The Year in Review
by Richard Detmer
Cheatham Moves Up As Dean
by Judy Hankins
B
ig news
from the department is that we
were able to hire
three great new
faculty for fall
2002! Openings
were created by
Dr. Nancy Wahl’s
resignation and Dr. Tom Cheatham’s
promotion to dean, plus a new
position. It seemed as if our search
process lasted forever, and in fact
it did take two years and consumed
much time and energy as we interviewed many candidates who
turned out not to fit well with our
department. We were delighted
when Dr. Suk Seo, Dr. Medha Sarkar, and Dr. Joseph Driscoll applied
late in the search process, and
they turned out to be perfect for
us. More about them appears elsewhere in this newsletter.
One of our successes in 20012002 was that Dr. Jungsoon Yoo
was promoted to full professor.
Congratulations, Professor Yoo!
Our redesigned Web site went
online in December 2002. Dr. Detmer built it using Dreamweaver.
Check it out at www.mtsu.edu/
~csdept.
Since our last newsletter we
have offered two new graduate
cont. on p. 2
I
n our last newsletter we reported
that Tom Cheatham was serving as interim associate dean for the College of
Basic and Applied Sciences during the
2000-2001 academic year. A search was
being conducted for a new dean and
associate dean. The search was not complete at the end of summer 2001, so Tom
was asked to step up and become interim
dean for 2001-2002. During that year,
Tom decided to apply for the permanent
dean’s position. The pool of candidates
included several talented external candidates who were interviewed along with
Tom. In spring 2002, the search committee announced that Tom
would be dean of Basic
and Applied Sciences.
Tom has a long history
in education. He obtained his bachelor of
science degree at Campbellsville University in
Kentucky in 1966. He
received the master of
science degree in 1968
and the Ph.D. in 1971
from the University of
Kentucky. He taught
mathematics and computer science at Samford
University in Birmingham,
Alabama, from 1971 to
1980. In 1980, he accepted a position in
the Department of Computer Science at
Western Kentucky University, where he
taught computer science until 1990,
when he became chair of MTSU’s
Computer Science Department. During
his years as chair (1990– 1998), the
department was first accredited by the
Computer Science Accrediting Board; the
Student Advisory Board and the Corpor-
ate Advisory Board were formed; the
local chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE,
the honorary computer society) was
formed; and many other changes and
accomplishments positioned the department to become one of the most soughtafter institutions in Tennessee for computer scientists.
T
eaching has always been a big part
of Tom’s life, and he has committed
much energy and time to be an inspiring
teacher. In 1987, he was selected as
Western Kentucky University’s Outstand-
ing Teacher, an honor he still cherishes.
MTSU computer science alumni still comment about how instrumental he has
been in their lives (see Spotlight on an
Alumnus in this newsletter). This semester, Tom has reentered the classroom for
the first time in two years, teaching
Computer Science I. It was great to pass
by his classroom and see him engaging
the students in learning.
cont. on p. 2
The Year in Review…
classes. In summer 2001, Dr. Detmer taught a class in functional programming language theory. In summer
2002, Dr. Li taught a class in mobile
robotics. The latter was much more
popular than the former! Although not a
new class, Dr. Untch offered our senior/
graduate software testing class in summer 2002.
Most of our classes continue to be
filled to capacity, but overall enrollments are slightly down. The main reason is that classroom capacity has declined. Last year there was a major
campus effort to replace old classroom
furniture, and the department got nice
new desks and chairs. However, because of a change in fire codes, the
number of seats in each classroom had
to be reduced as they were refurbished. We were unable to add enough
sections to compensate for the smaller
seating capacity.
There is also a national trend
toward decreasing numbers of computer science majors. This is happening at
least partially because the dot-com bust
has made jobs in computing more difficult to find. Although most schools
reported declining numbers of majors
as early as two years ago, the trend just
hit MTSU this year—our count of 394
majors is the lowest since 1997. Fall
2001 had the highest-ever number at
457. Computer science being the challenging discipline that it is, our number
of graduates has always been smaller
than one might expect from the number
of majors, but so far these counts have
continued to show slow increases.
There were 35 bachelor’s and 13 master’s graduates in 2001-2002.
The department is dealing with
cramped quarters and budget uncertainty. However, we still produce topquality graduates that we’re proud to
send out to be computing professionals.
!
Editor:
Judith A. Hankins
Editorial Assistant:
Michelle Higdon
Layout:
MTSU Publications and
Graphics
Printing: MTSU Printing Services
2
The Internet at MTSU
by Richard Detmer
I
n 1991, Professor Al
Cripps received a National
Science Foundation grant for a
56kbps link to the Internet via
SURAnet (Southeastern Universities Research Association
Network). Through Dr.
Cripps’s efforts, MTSU
received a class B
address space, now virtually unobtainable. Originally,
MTSU reached the Internet via
a leased phone link to Vanderbilt
University.
Internet access has improved each
year at MTSU. There are now several T1
lines connecting the campus to the
world. The on-campus standard today is
100 Mbps switched Ethernet to the desktop, providing a full 100 Mbps dedicated
connection to the campus data network.
A gigabit switch provides even faster
connections within the Computer Science
Department itself.
In 2002, Dr. Richard Detmer, department chair, received another NSF grant,
this time to provide MTSU with a highperformance network connection. A highspeed connection to Abilene, the network that is the backbone for the Internet2 consortium, was established in
February 2003. Abilene is a high-speed
communications network separate from
the “regular” Internet. The connection is the result of collaboration
between MTSU departments, MTSU’s
Information Technology
Division, and Vanderbilt University.
I
nternet2 is a consortium led by 200
universities working in partnership with
industry and government to develop and
deploy advanced network applications
and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow’s Internet. Internet2 is
recreating the partnership among academia, industry, and government that fostered today’s Internet in its infancy. The
primary goals of Internet2 are to
• create a leading-edge network
capability for the national
research community;
Cheatham Moves Up…
In addition to Tom’s duties as dean and his teaching, he has been extremely active
in grant writing. He (together with other co-PIs) has received over $1.2 million in
grants for projects ranging from NSF CSEMs grants to a U.S. Department of Education
Student Support Services grant. He has always been active in research, and since
becoming dean of the college, things haven’t changed. He found time to publish
(together with coauthor Ray Phillips) “Focused Recruiting and Mentoring of Faculty by
Chairpersons” in the Proceedings of the Academic Chairpersons Eighteenth Annual
Conference.
In his leisure time, Tom enjoys a game of racquetball with his students and friends,
going boating on the lake, and watching University of Kentucky basketball. The faculty
in the department would like to say that we have appreciated all of Tom’s work for our
University in the past, and we look forward to working with him in this new capacity in
the future. Congratulations!! !
SPOTLIGHT ON FACULTY
by Judy Hankins
• enable revolutionary Internet
applications; and
• ensure the rapid transfer of
new network services and
applications to the broader
Internet community.
Generally, connectivity to Abilene is
reserved for Internet2 members. Vanderbilt University is an Internet2 consortium
member and has agreed to sponsor
MTSU. Although MTSU will not initially be
a consortium member, the partnership
will allow MTSU to have high-speed, 45
Mbps network access to all Internet2
institutions and their sponsored partners.
Four coprincipal investigators on the
new NSF grant will use the high-performance network for research: Dr. Ralph
Butler (computer science), Dr. Ngee-Sing
Chong (chemistry), Dr. Preston J. MacDougal (chemistry), and Dr. Zachary Sinkala (mathematics). As part of the proposal, the Information Technology
Division created a network-engineering
plan to integrate existing University network services with Internet2 connectivity.
Everyone on campus has access to
Internet2; it is not limited to projects
identified for the NSF grant. While commercial Internet traffic is prohibited
from using the Internet2 connection (Internet2 cannot be used as a backup for
commercial Internet connectivity), there
are no mandated restrictions for traffic
between connected Internet2 institutions. Data travels on either the commercial Internet or Internet2 based on
best performance calculations. End users
will not see any difference, only increased performance. By having a direct
connection to Internet2 members and
their sponsored partners, important research information can be exchanged
with minimal delay and without the possibility of interference from commercial,
Internet-based hack attacks. !
