she's not really certified for teaching so she didn't find anything in that field. Apparently, if a school district has "emergency" need for a computer science teacher, you can get hired if you aren't certified, but she wasn't able to find one of these schools. And, she really likes working at Target Software and thinks it is going to be a great opportunity. But, in addition to work, Kathy has some other plans for her time off. She's planning on getting back into skydiving. Oh, my!! I pity anybody on the ground beneath me if I ever went skydiving! But, I do admire your fortitude, Kathy. She'll also be spending lots of time with her family, especially her adorable two-year old nephew. And, if all that isn't enough, she's just started quilting, too. WOW, Kathy, it doesn't sound like you'll have much time to go to Valhalla (just kidding!).
Sean Van Scoyoc (12/90) and Julie are the proud parents of Adam Matthew VanScoyoc. Adam weighed in at 7 pounds 13 ounces and was 20.5" long. He was born on 5/26 at 1:06 pm. And, of course, Sean and Julie did what all good parents do, they brought him in see me. He is so cute. He was wearing blue jeans! And, of course I held him and held him and took him all apart to see his toes (don't tell anyone I told you this, but he has really funny toes!). Sean and Julie don't know this; but I wasn't planning on giving him back. I changed my mind at the last minute. They looked like really good parents and I just couldn't do it.

Dewey Miller (12/94) is the proud uncle to his brother's second son!! Congratulations, Dewey.

Jeff Dawson (5/91) sent me e-mail. Jeff said he didn't expect me to remember him cause he didn't spend a lot of time in the office - hmmmm. His first job on graduation was a Systems Engineering position at Letterkenny Army Depot for a company named CDSI. After working there for two years, he moved to the company he is currently with, C-COR.net Corporation in State College, first as an Applications Analyst and now as a Senior Systems Analyst. His main reason for writing was that his company was looking for an entry level programmer/analyst providing support for their ERP/MRP II software. Again, I did get word out to a couple people who I knew were looking and if anyone else out there is interested in talking with Jeff about future positions, you can e-mail Jeff at jjd@c-cor.com. Great hearing from you Jeff. I hope you got someone. If not, hopefully someone will read this and contact you.

Mike Elder (5/94), Lori and the girls had a nice vacation. They sent me the URL for their photo album. If you want to take a look, go to http://www.ofoto.com/ I.jsp?m=8189197203&n=811699511. Their vacation spot and vacation house looked pretty enticing. Thanks so much for letting me take a look, Mike. Those girls are just adorable; don't you ever bring them to PA? Mike also got a digital camera and sent me some pictures online. Thanks so much, Mike. I really appreciate getting them.

Well, last time, I told you I had heard from Debbie Rice (5/81) that she was due to deliver a baby on February 20. Well, she had a beautiful baby girl on Valentine's Day. Her name is LeeAnn and she weighed 7 lbs., 4 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long. She has her own web page at members.aol.com/leeannerice
/Leeann.html, the Capitol L in LeeAnn is important. You really need to take a look; she has red hair with blond highlights; but Debbie said it will maybe turn brown as she gets older as her cousin's did; but, she's just as cute as can be. Debbie also attached a couple pictures for me. She was already sleeping through most nights and is very happy and pleasant. Her daddy is enjoying her and is even changing diapers! Thanks Debbie, I'll keep checking her progress on the Web site.

Jennifer Baldwin (5/91) sent me a quick hi. She was considering hiring one of the May grads if he didn't have a job, but he did. Anyway, she didn't say too much, but the cats are doing well. That's important. Thanks, Jen!!!

Wendy (Cauffman) and Jeff (5/90) Scott (8/89) sent me their web site to look at their most recent portraits. I couldn't believe how much Matthew looks like his dad and Sarah looks like her mother. You can check it out at freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com /~jjswbs/pictures2000.htm. Things are going well in the Scott household. They are enjoying the summer with visits to the pool, the parks, family reunions, picnics, Idlewild, Kennywood, etc. Matthew will be attending pre-school three days a week in the fall, 2 1/2 hours a day. Wendy said it is going to be a big transition for Matthew and her and interesting to see how Sarah reacts as well. Jeff will making a trip to Indiana in October and hopefully Wendy will be able to come with him and will be able to visit. I hope so. It will be really nice to see her. I saw Jeff last fall when he made a trip to Indiana; but Wendy wasn't able to come with him at that time. Thanks, Wendy and Scott, it's always nice to hear from you.

Jane (Cunningham) Harnagy (5/87) sent me a picture of Olivia. Oh, my gosh, was it cute. Jane said when they use the "O" in Olivia, they exaggerate it, as well as the O in other words. Well, Olivia got the message in this picture. Her eyes are like big "O" and her mouth is a definite "O" She's a real sweetie and she has a birthday coming up. I can't believe she'll be a year old already. More pictures, Jane!

