Dean's Update, December 2010
Commencement
December 18 saw SPSU's fall commencement. As has become customary, it was again the largest fall commencement class for SPSU, with around 335 students graduating. Around 70 of those graduated from the School of Computing and Software Engineering. Congratulations to all.
CSE was again able to host a reception for its graduating students the evening prior to commencement. This time the reception was sponsored by Google and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Google to help us celebrate student success.
ACCELERATED TRAINING PROGRAM IN HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
As many of you know, CSE has explored a number of ways to address the looming shortage of health information technology (HIT) professionals. As you may recall, we received permission to offer an undergraduate certificate in this field, and we are working on a graduate certificate. Another avenue that we have been exploring is an accelerated training program in HIT, and it is with great pleasure that I can announce that CSE will offer a pilot for this program starting on January 24, 2011. The program will be offered through the Extended University and in collaboration with Consort Systems and Endurance Business Professionals, LLC. If you are interested, there are more details at http://cse.spsu.edu/chit/programs.shtml, including a link to register for the program. You can of course also contact me directly.
CSE SIGNS CONTRACT WITH EAGLE HOSPITAL PHYSICIANS
As part of its ongoing efforts in the area of health information technology, CSE recently signed a contract with Eagle Hospital Physicians (www.EagleHospitalPhysicians.com). Eagle Hospital Physicians delivers inpatient management services for hospitals. Among the services Eagle provides are telemedicine hospitalist, neurology, psychiatric and critical care services. Under the contract, a group of CSE students, working under the supervision of Richard Sanders from Eagle and Han Reichgelt from CSE, will develop a system to provide additional support to Eagle's tele-hospitalists.
GLOBAL GAME JAM
From January 28 to January 30, SPSU will be the host site for Georgia for the Global Game Jam 2011. As you may recall, during a game jam, participants have 48 hours to create a computer game. You may also recall that CSE was a host site for the Global Game Jam 2010 and that we have hosted a number of local game jams. Thanks to the efforts of Dr Jon Preston and Dr Jeff Chastine, we are now stepping up our efforts in that we are expected to be the only host site in Georgia for the Global Game Jam 2011. We are expecting to attract between 200 and 250 students from all over Georgia, including the Art Institute of Atlanta, Columbus State, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech, SCAD, UGA and others. The event will take place in the recreation and wellness center on campus. If you or your company might be interested in becoming a sponsor for the event, or if you would like more information, either contact me at hreichge@spsu or go to games.spsu.edu.
AND FINALLY ...
This is the last newsletter of the year, and I wanted to wish you all the very best for the festive season and the very best for 2011.
If you see something in this update that you want to comment on, please send me an email at hreichge@spsu.edu or call me on 678-915-7399. Also, if you know of somebody who might be interested in receiving the Dean's updates, please ask them to send me an email. We will gladly add them to our mailing list. Finally, if you prefer not to receive the Dean's updates, please let me know as well.
Han Reichgelt
Dean, School of Computing and Software Engineering