Ralph Butler joined the department as a professor in fall 2000. Ralph was born and raised in
Columbia, Tennessee. He received his B.S. degree from
Tennessee Technological University and worked for
three years as a data systems analyst at AT&T, where
his work included all areas of development of large
software systems, including user interfaces, system
design, implementation, and testing. Next, Ralph
received the M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of
Missouri–Rolla and joined the Department of Computer
Science at the University of North Florida. While there,
he was a research associate at the Supercomputer
Computations Research Institute from 1994 to 1996.
He also became a research associate for Argonne
National Labs and is classified as an STA Research Scientist with Argonne today.
Researchers from all over the world visit Argonne regularly to work on a variety of topics. This work has allowed Ralph to collaborate and work on many interesting problems
which he invariably brings to the classroom to enhance his teaching.
Since 1999, Ralph has served as a consulting research scientist with Integrated
Genomics. His efforts there led to the development of software to perform parallel
searches of genomic data and programs that attempt to detect new genes in genomes.
R
alph has an established research record in the areas of parallel processing, automated reasoning, logic programming, and computational biology. He is involved in a
number of research projects in both parallel processing and computational biology and
has published more than 30 papers in these fields.
In the three years that Ralph has been a computer science faculty member, he has
had a big impact on the department and the University. Since coming to MTSU, he has
taught undergraduate and graduate courses in operating systems, Python programming
language, and algebraic and symbolic manipulation. He serves as faculty supervisor to
students working on the departmental Beowulf cluster. He has served on several
departmental and university committees, including a task force on biotechnology. The
goal of the task force was to develop relationships with external agencies and corporations regarding research in biotechnology and to develop interdisciplinary research
areas within the college which can pursue external funding. This work may eventually
lead to an interdisciplinary major in bioinformatics. Ralph served as co-PI on an NSF
grant that brought Internet2 to MTSU’s campus (see the article on p. 2).
Ralph and wife Tracey live in Murfreesboro. He and his children love to “play” with
Lego MindStorm kits, and they have held several experiments to learn more about Lego
robots. Ralph has an instrument rating for flying but hasn’t gotten to fly much in recent
years.
Ralph’s many areas of expertise and his willingness to share his knowledge have
been invaluable to the department and University. Thank you, Ralph, for all of your
efforts on behalf of the department. !
3
Computer Science Welcomes Three New Faculty
by Judy Hankins
W
e have been extremely fortunate
to hire three talented faculty in fall
2002, and we want to introduce them.
Joseph Driscoll, assistant professor, moved here from Phoenix, Arizona,
but is originally from Tennessee. Joe and
wife, Alice, are living in Smyrna. Prior to
coming to MTSU, he
was a software developer at Genetics
Squared, where he
researched and reported on the functional genomics sector of the bioinformatics industry. He
developed software for the analysis of
genetic and other types of data. He also
used neural networks, statistics, and
evolutionary algorithms to analyze highdimensionality data sets.
He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in
electrical engineering from Vanderbilt
University in 1998 and 2000, respectively.
Dr. Driscoll’s research interests include
intelligent robotics, evolutionary algorithms, and artificial intelligence. He has
been a researcher in Vanderbilt’s Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, at the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan,
and at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was an
instructor and teaching assistant at Vanderbilt, teaching in the departments of
electrical engineering and computer science.
Since coming to MTSU, Joe has been
extremely active. He has taught CSCI
3160 (Assembly Language) and CSCI
4350/5350 (Artificial Intelligence). He
has served on the undergraduate curriculum committee and the institutional
effectiveness committee. He gave a
presentation on evolutionary robotics to
MTSU’s local ACM chapter and has served
on two master’s student committees. He
has submitted an invited paper to the
Genetic Programming: Theory and Practice Workshop held at the University of
Michigan and has been working with Cen
Li to develop a robotics lab to be used to
enhance teaching and to further research
activities. In spring 2003, he entered the
Faculty Leadership Academy. The purpose
4
of the academy is to develop and enhance the leadership potential of faculty
who will be carrying MTSU’s academic
programs into the next decade.
Medha Sarkar finished her B.S. in
computer science and her M.A. (master’s
in computer application) at Sardar Patel
University in India. She finished her M.S.
and Ph.D. at
Queen’s University in Kingston,
Canada.
Prior to coming to MTSU as
an assistant professor, Medha
worked at the
Department of
BioMedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical
Center, as a software engineer. Her areas
of interest are software engineering,
programming languages, rewriting systems, and graph manipulations.
Medha has taken responsibility for
CSCI 4700/5700 (Software Engineering),
and has taught Computer Science
Orientation. She served on the graduate
curriculum committee, the student advisory committee, and the institutional
effectiveness committee. She presented
“Source to Source Transformations” to
MTSU’s local ACM Chapter. She has also
been preparing a journal article to be
submitted for publication.
Medha was born and raised (except
for a few years in the United States) in
Gujarat, India. She is fluent in four languages—Gujarati (her mother tongue),
Hindi (the Indian national language),
Bengali (her husband’s mother tongue),
and English. Her husband is a faculty
member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University.
They have a four-year-old son, Arpan.
Medha loves to read, travel, and cook.
Recently she has found that audiobooks
make her commute to Murfreesboro from
Brentwood quite enjoyable.
Suk Jai Seo comes to us from the
University of Alabama in Huntsville,
where she not only received her M.A.
and Ph.D. degrees in computer science
but also taught for five years. Her teaching experience included courses in introductory programming in C/C++, data
structures, discrete structures, and
analysis of algorithms. Suk’s areas of
interest include graph theory, algorithms,
and complexity as well as computer
graphics.
One Window Closes…
S
At MTSU she has taught Computer
Science I as well as a graduate course
(Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation).
She is scheduled to teach a senior/graduate course on a special topic, “Object
Oriented Design,” in the summer of 2003
and computer
graphics in the
fall of 2003. She
has also served
on the library
committee and
the undergraduate curriculum
committee.
Suk is active in
research. She
works with Drs.
R. Luo, Donald Nelson, and Xiaoya Zha in
the Mathematical Sciences Department
through a weekly seminar on graph theory at MTSU. She is also working on several graph theory research problems with
Dr. Peter Slater at UAH. The problems
include “Couple Labeled Domination in
Graphs” and “Competitive Optimization
Parameters in Graphs.” She published a
paper with coauthor Dr. Ashok Amin entitled “On Extremal Oriented Trees” in
Congressus Numerantium and is working
on a paper with Dr. Amin entitled “Optimal Acyclic Orientations of a Graph” with
plans to submit it to the Journal of
Graph Theory.
Suk is originally from Korea, where
four of her five siblings live. One of her
sisters resides in Seattle, Washington.
Before moving to the United States, Suk
worked in secondary education for seven
years.
Suk’s husband, C.H., is president of
Stellar Corporation. Suk and C.H. have
been househunting and expect to be
homeowners in Murfreesboro soon. They
have two children, both attending Harvard University. Their daughter, Aram, is
a freshman majoring in psychology and
their son, Sung, is a senior majoring in
economics.
Suk loves to play tennis and has
recently taken up golf. She commented,
“I am very happy to be working in the
friendliest department in the South.
Although I am new, I already feel at
home!” !
haron Huffman began as a temporary employee in the fall of 1997 and
became a full-time department secretary
in the summer of 1998. Sharon’s husband, David, was pastor of St. Mark’s
move to North Carolina. Sharon has
reported they love having their own
home to tend to, and she’s enjoying
babysitting her grandchildren. Sharon
was cared for by many and will be
missed. We wish her well and look forward to hearing from her.
…Another Opens
Methodist Church in Murfreesboro. During
their last year here, David was diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease and, as a result,
retirement came a few years earlier than
planned. Before receiving the news
about his health, they had bought a
retirement home in North Carolina.
Sharon’s oldest daughter, Heather, is a
real estate agent there and found them
the perfect home right in her neighborhood! (Was that a coincidence or what?)