Kathy McKelvey (8/81) dropped in the other day. Wow, does retirement agree with her. She looks like a new woman - short straight hair cut into this really great 'do that you don't have to do a thing with. She and Don went on a cruise to Alaska in June and had a really great time. I'm so glad Kathy stopped in. It was really good to see her. She's recommending retirement, though, and I have a long way to go. I really envy you, Kathy. Stop in any time.

Joe Burns (5/92) and his wife, Peng stopped in the other day. What a surprise!! I remembered them both, but wasn't able to spit out their names. Joe is working for Highmark in Pittsburgh as a Database Systems Administrator. He said if it hadn't been for Dr. Shubra's database class, he would never be where he is today. Peng is working at Allegheny General Hospital as an Oracle Database Administrator working with sequel server and in intranet development. She does client server applications, but does not work with hardware. They've been married for 5 years now. After graduation they worked in Virginia for a couple years and have been in Pittsburgh for 5 years. Every year they take a trip to Hong Kong to visit Peng's family. Recently, Joe was one of the top ten speakers at the DB2 Conference in Florida. (Peng told me that.) Joe, that's a real honor!! It was so nice to see you two and, now that we know you're in Pittsburgh, we'll expect to see you more often!

And, I guess that's about all the news that's fit to print for the summer. Please keep me posted on your summer trips, etc. for the next issue.

Homecoming Breakfast
October 14, 2000
Make Your Reservation NOW!
See Details on Other Pages

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News from Tompkins Lab
Joseph Shyrock

Greetings,

Things are becoming very busy as the semester nears. The finishing touches are being made to ensure that the classrooms and labs are in great condition for the students. The new Tompkins lab officially opened the first summer session and all went well. The renovations to Stright hall are complete and we are all settled in.

If you are interested in seeing the new lab, a web cam is going to be installed shortly in the fall semester. The plans are to have the camera permanently mounted in the lab so students can check the availability of machines and to ensure the security of our lab. More news of that will follow shortly along with the URL so all can enjoy.

As mentioned in the previous letter we had plans of a server to support Oracle. We purchased three PowerEdge servers and all three are currently running Oracle platforms. The specifications for the severs are quite impressive. They are as follows. Dual 700 Mhz PIII processors, 256 Megs of Ram and 72 Gigs of space. These servers should provide service over the next few years. Plans are in place to buy a web departmental web server with specifications similar to the Oracle servers.

I look forward to meeting some of you at homecoming, until then take care.

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Tess O'Neil's picture New Faculty? Yes and No
Therese D. O'Neil

Hello, I don't think I need to introduce myself, but I will. My name is Therese (Tess) DonGiovanni (had to get that in!) O'Neil. I have been teaching here at IUP's Computer Science Department since January of 1991. Prior to that, I taught at the Norwin Senior High School for 16 years. I taught everything from typing to Stenotype (the court reporting machine), to Shorthand, Business Math, Business English, Computer Applications, Computer Programming (Basic and Cobol), Data Processing (yes, I'll date myself and say I taught the 'keypunch' machine). Let's see; oh then, there was Consumer Economics, Computer Literacy, VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, dBase III Plus, and ten years as the Student Council Advisor. I have a Bachelor of Science in Business Education from IUP, and a Master of Education, Business from here also. I am currently pursuing a Doctoral Degree Program to achieve a Computing Technology in Education Ph.D. (that means I'm looking for Grants on the 'Net to fund that project!)

I have been married for 23 years to Timothy Kevin O'Neil. Tim worked in construction for 21 years and is now working at Keystone Fabricating in Arnold, PA. We have two children, Matthew, who is an incoming freshman here at the university, majoring in Physics or Chemistry (he hasn't decided). Sean is our other son who is in the seventh grade at the Apollo Ridge Middle School. Shamrock our dog, stays home.

As of August 12, 2000, I am a full time instructor for our Computer Science Department. My official duties are to service the branch campuses of Kittanning and Punxsutawney. In addition to teaching here at IUP, I develop and teach computer workshops. I've developed an entire course of study for Penn State's Continuing Education department, which I taught last year and have done the same for our Armstrong Branch campus. We are offering courses at night to the Kittanning and surrounding communities, courses in Microsoft Office 2000 products, Windows 98, Computer Literacy, Internet and Electronic Mail. I write the courses of study as well as the manuals for the classes. They have been very successful at Penn State and I hope to bring that success to our department at the Armstrong Branch. I thank the faculty for hiring me, and I'm sure I will be an asset to the department. Oh, and one more thing (let's see if I can word this just as Carol requested). I wouldn't be where I am today without the care and assistance of our lovely secretary Carol. (Was that right Carol?)