Sharon and David had to leave their
youngest daughter, Hillary, and her family in the Nashville area to make the
The CS Help File
E
very time we put together a newsletter it seems that Tennessee is having a
budget crisis. This year is no exception,
and the department really appreciates
financial help from alumni and friends.
From April 2001 to February 2003,
the MTSU Foundation received almost
$19,000 in contributions for the department. These gifts, from 19 individuals or
organizations, have been designated for
a variety of purposes. Some, like major
donations from Square D, are to be
awarded immediately in scholarships.
Some are used to increase the principal
for scholarship funds. Still other funds
are designated for the department
Enrichment Fund, which is used in a variety of ways to enhance quality. All contributions are greatly appreciated.
I realize that not all contributions
are monetary. Thanks to everyone who
In the summer of 2002, Dianne White
assumed the position of full-time secretary to replace Sharon Huffman. Dianne
and her husband, Jeff, have two sons,
Jared and Brad. Jared is a junior here at
MTSU majoring in
athletic training.
Brad is a junior at
Riverdale High
School. Dianne’s
husband
is senior pastor at
First Church of
God. (Being a pastor’s wife seems to
have been a prerequisite for this job!)
She desires to live by the guideline of
“whatever your hand finds to do, do it
with all your might.” We welcome
Dianne to the department! !
by Richard Detmer
supports us in any way—serving on the
Corporate Advisory Board, speaking to a
class, hosting a field trip, offering expertise, or just staying in touch.
Here is a list of known contributors
from April 20, 2001, through February
23, 2003. I apologize if I have accidentally omitted your name. Blame it on the
computer, but please let me know, too!
Mary Adams
BellSouth
Telecommunications
Richard C. Detmer
Gayle Helton Duke
Linda Ann Edwards
Joanne Marie Elston
Fidelity Investments
J. C. Hankins
Judith Hankins
Johannes Johannsson
Larry Randall Lane
MTSU Student
Chapter of ACM
Brenda Parker
Square D Foundation
Theresa Tang
Nancy and Robert Wahl
Jungsoon and Sung Yoo
5
Chairperson’s Book
Used in Assembly
Language Class
$50,000 in Equipment Stolen
by Richard Detmer
ometime between Friday, November 30, and Sunday, December 2, 2001,
$50,000 in equipment was stolen from
the department.
Chairperson Dr. Richard Detmer first
noticed the theft as he entered the
office on Monday, December 3, at
approximately 7:30 a.m. and saw that
the blinds on the window and office door
had been closed. Shortly thereafter,
department secretary Michelle Higdon
entered the office. As part of the daily
routine, Michelle began to unlock the key
box. The lock fell out and Campus
Security was called immediately. Dr. Detmer returned to the office after beginning his class to report stolen overhead
projectors from KOM 321 and 323. The
labs and other offices were also checked.
Much to our dismay, the KOM 350 lab
area had a missing overhead projector,
and two quad processor computers were
missing from our Beowulf cluster area.
Each item stolen was valued at approximately $10,000.
Campus police officers examined
each area that was burglarized and took
reports from various staff members.
C
omputer architecture, in the traditional definition, refers to the aspects of
a computer that can be seen at the
machine language/assembly language
level: registers, memory (addressed multiple ways), and the computer’s instruction set. Introduction to 80x86 Assembly
Language and Computer Architecture
gives undergraduate students an introduction to
computer architecture
using basic Intel 80x86
architecture as a concrete platform. The
accompanying CD has
a software package
including Microsoft’s
Macro Assembler, a
linker that will generate
32-bit flat memory model programs (the
one with MASM won’t), and a Windows
debugger for these programs. The debugger permits students to “see inside” the
computer, watching how registers and
memory change as instructions are executed. The software also includes a simple input/output package to facilitate
string I/O, plus conversion of strings to
integer format and integers to strings.
This enables students to write “real”
programs without worrying about operating system details.
This book is the product of a long
evolution including a 1990 book, Fundamentals of Assembly Language Programming Using the IBM PC and Compatibles,
completed after Dr. Detmer arrived at
MTSU in 1998 and published by Jones and
Bartlett in 2001. Using Introduction to
80x86 Assembly Language and Computer
Architecture, students complete MTSU’s
Introduction to Assembly Language
course knowing basic 80x86 architecture,
understanding how high-level languages
are implemented at the machine level,
and undoubtedly better appreciating the
ease of use of high-level languages. !
6
by Michelle Higdon and Richard Detmer
S
They also dusted
for fingerprints.
The Information
Technology
Division helped
by getting three
used overhead projectors mounted for
use within a 24-hour period.
There were similar thefts during this
time in the Midgett Business Building and
the Business and Aerospace Building that
specifically involved overhead projectors. It was suggested that they were
being used for home entertainment
systems.
Shortly thereafter, the executive vice
president and provost’s office informed
us that all stolen inventory would be
replaced through state theft reimbursement monies. This was very good news!
Since the burglary, everything stolen
has been replaced with new equipment.
To our knowledge, the thieves have not
been caught. As a department, we are
taking various measures to provide more
security throughout our area as funds are
available. !
Student Advisory Board
by Richard Detmer
E
ach year, computer science faculty
nominate students to the Student Advisory Board. The students are at all class
levels, freshman through graduate. They
meet with the chairperson and two other
faculty members (Dr. Judy Hankins and
Dr. Jungsoon Yoo during 2001-2002 and
Dr. Medha Sarkar and Dr. Sung Yoo during
2002-2003) twice during the academic
year to gather opinions about what is
being done well and what could be
improved.
The fall 2001 Student Advisory Board
meeting was held November 30 at Dr.
Detmer’s house. A chili supper preceded
formal discussion. The spring 2002 meet-
ing was held in Kirksey Old Main on April
22. The students enjoyed their favorite
food, pizza! During fall 2002 students
again came to Dr. Detmer’s home on
October 29, this time eating hamburgers
and sharing their ideas.
Issues discussed at the meetings
ranged from lab/classroom physical environment to suggestions for new courses.
Some questions are answered at the
meetings and some issues are assigned to
departmental committees for review and
recommendations. The department welcomes this opportunity for valuable input
from students. !
MTSU Student Chapter of ACM
by Cen Li
Corporate
Advisory Board
by Richard Detmer
T
Graduate assistant Jeff Anderson
T
he student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
had two busy yet successful years. We
held twelve meetings each year. These
included informative talks, parties, and
games. Thanks to Ms. Parker who drafted
the invitation letter (including the top 10
reasons for joining ACM). We had a
record number of students join and all
meetings were very well attended. We
enjoyed pizza, drinks, and good talks,
and door prizes were given out to lucky
members as well. Most prizes were
donated by faculty members. If you
would like to donate any items that we
can use as door prizes, please contact
me, Ms. Parker, or any of our officers.
In fall 2002, after three years of hard
work, Dr. Jungsoon Yoo stepped down
from the ACM advisor position. Ms.
Parker and I became the new ACM advisors. At the same time, new ACM officers
were elected. Scott Farr was elected
president, Scott Hovis was elected vice
president, Julian McBride was elected
secretary, and Karen Soh and Naomi
Philips were elected treasurers. John
Lemon, who has served as president for
the previous two years, was elected photographer.
ACM organized the first Computer
Science Jeopardy in September 2002.
Four teams, each with three players,
participated. The categories included CS
History, CS Acronym, Operating System,
Software Engineering, Artificial
Intelligence, Famous People, and Famous
University. Questions were submitted by
faculty members in the department.
Michael Peters, Chris Stout, and Mike
Vire were members of the winning team.
In December 2002, ACM participated
in the Toys for Tots program and donated
more than 10 toys to boys and girls in
the region.
The ACM-sponsored .NET user group,
led by John Lemon, held regular meetings throughout the year. The campuswide Microsoft.NET 2003 launch was held
in the Tucker Theatre on March 26, 2003.
Scott Farr, John Lemon, and Julian McBride
he Computer Science Department
tries in many ways to keep up with what
is happening in the world. For several
years we have held a Corporate Advisory
Board meeting each spring, welcoming
this contact with our corporate representatives and sharing ideas with them.
However, the number of people able to
attend this dinner meeting has declined
each year, and each year there have
been “no-shows” and last-minute cancellations, so that it does not seem practical to continue the Corporate Advisory
Board in this format.
In 2003 we are launching a new
effort to share ideas with our corporate
friends. We propose to visit our board
members’ work sites at mutually convenient times. Our delegation will come
with two or three computer science faculty and with College of Basic and
Applied Sciences Dean Tom Cheatham
(former department chairperson) if he is
available. We will briefly tell corporate
representatives what is new in the
department. Mostly we want to listen
and discover how we can work together
to serve their needs. The format of the
meeting is flexible. The key for us will
be to continue getting corporate input
about our programs, our graduates, and
the needs of our corporate partners.
With our other responsibilities, it will
probably only be possible to schedule
three or four of these visits each year.
Please let Dr. Detmer know if you’re
interested in participating in a Corporate
Advisory Board with this new format. !
As sponsor for the ACM student organization, I have enjoyed meeting and
interacting with the students. We invite
alumni to drop by any of our meetings.
Meetings and contact information are
posted on our Web site at www.mtsu.
edu/~csacm. Our students are interested
in meeting alumni and listening to their
success and horror stories.!
7
SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENTS
UPE
by Richard Detmer
T
he Paul Hutcheson Tennessee Delta
Chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) held
its ninth annual initiation banquet in the
James Union Building’s Hazlewood Dining
Room Monday, April 15, 2002. John Lemon was elected to serve as the 2002-2003
president and Julian McBride was elected
to serve as vice president.
To qualify for UPE membership
• an undergraduate student must
be a computer science major,
must have completed at least 64
hours of college credit with an
overall grade point average (GPA)
of at least 3.0, and must have
completed at least 18 hours of
computer science courses toward
the major with a major GPA of at
least 3.4
• a graduate student must be a
computer science major, must
have completed at least 16 hours
of graduate CS courses, and must
have a GPA of at least 3.5 on all
CS graduate work.
High School
Programming
Contest
Regional
Programming
Contest
by Mack Thweatt
by Sung Yoo
T
he 2002 Twenty-first Annual Computer Contest featured programming
competition only. Teams from as far away
as Memphis and a couple of counties in
Kentucky competed. There were fewer
teams overall than in years past, largely
due to elimination of the Web competition. The final standings follow.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Daviess County, Ky., Team #1
Daviess County, Ky., Team #2
Franklin County, Tenn., Team #1
Margolin Hebrew Academy, Tenn.,
Team #1
5. Warren County, Ky.
6. Margolin Hebrew Academy, Tenn.,
Team #2
7. Franklin County, Tenn., Team #2
J
ohn Lemon, Julian McBride, and
Michael Peters took fifth place in the
2002 ACM programming contest held on
November 2, 2002, at Tennessee Tech
University. A second team of MTSU students consisting of James Hargis, Joseph
Horton, and Justin Sunley took sixth
place. Fourteen teams competed: MTSU’s
two teams were joined by two from
Austin Peay State University; two from
Tennessee Tech; two from the University
of Tennessee–Knoxville; two from Western Kentucky University; and one each
from Belmont University, Central Piedmont Community College, Union University, and the University of the South.
Tennessee Tech (Team B) finished first.
!
There will be no contest held in 2003. !
In 2002, 21 students were invited to
join UPE and 11 accepted the invitation.
!
Academic Awards Ceremony, Spring 2003
Row 1 - Scott Farr, John Lemon, and Julian McBride
Row 2 - Judy Hankins, Chad Lloyd, Brenda Parker, and Suk Jai Seo
Row 3 - Tom Cheatham, Ray Johnston, Mack Thweatt, and Jungsoon Yoo
8
BRAG CORNER
by Judy Hankins and Michelle Higdon
I
n this section, we like to brag about
our students’ accomplishments. Several
have presented, published, won awards,
and received scholarships. We have listed
accomplishments of which we are aware.
Each of these students is to be commended for his/her achievements.
Jeff Anderson (M.S. expected in 2003)
presented “Perl and CPAN” in spring 2003
to the local chapter of ACM.
Kay Anthony (B.S. ’98) presented “What
I Have Learned Since Graduation—The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in spring
2003 to the local chapter of ACM.
John Lemon (B.S. expected in 2003) participated in the Student Paper Competition at the ACM Mid-Southeast Conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, November
2002. The title of John’s paper in the
Bachelor Division was “Pinned Down? Try
Emulation.”
Chad Lloyd (M.S. expected in 2003) participated in the Student Paper Competition at the ACM Mid-Southeast Confer-
ence in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, November
2002. The title of Chad’s paper in the
Graduate Division was “An Approach to
Embedded Technology: Outside the Box.”
Justin Milling (M.S. ’01), Brenda Parker,
and Tom Cheatham published a paper
titled “Using Technology to Teach Technology” that was presented at the Eighth
Annual CCSC Central Plains Conference in
Kansas City, Kansas, April 2002.
Bradley Palmquist (B.S. ’02) participated
in the Student Paper Competition at the
ACM Mid-Southeast Conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, November 2002. The
title of Brad’s paper in the Graduate
Division was “Reduced Neighborhood
Mutation Testing.” Brad won first place.
Jon Price (B.S. ’97)
published five
papers in Visual
Basic Developer:
“True Love: A Match
Made in Computer
Heaven” (September 2001); “Anticipating Entry
Errors” (January 2002); “Making
Connections” (February and March
2002); “A Basic Lesson on Income Tax”
(April 2002); and “Making a Combo
Box Searchable” (May 2002).
Brad Rudnik (M.S. expected in 2003),
Thomas Naughton (M.S. ’00), Ralph
Butler, and Chrisila Pettey published
a paper titled “A Rapid Recovery
Beowulf Platform” that was presented
at the 15th International Conference
on Systems Engineering in Las Vegas,
Nevada, August 2002. The same four
also published a paper titled “Simple
Maintenance of Beowulf Clusters in an
Academic Environment” that was presented at the Southeastern Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Sixteenth Annual Southeastern
Conference at Greenville, South Carolina, November 2002. !
2002 Scholarship and Award Winners
Outstanding Freshman in Computer
Science: Terrence Jamaal Locke and
Desira Nicole Stover
Outstanding Sophomore in Computer
Science: Peter Joseph Speltz
Outstanding Junior in Computer
Science: Kimberly Anne Hatcher
Outstanding Senior in Computer
Science: John Thomas Grzegorczyk
Nancy Wahl Computer Science Scholarship: Jennifer Lynne Dennison,
Kimberly Anne Hatcher, Naomi
Phillips, and Jessica Ellen Spies
Computer Science Alumni Award:
John K. Lemon
Computer Science Scholarship Award:
Fabian D. Story
Paul H. Hutcheson Computer Science
Graduate Award: Stephen Todd
Kirkpatrick
Square D Computer Science Scholarship: Charles Michael Baes, Patrick
Joseph Flannigan, John Thomas
Grzegorczyk, Christopher Ryan Hammonds, Kimberly Anne Hatcher, John
K. Lemon, Terrence Jamaal Locke,
Jeremy Brandon Mathes, Stephen
Bradley Pennington, Joshua Lee
Phillips, Stefan H. Pinson, Wade Eric
Rohrbach, Peter Joseph Speltz,
Timothy Wayne Stallman, Fabian D.
Story, Desira Nicole Stover, Jason
Nathaniel Wells, and Johnathan
Lindley Williams
Ronald E. McNair Scholar: Rhonda
Suzanne Earl
Stephen D. Farmer, Scott Lee Farr,
Rosia Marea Harper, Ray Morris
Johnston, Christopher David Kelly,
Mary Anne Maulbeck, Julian Scott
McBride, Jason Thomas Perkins,
Peter Joseph Speltz, Tran HuyenTran,
and Edwin Vargis.