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The Times They are A Changing?
Charley Shubra

Hello busy, successful alumni and greetings from your department. Have you noticed computer and information systems technology has been changing? In response to these changes, the faculty has been modifying the curriculum. Several years ago COSC110 (formerly CO 110) changed languages. FORTRAN was out and C++ became the first language taught to freshmen computer science majors. Now C++ has some '- -' as a first language one learns; but that was the plan. COSC110 further was to maintain the algorithmic approach and only introduce object-oriented concepts. COSC310 (Data Structures) became a second semester of C++, an introduction to data structures and was to immerse the students into the object-oriented approach. It did not work as smoothly as planned. We were having trouble getting to data structures. So COSC210 has been designed to be taken after COSC110; it teachs the object-oriented approach using C++. There makes room in COSC310 to teach data structures; but the core courses had expanded by 3 credit hours.

COBOL became the target (COSC220, COSC315) as a place to drop a course and recover the 3 credit hours. Some of the faculty did not realize that much more than COBOL was being taught in these courses. Despite advice from the Corporate Advisory Board and the experiences of the internship coordinator and interns, it was agreed that COSC315 one of the most popular courses would be dropped. It was realized that topics such as B++ trees, device characteristics, the file system portion of operating systems, interactive algorithms and the COBOL syntax used for interactive programs were still needed. These topics thus migrated to COSC220, which became 4 credits, and COSC441 (DBMS), which became more of a challenge.

Dr. Micco had developed a Java based course, COSC304, which concentrated on the language and Internet uses of Java with some use of Java to construct GUI-based information systems. I developed a Visual Basic course, COSC444, which concentrated on the language and building GUI-based front ends to relational data bases. Dr. Micco and I are working on bringing the content of the two courses closer together. Meaning COSC444 needs to include some Internet programming using VB and COSC304 needs to increase the coverage of Java interfacing with relational data bases. We would thus have two courses which covered the same concepts using different platforms. This was necessary because Dr. Yang (new guy) has been developing a COSC415 Internet Architecture and Programming course to be taken after either COSC304 or COSC444. This new course will explore the architecture of the Internet and the development of browser based information systems. The course will investigate the tools and methods used for these type systems controlled by Microsoft operating systems, as well as Unix operating systems. This grand experiment is now underway. The university has funded the purchase of several servers to support these courses.

Several other changes have occurred within the existing courses which do not require university approval. COSC105 will lose touch with the VAX mainframe (replacing that material with Unix concepts). You see, the VAX is going to mainframe heaven to join the IBM, Xerox and Honeywell mainframes that preceded it. All of the courses which interact with a DBMS will be using Oracle 8 to provide data base services. This is quite a change since COSC304, COSC441, COSC444 and COSC415, to name a few, will all require a data base. Oh, because of the importance of data base to the internship program and the above named courses, it was decided to renumber COSC441 to COSC341 and to move it into the core courses. So if you passed your math requirements the core is now 4 credit hours larger. COSC315 (-3), COSC220 (+1), COSC210(+3) and COSC341(+3). COSC220 will soon have to migrate to MicroFocus COBOL residing on PCs.

Hopefully, after reading this you will know that we are all very busy. The amount of material that current students need to cover is more than the amount of material that you had to cover. We would be very interested in your views concerning the proposed changes to the curriculum and future directions we should follow.

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Jim Wolfe's picture Voice of the Alumni
Jim Wolfe

In the last issue, I included a short article called "To B or Not To B" which asked the alumni for their opinions about whether on not the Computer Science Department should move from the College of Natural Science and Mathematics to the College of Business and Technology. Gary Buterbaugh and I received e-mail from nine alumni expressing rather consistent opinions about such a move. The alumni consensus is "Don't Move!" In what follows, the quotes in italics are taken directly from the alumni e-mail; but individuals are not identified.

The alumni responses do not represent any scientific survey of alumni opinion. However, even with such a small number, we did get responses from alumni who graduated throughout the department's history, from the late 70's to the late 90's. It was clear that many of the alumni who sent e-mail were asking themselves, "Why are they considering such a move?" In the original article, I didn't give any solid indication about the reasons behind the department looking into a move to Business. One alumni asked, "Are you guys looking for a better dean, more money, or for the business focus?" Another thought it was about student numbers, "The demand for computer professionals is currently quite high. If there aren't enough people entering the department, then instead of changing the program you should change how you attract students." Rather than continue to let you grasp at straws, I will try to give an unbiased perspective of what the issues are at the end of this article. The omission in the Spring issue was not to make you guess what the problem is; the omission was to try to get your opinion about the whole concept of the move.