Graduate Scholarship Recipients:
Richard Paul Alexander, Lisa Dawn
Boyce, Rhonda Suzanne Earl, Chad
Andrew Lloyd, Farzan J. Mufti,
Christopher Chad Mullis, Jon William
Price, Bradley Allen Rudnik, and
Christopher Ellis Stout.
Faculty coordinator was Dr. Jungsoon
Yoo. !
2002 Fall NSF CSEM Undergraduate
Scholarship Recipients: Anhminh
Phuong Do, Ray Charles Duke,
9
2003
Scholarship and
Award Winners
Outstanding Freshman in Computer
Science: Michael Vincent O’Brien
Outstanding Sophomore in Computer
Science: Alice Wai-sie Quan
Outstanding Junior in Computer
Science: Michael Joseph Larkin
Outstanding Senior in Computer
Science: John K. Lemon and Naomi
Phillips
Nancy Wahl Computer Science
Scholarship: Jennifer Lynne Dennison, Kimberly Anne Hatcher, and
Naomi Phillips
Computer Science Alumni Award: Peter
Joseph Speltz
Computer Science Scholarship Award:
Julian Scott McBride
Paul H. Hutcheson Computer Science
Graduate Award: Chad Andrew Lloyd
Square D Computer Science
Scholarship: Tina Nemarnik, Michael
Vincent O’Brien, Michael Thomas
Jaynes, Desira Nicole Stover, Michael
Joseph Larkin, Peter Joseph Speltz,
John K. Lemon, Julian Scott McBride,
Bina Mohanlal Patel, and Karen Soh
Ronald E. McNair Scholar: Rhonda
Suzanne Earl
2003 Spring NSF CSEM Undergraduate
Scholarship Recipients: Anhminh
Phuong Do, Ray Charles Duke, Scott
Lee Farr, Ray Morris Johnston,
Christopher David Kelly, Mary Anne
Maulbeck, Julian Scott McBride,
Kenneth R. Oberleitner, Jason
Thomas Perkins, Peter Joseph Speltz,
and Edwin Vargas.
Graduate Scholarship Recipients:
Richard Paul Alexander, Lisa Dawn
Boyce, Rhonda Suzanne Earl, Chad
Andrew Lloyd, Christopher Chad
Mullis, Bradley Allen Rudnik, and
Christopher Ellis Stout.
Faculty coordinator is Dr. Chrisila
Pettey. !
10
FACULTY REVIEW
by Judy Hankins and Michelle Higdon
Ralph Butler (see the article “Spotlight on Faculty”)
Al Cripps continues to be noted by
students as a “Faculty Member Making a
Difference.” He received recognition for
20 years of service at MTSU during the
Annual Service Awards Luncheon held in
November 2001. He chaired the college
peer evaluation committee, the department’s undergraduate program committee, and the departmental retreat. He
also served on the department’s graduate program and institutional effectiveness committees. He continues to consult
with K–12 schools, nonprofit organizations such as Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, and industry. Al
and coauthor Nghiep Nguyen had two
papers accepted by the National Science
Journal: “Application of the AAHE’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education to Online Teaching”
and “Accelerating the Transformative
Learning Process in Online Teaching.”
He and Nguyen also presented the paper
“Fostering Transformative Learning in
Online Courses” at the National Social
Science Conference (April 2002, Las
Vegas, Nevada) and published the corresponding paper in the National Social
Science Proceedings. The two will be
presenting a paper titled “Using Multiple
Intelligences for Effective Online Teaching” at the Hawaii International Conference on Business in June 2003. Cripps
was a reviewer for the ACM Journal on
Educational Resources in Computing
(JERIC) and for the SIGCSE conference.
He published an article in MTSU’s January issue of The Record and the January
issue of the College of Basic and Applied
Science’s newsletter, The Basic Facts. He
will be presenting (with coauthors Nguyen and Kaburlasos) a paper titled
“Three Improved Fuzzy Lattice Neurocomputing (FLN) Classifiers” at the July
2003 International Joint Conference on
Neural Networks in Portland, Oregon. He
will also be presenting (with coauthors
Nguyen, Kaburlasos, and Papadakis) a
paper titled “Improved Experimental
Results Using Fuzzy Lattice Neurocomputing (FLN) Classifiers” at the Machine
Learning, Models, Technologies, and
Applications Conference, June 2003, in
Las Vegas. Al and coauthors Osama ElTemtamy and E. Anthon Eff presented a
paper, “Bankruptcy Prediction: How Good
Are Neural Nets?” at the July 2002 Global
Conference on Business and Management
in Paris, France.
Richard Detmer continues to work
hard as our fearless leader. His assembly
language book, Introduction to 80X86
Assembly Language and Computer Architecture, is now in publication and being
put to good use in our assembly language
courses. He serves on numerous department and University committees. In the
department, he is on the undergraduate,
graduate, and scholarships and awards
committees. Richard chaired the institutional effectiveness, facilities planning,
and student advisory board committees.
He also sponsors the Paul Hutcheson
Delta Chapter of UPE (Upsilon Pi Epsilon). He was noted as a “Faculty Member
Making a Difference.” He served as principal investigator on the $150,000 NSF
grant that brought Internet2 to campus
this year. To help prepare, he attended
a National Science Foundation Highperformance Networking Connection
Proposal Preparation workshop in Kansas
City, Kansas. Each year he attends the
Academic Chairpersons’ Conference in
Orlando, Florida, and the annual SIGCSE
meeting. He has undertaken a tremendous responsibility by agreeing to serve
as director of the University’s upcoming
SACS accreditation review. He is also
president of the University’s Chairs’
Council. Each year he takes an exciting
trip, and last summer he went to Italy.
We are beginning to suspect why Richard
was chosen as department chair: it could
be because of his ability to play racquetball in the same league as the new dean
of BAS, Tom Cheatham.
Joe Driscoll (see the article “New
Faculty”)
Judy Hankins remains a pillar of the
department. She (together with Brenda
Parker) is a pioneer for our first online
course, Computer Literacy, CSCI 1000.
She was co-principal investigator on a
$30,000 NSF planning grant for the
Women in STEM Undergraduate Program
“The Wild Bunch”—
Drs. Pettey, Hankins, and
Parker at SIGSCE in Nevada.
(WISUP) along with Judith Iriarte-Gross
(PI), Brenda Parker, Chrisila Pettey, and
Ginger Rowell. She participated in a
poster demonstration at the combined
Kentucky and Tennessee Academy of
Sciences conference concerning the
grant, and she gave a presentation called
“Women in Computer Science—A Work
in Progress” at the annual ACM MidSoutheast Conference. As her part in the
grant, she developed the Web site
wisor@mtsu.edu (Women in STEM Online
Resources). She and coauthor Brenda
Parker presented a paper, “The Joys and
Sorrows of Teaching Computer Literacy
Online” at the NECC 2002 conference in
San Antonio, Texas. The two also had a
paper, “AAHE’s Seven Principles for Good
Practice Applied to an Online Literacy
Course,” published in the 8th Annual
CCSC Central Plains conference proceedings. She coauthored—with Ginger Rowell,
Diane Perhac, Brenda Parker, Chrisila
Pettey, and Judith Iriarte-Gross—a paper
titled “Computer-related Gender Differences” accepted by SIGCSE 2003. Judy
remains in charge of our annual newsletter and maintains the alumni database.
She is course coordinator for CSCI 1170
and upgraded the 1170 online lab manual
with the help of many faculty members.
She now has release time to upgrade the
2170 online lab manual (what a glutton
for punishment). She maintains her
church Web site as well as the ACM MidSoutheast site. She held two workshops
to teach girls how to create a Web page
at the annual Expanding Your Horizon
workshops. She presented a workshop on
“Building a Church Web Page” at the
Computer Technology Seminar, a seminar
for Christian preachers, leaders, and
teachers across the south. She was noted
by a student as a “Faculty Member
Making a Difference.” She served as co-PI
on a recently submitted NSF CCLI grant
titled “Adaptive Online Laboratory in
Computer Science Education.”
Cascais, Portugal, of a research paper
titled “Building Models of Ecological
Dynamics Using HMM-based Temporal
Data Clustering—A Preliminary Study”
coauthored by Gautam Biswas, Mike
Dale, and Pat Dale. The paper was one
of 23 chosen out of 146 submissions. The
trip was cancelled due to the September
11 terrorist attacks. She was noted as a
“Faculty Member Making a Difference.”
Cen served on the undergraduate program and institutional effectiveness committees, chaired the departmental
library committee, and agreed to serve
as faculty advisor for ACM (jointly with
Brenda Parker) after Jungsoon Yoo
stepped down from that position.
Cen Li has a newfound research interest in mobile robotics. She reviewed
journal papers submitted to the special
issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine on “Robotics in Education.” She received a grant to purchase
equipment for our very first robotics
class, taught in summer 2002. Due to
the efforts of Cen and Joe Driscoll, the
department has received money for a
Brenda Parker continues to supervise
robotics lab. (Her office has been very
all aspects of our computer literacy
clean lately. Maybe with her knowledge
class. She was a pioneer for our first
of robotics, she knows something we
online course, Computer Literacy, CSCI
don’t?) She recently submitted an NSF
1000, and has taught it several times.
ITR grant titled “HMMShe supervises all gradubased Temporal Data
ate assistants teaching
Clustering and Modthe literacy class and
eling for Ecological
meets with all of the litAssessment” as PI (coeracy classes each semPI Ralph Butler). She
ester for an orientation
served as co-PI on
session. She had two
another NSF CCLI grant
papers published in the
submission titled
8th Annual CCSC Central
“Adaptive Online
Plains conference proLaboratory in Comceedings and presented
puter Science Eduthese papers at the concation.” She received
ference in Kansas City,
release time to comKansas. The first paper,
plete her research on
“Using Technology to
“Applying Temporary
Teach Technology,” was
Data Clustering to Real
coauthored by Tom
World Data: Building
Cheatham and Justin
Models of Ecological
Milling. The second paper,
Dynamics—A Case
“AAHE’s Seven Principles
Study.” She published
for Good Practice Applied
an article, “Building
to an Online Literacy
Models of Ecological
Brenda Parker and Nancy Wahl at
Course,” was coauthored
Dynamics Using HMMBrenda’s “grandmother” shower.
with Judy Hankins. She
based Temporal Data
Brenda and Chrisila, bottom photo.
and Hankins presented
Clustering, in Advances
the paper “The Joys and
in Intelligent Data
Sorrows of Teaching
Analysis” coauthored by G. Biswas, M.
Computer Literacy Online” at the NECC
Dale, and P. Dale in the lecture notes of
2002 conference in San Antonio, Texas.
the Fourth International Symposium on
She was noted as a “Faculty Member
Intelligent Data Analysis. Cen was awardMaking a Difference” on multiple occaed two research grants in 2001-2002. She
sions. Brenda was awarded an Eisenwas scheduled to make an oral presentahower Grant in the amount of $40,500.
tion at the Fourth International ConferCodirectors are Drs. Patricia Patterson,
ence on Intelligent Data Analysis in
11
Cindi Smith-Walters, Marilia Gerges, and
Kim Sadler. The title is “A Teacher Enhancement Partnership for Maury, Lewis,
and Williamson County Middle School
Science Teachers.” She held two workshops to teach girls how to create a Web
page at the annual Expanding Your Horizon workshops. She served as co-PI on an
NSF planning grant in the amount of
$30,000 for the Women in STEM Undergraduate Program (WISUP) along with
Judith Iriarte-Gross (PI), Judy Hankins,
Chrisila Pettey, and Ginger Rowell. She
was coauthor with Ginger Rowell, Diane
Perhac, Judy Hankins, Chrisila Pettey, and
Judith Iriarte-Gross on a paper titled
“Computer-related Gender Differences”
accepted by SIGCSE 2003. She participated in a poster demonstration concerning
the WISUP grant at the combined Kentucky and Tennessee Academy of Sciences
conference. She presented a talk titled
“Using WebQuests in the Middle School
Science Classrooms” at Columbia State
Community College to a group of 25 middle school teachers. She chaired the high
school teachers/ secondary education
committee. Brenda was thrilled to
become a grandmother this year when
her son and daughter-in-law became
proud parents of a beautiful baby girl.
Chrisila Pettey received recognition
for 10 years of service at MTSU during the
Annual Service Awards Luncheon held in
November 2001. She did an extraordinary
job as department social committee. She
revamped some of the library database
for Page Middle School. She served as coPI on an NSF planning grant in the amount
of $30,000 for the Women in STEM Undergraduate Program along with Judith
Iriarte-Gross (PI), Judy Hankins, Brenda
Parker, and Ginger Rowell. She served on
the board of EYH (Expanding Your Horizons). She was coauthor with Ginger
Rowell, Diane Perhac, Judy Hankins, Brenda Parker, and Judith Iriarte-Gross on a
paper titled “Computer-Related Gender
Differences” accepted by SIGCSE 2003.
She served on the undergraduate program, institutional effectiveness and promotion and tenure committees. Chrisila is
co-PI on two recently submitted grants.
The first is an NSF CCLI grant with Jungsoon Yoo, Sung Yoo, Cen Li, and Judy
Hankins titled “Adaptive Online Laboratory in Computer Science Education.”
The second is an NSF ITEST grant with
Brenda Parker titled “Enhancing Middle
School Teachers’ Competencies in Using
Technology in Math and Science Instruc12
tion.” She serves as project director for
the NSF CSEM grant and has recently submitted a new NSF CSEM grant as PI along
with Ray Phillips. She continues to be
one of our parallel programming experts.
This is only appropriate—Chrisila has
become an expert at parallel processing
in her own life, juggling teaching responsibilities, three children, and many farm
animals.
ager for the nationally recognized STORM
Web site. He attended the Java! Nashville Conference, the Music City Java
Conference and the Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference. He also
attended the Seventh Annual Distance
Medha Sarkar (see the article “New
Faculty”)
Suk Jai Seo (see the article “New
Faculty”)
Mack Thweatt is the veteran of our
department. He has been at MTSU over
37 years! He is the departmental resource concerning ethical questions since
he became the “Ethics” teacher after
Nancy Wahl retired. Mack coordinates
co-op and internship courses and has
helped many students receive credit for
work experience. He coordinated the
Twenty-first Annual High School Computer Contest. He was noted by a student
as a “Faculty Member Making a Difference.” With other faculty, he made a
presentation titled “Women in Computer
Science—A Work in Progress” to the ACM
Mid-Southeast Conference. He was elected Mid-Southeast Conference chair for
next year. He is the computer science
representative on the Faculty Senate.
He submitted a grant proposal titled
“Learning Enhancement through Technology.” He also worked as a consultant
for an elementary school and industry.
Mack is helping start a new church congregation by preaching part-time and
teaching Bible classes. He loves to spend
time with his eight grandchildren.
Roland Untch remains active in software testing research. His research article, “Prioritizing Test Cases for Regression Testing,” coauthored by Gregg Rothermel, Chengyun Chu, and Mary Jean
Harrold, appeared in the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. His latest
article, “Can Fault-Exposure-Potential
Estimates Improve the Fault Detection
Abilities of Test Suites?” with coauthors
Wei Chen, Gregg Rothermel, Sebastian
Elbaum, and Jeffery von Ronne, was published in the Journal of Software Testing,
Verification, and Reliability (December
2002). Students have identified him as a
“Faculty Member Making a Difference.”
Dr. Untch continues to be Web site man-
Learning Conference, where he was presented with the TBR Distance Education
Committee’s Innovations Award for his
work in videoconferencing development.
He is the department’s systems ombudsman and serves on both the BAS and
departmental tenure and promotion committees. Roland’s wife, Sandra, is a fulltime student in the nursing program at
MTSU. She practices her nursing skills on
Roland from time to time, and rumor has
it that he is dreading the time when she
starts giving shots!