Several alumni expressed concern about potential changes in the Computer Science curriculum as a result of the move, especially with regard to the technical content of our courses. One said, "There are a lot of non-business programming areas that may be pushed aside, toned down, or lost totally with merging CS with business." Another expressed the opinion that, "I think it would be a bad idea from the point of view that the Computer Science Department teaches computer technologies with an engineering oriented discipline." A third was more direct, "I'm worried that the quality of the future IUP Computer Science graduates may be watered down if the proposed move occurs." There were also opinions that more directly compared the relative benefits of Computer Science Courses and Business courses or the quality of Computer Science graduates and Business graduates. I won't quote any of those; several could be taken as inflammatory.

Some expressed confidence in the faculty to do what is best for the department, even providing guidelines for what was important. One suggested that we should ask ourselves, "Is the purpose of the department to equip young people with the knowledge to get a well-paying job and be a productive member of society or is it the department's objective to seek academic excellence and advancement in the field of Computer Science (or both)?" Another said that the key ideas were, "First, the requirements to graduate with a BA or BS in Computer Science should remain as rigorous as they have been in the past... Second, I believe that the Computer Science program must provide the students with the opportunity to select and learn from a variety of disciplines... Finally, IUP's Computer Science program must continue to promote an enthusiasm for learning." That alumnus expressed confidence in the faculty saying, "Ultimately, you and your colleagues should make the final choice regarding where the Computer Science Department best lives. And as long as you consider the aforementioned qualities in your decision making and ensure their presence in the future course of studies, I know your choice will be the right one." I, for one, am glad that someone has confidence in us - it is not always clear that that is the case with the administration.

Some of the alumni revealed that they know the faculty all too well. One said, "I'll bet each of the personalities will have an opinion." Now there is an understatement if I've ever seen one. There was also, "I anticipate the debate will carry on (and on, and on, and on......)" Another understatement. Personally, I thought the faculty had gathered enough information to decide by last May. We had a meeting in which we almost took a vote. However, the issue was tabled until the fall.

Finally, there were several alumni who did not want to mince their words. "My overwhelming reaction to your question about Computer Science being moved to the College of Business is NO!" and "NO NO NO to the college of business!" And from an alumna who is now an MIS professor at another university, "When I was at IUP, there was an MIS major in the College of Business which focused on COBOL skills. If that still exists, I'd recommend staying within the College of Science and Mathematics and working out an agreement for your students to take Business courses for a minor." Another alumnus indicated that he felt that a Business background was important, saying, "I lacked the necessary skills to fully understand how the world of business operates." because he had not taken any business courses. There was also a response that indicated some ambivalence about the whole thing, "Years ago I was a CS snob who would have been very insulted by your even considering going to the college of business. Today, however, it matters not to me." This same person hit the nail on the head by saying, "There will be unhappy people no matter what you decide."

OK, here is a mostly unbiased perspective. The issues that have been driving the consideration to change colleges are these: 1) Lack of administrative support of the Computer Science program - in obtaining hardware and software resources, in the quality of technical support to keep the needed resources functioning, in allocation of money to purchase the resources, and in office and classroom space; 2) Lack of support for training and lack of alternate workload time (time off from teaching to learn something new or to develop a new course); 3) Increasing pressure to teach more students in our classes; and, most recently, 4) Having insufficient faculty to teach and develop the courses we feel the students need. In addition to these "problem areas," one of the sources for debate in considering the move has been philosophy, the question of whether the way the Computer Science department does things and the way in which our courses are constructed is compatible with the methods for doing those things in the College of Business. As some of the alumni have noted, there are philosophical differences; the question is, "Is the difference significant?"

There is definitely no intent within the department to make the Computer Science curriculum more like MIS or contain more business courses. There is definitely no problem with too few students - if anything, it is just the opposite; this Fall we expect to have about 200 incoming freshmen who are Computer Science majors. And, there should be no need to discuss whether or not Computer Science students have the opportunity to take Business courses - a Business concentration has been available for many years and a Business minor has been encouraged for the last 10 years. There may be valid reasons for discussing requiring some Business courses of Computer Science students.

With luck, by the time I'm ready to put together the Fall issue of The Debugger, I will be able to report on exactly what the faculty's decision is.

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May 2000 Graduation

We had a particularly large group attend departmental graduation ceremonies this May. The picture shows the following: (Standing, left to right) Jeffrey Hill, Shikkea Gunter, Harland Corbin, Ami Walker, Tyson Croyle, Mark Sayers, Joseph Lane, Dwayne Wirfel, David Bell, Cameron Linthicum, Ryan Repinski, Craig Smith, Euniesha Davis, and Kelly Parrish; (Crouching in the middle) Stanley Roofner; (Kneeling, left to right) Eric Kirkpatrick, Rich Keslar, Nicole Siemon, Scott Whitney, Monex Louis, Holly Anthony, John Weimer, Julie Toy, and Mark Minser.

There are many other pictures from graduation available at the department's Web site. The URL is deleted.
May 2000 graduates