Jungsoon Yoo has done a wonderful
job as the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) faculty advisor since
1999. She received recognition for 10
years of service at MTSU during the
Annual Service Awards Luncheon held in
November 2001. Jungsoon has been promoted to full professor. She serves as a
mentor for 24 students as part of a
National Science Foundation grant. She
was a consulting researcher for MindShadow Corporation. She conducted
research with Dr. P. Langley and Dr. D.
Shapiro at Stanford University on adaptive interfaces. Jungsoon also coauthored
a paper titled “Generalized Clustering,
Supervised Learning, and Data Assignment” at the KDD Conference in San
Francisco, California. She coauthored a
paper with K. Kim and Sung Yoo titled
“Usability Test for On-line Retail Stores”
that was published in the SeoGang Business Journal and in the proceedings of
the Sixth International Conference on
Decision Science Institute. The work has
also been copresented at the Sixth International Conference on Decision Science
Institute in Chihuahua, Mexico. She and
Sung Yoo were awarded an Instructional
Evaluation and Development Grant to
create a new interface for the 1170 online lab manual. She submitted a proposal for the NSF CCLI grant titled “Adaptive
Online Laboratory in Computer Science
Education” with Drs. Li, Hankins, S. Yoo,
and Pettey. She chairs the graduate program committee and serves on the institutional effectiveness committee. She
continues to be faculty facilitator for
Scientia (an electronic journal featuring
the research of MTSU students). Jungsoon has a natural “green thumb” and
enjoys sharing her flowers with everyone. In her spare time, she has her hands
full keeping Dr. (Mr.) Yoo out of trouble
(?) and corresponding with their son,
Jeffrey, who is studying in Spain.
Sung Yoo lightens the departmental
meetings with his great sense of humor.
He is our resident networking expert and
continues to teach network classes and
manage the lab. He was recognized as a
faculty member who significantly contributed to the success of the past year’s
graduating students. As the ACM Programming Contest chair, each year he
takes a team to the Southeast Regional
Programming Contest. His research this
year included Web-supported instruction
and its effectiveness. As part of that, he
and Jungsoon Yoo were awarded an Instructional Evaluation and Development
Grant to create a new interface for the
1170 online lab manual. He served as coPI on a recently submitted NSF CCLI
grant titled “Adaptive Online Laboratory
in Computer Science Education.” He copresented, with Jungsoon Yoo, a paper at
the Sixth Annual Decision Science International Conference in Chihuahua, Mexico, titled “Usability Test for On-line
Retail Stores.” He served as co-PI on a
recently submitted NSF CCLI grant titled
“Adaptive Online Laboratory in Computer
Science Education.” He serves on the
university awards committee, chairs the
department scholarship and awards committee, and coordinates CSCI 1150. Word
has it that he is trying to steal Cen Li’s
robot technology to keep his networking
lab in shape. He was heard saying something like, “Don’t worry, I can control
them.” !
ALUMNI NEWS
by Judy Hankins
W
e’ve heard from many of our
alumni since the last newsletter. Some
have visited us personally, and many
have sent e-mail to let us know what’s
happening in their lives. We love hearing
about your activities and we love bragging about them, so drop your favorite
professor(s) an e-mail or note.
Mary Beth Ada (Rogers) (B.S. ’94) works
from her home for Esse Health of St.
Louis. She has two small children, Faith
and Grace.
Al Ansari (Pouransari) (B.S. ’94) is in
California working for VeriSign, a company in the PKI and domain name market.
Al’s main responsibilities include building
a LAN/WAN and moving two of the corporation’s data centers to a new location.
He focuses on the ERP system in the
company. It sounds like he’s really enjoying his work.
Curt (CJ) Curry (M.S. ’93) is a senior
systems analyst for the Information Technology Division at MTSU. He’s helped us
out many times by serving as an adjunct
teacher. He has two children, a boy (one
year old) and a girl (five years old).
Rajarathinam Davidarulappan (M.S. ’98)
works for Lucent Technologies in North
Carolina.
Yan Fei (M.S. ’01) is working for the
State of Tennessee Treasury Department
in Nashville.
Chris Freeze (B.S. ’98) received a graduate degree from Clemson University and
is working for a Department of Defense
contractor in Texas.
Anatoli Gorchetchnikov (M.S. ’02) came
by for a visit saying that he is working on
his Ph.D. at Boston University. He’s a research assistant, and his research involves computational modeling of goaldirected navigation in computational
neuroscience labs. Good luck on that
Ph.D., Anatoli. It was great to see you.
Kay Anthony (B.S. ’98) is working with
Compuware. She came on campus to talk
to our local ACM about the job market
(interviewing and tips she has learned at
various jobs). We enjoyed visiting with
her. Thank you again for a great job,
Kay!
Blake Graves (B.S. ’95) was on campus
and Mrs. Parker and I just happened to
run into him. He is working at First Data
Corporation. Blake, come back and see
us when you can visit longer!
Bryan Ary (B.S. ’92) is contracting for
Manheim Auctions Remarketing Solutions
in Nashville. He sent an e-mail saying
“Wow—it has definitely been a while
since Computer Science kept me up all
night!”
Chris Harris (B.S. ’91) completed three
months of intensive training (fall 2002) in
Japan for IBM/Nissan.
Linda (Wyatt) Bochar (B.S. ’99) works
for Ingram Entertainment in La Vergne.
Jason Bone (B.S. ’98) works for Blue Star
Communications in Nashville.
Dale Brown (B.S. ’98) works as an engineer for MTSU’s Department of Recording
Industry
Matt Byrnes (M.S. ’98) works for the City
of Murfreesboro.
Joseph Chandler (B.S. ’98) works at
Arnold Engineering Development Center
in Tullahoma.
Billy Cromer (B.S. ’86) is working for the
Georgia Department of Agriculture.
Jonathan Griffith (B.S. ’99) works at
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
Amy (B.S. ’97) and Ben Henderson started their own company: Intuitive Digital,
Inc. In June, Ben is scheduled to present
a real-world ASP.NET application developed at HCA to the Nashville Visual
Studio.NET Users’ Group.
Luke Hill (B.S. ’00) works for BlueCross
BlueShield of Tennessee. He went
through extensive training and is excited
about the job.
Roxanne (Clancy) Howlett (B.S. ’96)
works at home on her own Internet business, www.healthy-sunshine.com, an
independent distributor of natural health
products.
Terri Jenkins (B.S. ’81) wrote to us after
our last newsletter. Since graduation, she
got an M.B.A. in computer information
13
resource management from Bristol
University in East Tennessee. She is also
a certified information systems auditor.
About four years ago, she incorporated
herself and is independently serving
clients in the middle Tennessee area as
an application developer on PeopleSoft
projects. She wrote to say that “programming has always been a joy for me
and I want to thank you all for helping
me find it.” It was great to hear from
you, Terri. We’re so glad that you are
happy with your chosen profession.
Julie (Duvall) Jones (B.S. ’97) works at
Toyota in Kentucky. She is working on a
new ordering process for all plants in
North America.
Randy Jones (M.S. ’97) works in Alabama
for Mercedes-Benz U.S. International.
Sounds like a neat job to me!
Dena Kerr (B.S. ’01) works for Nation
Way Connection.
Danny Lampkin (B.S. ’98) is working for
Quilogy, Inc., in Nashville.
Fred Latham (B.S. ’95) works for Home
Healthcare Laboratories of America in
Franklin. Since our last newsletter, he
and his wife became proud parents of a
baby girl (Oct. 2001).
Chris Lawrence (M.S. ’00) is working for
Solutions IT Consulting in Cookeville. His
responsibilities include Web development
using Perl, programming desktop applications in Visual Basic, and visiting clients
to install/troubleshoot hardware and
software issues. He’s also been willing to
serve as an adjunct teacher for us from
time to time and we really appreciated
his assistance. Good luck with your new
job and home, Chris.
Huiming Li (M.S. ’02) works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Ting Liu (M.S. ’96) works for Oracle Corporation in Sterling, West Virginia.
Shane Martin (M.S. ’01) is a software
engineer at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Shane states that his job
is very challenging and he is
putting his computer programming skills to good use.
The programs he writes
are responsible for supporting the development
and testing of state-ofthe-art smart weapon systems. Some of the work they
do isn’t performed anywhere else in the world.
14
Cindy (B.S. ’83) and Nathan (B.S. ’82)
McCormac wrote to say that Cindy is
staying at home with their two children
while Nathan is a software engineer with
Lockheed Martin in Huntsville, Alabama.
Nathan designs and programs prototype
systems for manufacturing processes—
mostly weld control systems. The systems (some of them) are used for welding space shuttle external tanks at
NASA’s factory in New Orleans. Cindy and
Nathan were newlyweds in my class
many years ago. It doesn’t seem like 20
years since you graduated!!
Tracy Norris (B.S. ’97) wrote to Dr. Wahl
to say he hadn’t realized it while in the
CS program at MTSU, but after graduation he discovered that the program was
so much better than many others. He is
working for IBM as an RDx lead system
engineer. He said that thanks to his education, he doubled his salary quickly and
has had excellent ratings. Tracy, we
appreciate your kind words.
Alicia Parsons (B.S. ’00) is working at
Local Government Data Processing in
Columbia. She is building new software
to replace old COBOL software.
Mark Partin (B.S. ’96) is working for
American General Life and Accident in
Brentwood. He is in the actuarial department working with financial projections
and doing programming in VB. He also
works part-time teaching computer literacy to people with severe disabilities.
Matt Petre (B.S. ’98) is with the University of Tennessee–Memphis.
Joshua Phillips (B.S. ’02) is in graduate
school at Vanderbilt. He has received a
teaching assistant scholarship. Last summer he married Julie Baker. Congratulations, Joshua.
Robert Reineri (B.S. ’98) works with
Square D Powerlogic as a senior software
engineer. He wrote to say that he had a
performance problem requiring him to
get out the data structures book and
refresh his memory on time-complexity analysis. A change in algorithms yielded almost a ten-fold
improvement in program performance (see—it is good
to know big Oh!!).
Daniel Shilstat (B.S. ’01)
is working for Cingular
Wireless.
Vladimir Silva (B.S. ’96)
works for IBM in
Naugatuck, Connecticut.
Corey Stovall (B.S. ’95) is working in
Nashville for Indus Corporation. He is a
programmer/analyst and part-time project/programmer lead. He said he wears
many hats due to his experience. He is
working with Coldfusion, Java, JavaScript, Oracle, and Access in a client/
server environment. It was great to hear
from you Corey. Good luck with the job.
Brent Straight (B.S. ’00) is working for
Schott Scientific Glass as a systems programmer in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
His duties include development of manufacturing information systems and client/
server applications as well as maintenance of Lotus Notes databases and
applications. He is now close to home
and says that the job was a great career
opportunity for him.
Lianhong Tang (M.S. ’01) works as a
health system software engineer at
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.
Jian Wang (M.S. ’92) is working for
Rational Software Corporation in California.
Zujiang Wang (M.S. ’02) is working at
Vanderbilt Medical Center. This job made
it possible for him to combine his chemistry master’s with his computer science
master’s and maintain software to analyze the results of protein testing by
using mass spectrometry.
James Welcher (B.S. ’89) is working in
La Vergne at Ingram Entertainment.
Bill White (B.S. ’97) is a systems software specialist in the Department of
Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at
Vanderbilt University Medical School. He
is developing parallel evolutionary computing/machine learning (genetic algorithms, genetic programming, neural networks, cellular automata, ant systems)
applications to search for and classify
gene-gene interactions associated with
complex human disease. He is using C,
C++, PVM, MPI, and Perl on Unix (Linux/
Beowulf) systems. He says it is a “dream
job.”
Shay Wilson (B.S. ’99) is a personal
financial analyst at Primerica Financial
Services. She now holds a securities,
mortgage, variable annuities, and insurance license and says, “ I didn’t think a
college degree was enough!”
Josh Yockey (B.S. ’02) works at
Copyright.net in Nashville. !
SPOTLIGHT ON AN ALUMNUS
The following article about 1997 CSCI
graduate Russ Hudson is excerpted from
titansonline.com by the kind permission
of Russ and the author, Michelle Manson.
It was posted September 27, 2002.
T
he world of technology and computers plays a large role in everyday life.
That’s no exception for the Tennessee
Titans. Just ask Russ Hudson, the
team’s director of information systems,
who handles a variety of behind-thescenes work for the club that keeps the
football and business side of the team
functioning 365 days a year.
While Hudson’s work may not draw
fame, if not completed, coaches and
front office personnel would have a
tough time doing their jobs. His responsibilities keep him busy year-round.
“It depends on what season it is,”
says Hudson, in his third year with the
team. “From July to January, the coaches are the top priority. We work with
them every day, especially the defensive
and offensive quality control coaches and
both coordinators, working on game
analysis reports. Each week we print out
opponent reports and self-scouting reports on both sides of the ball.”
Once the off-season rolls around,
Hudson turns his attention to the NFL
Draft, working with the team’s scouting
staff to create electronic reports through
April. From May through training camp in
August he installs new servers and workstations while making general upgrades
on the network and computer systems at
Baptist Sports Park and the Coliseum.
Hudson and his assistant, Bryan McGuire, also assist the ticket office with
their electronic databases, help the
medical staff with injury programs, and
maintain the telephone system.
On game days, Hudson oversees a
staff of statisticians that calls the official
game stats after each play. He ensures
the information is sent back to Elias
Sports Bureau, the official gatekeeper of
NFL statistics based in New York. From
there, the stats are sent to affiliates
around the country including major
sports outlets like ESPN.
While serving more than 100 people,
Hudson has to make sure the Titans’
computer network is properly functioning
365/24/7. Internet and e-mail access are
key components to most jobs with the
Titans, and the moment there’s a glitch
in the system, Hudson is the first to hear
about it.
Jeff Diamond, Titans president and
chief operating officer, reiterates the
necessity of the information systems
crew and believes they play an integral
part in the team’s accomplishments both
on and off the field.
“If your computers
are breaking down or if
you aren’t getting the
“I was very excited when I got the
position here,” says Hudson. “There are
so many people who would love to be
working for an NFL team, and there are
only 31 [others] in my position across the
league, so I feel extremely fortunate and
blessed.”
While many extra hours and
overtime come with the territory, it’s a
price Hudson is willing to pay. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he says. “I work
with great people here
and my job is so diversified that there’s
always a task to be
completed or a challenge in front of you.
It keeps me going,
whether it’s in-season
or in May, but I like it
that way. There’s always something to
do, and in some small way you feel like
you’re contributing to the overall
process.” !
ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE . . .
by Michelle Higdon and Judy Hankins
information processed quickly … It’s
going to put the coaches behind; it’s
going to have an effect on your scouting
operations and other things, so there’s a
definite impact on the organization and
the team.”
P
rior to joining the Titans, Hudson
was a network engineer/project manager
for Cottonwood Computer Services. During those three years he made a strong
connection with his favorite NFL team,
consulting with the Titans on various
computer and network issues. Once his
predecessor left, Hudson realized his
lifelong dream of working for a professional sports organization was about to
come true.
Russell Hudson grew up in Decherd,
Tennessee, and attended Franklin County
High, where he was valedictorian. He
was very interested in computers and
thought he would like to do something
in the field. Once he got to MTSU and
found out more about the Computer
Science Department and faculty, he knew
he had found the right major. Russ
received the Junior and Senior Computer
Science Student of the Year Awards and
graduated summa cum laude.
“I enjoyed my time at MTSU,” he
says, “and thank the entire faculty for
the knowledge I received…[especially]
Dr. Cheatham, because he had a unique
teaching style that made learning fun.
He was also willing to help students in
any way possible.”
Russ and wife, Amy, live in Murfreesboro. Amy is also a graduate of MTSU
and is a registered nurse at Middle
Tennessee Medical Center.
Russ encourages current majors to
find out what aspect of computers they
like, whether it be programming, networking, or something else, and give it
their all.
15
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