NY schools invest, link with industry to catch up with other wired cities

11/22/1999
Crain's New York Business
Judith Messina

Spurred by skyrocketing demand for high-tech workers, the city's colleges and universities are scrambling to ramp up their computer science programs.

They are hiring faculty, crafting new courses, and building partnerships with industry. They see prowess in high-tech teaching and research as critical to their role in the city's economy and to their own viability as academic institutions.

"The new programs help us reach out and redefine the role of a technological university in a global city like New York," says David Chang, president of Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.

Still, despite a rush of activity and millions of dollars pouring into computer science programs, the schools may have a tough time raising their high-tech profile. The extreme shortage of qualified faculty-and the high salaries the command-is already hampering some of the efforts to put New York schools on a par with those in California and Boston.

The push for technological excellence marks a considerable shift in strategy for many of the city's institutions, which have been better known for their curricula in liberal arts, law and business. But the explosive growth of Silicon Alley and the increasing importance of technology to every local business has forged a new consciousness in the academic community.

"Five years ago, none of this would have been possible because CUNY hadn't realized software and new media were important," says

Stephen Brier, associate provost for instructional technology and external programs at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York,

The area getting the most attention is graduate education in computer science, especially at the Ph.D. level, where most of the cutting-edge work that produces new technologies and the next generation of businesses is done. New York has been surpassed in the number of computer science graduate degrees awarded by high-tech meccas on the West Coast and in Boston.

Polytechnic, already the city's Premier technical university, is setting aside $25 million of its endowment to create a research institute for interdisciplinary studies, which it hopes will strengthen its role as a pathfinder in new technologies. It plans to endow new chairs in computer science and computer engineering.

Distinguished professors

The 145-year-old university is also employing various means, including partnerships with local colleges, to bolster the pipeline into its graduate programs.

Likewise, the Graduate Center of CUNY is making an unusually large commitment, looking to hire a team of three "distinguished professors"-the top of the academic heap-for newly created positions in computer science,

In fact, CUNY's computer science program has become the university's single most important priority, says Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Louise Mirrer, who joined CUNY two and a half years ago after a successful stint creating public-private partnerships at the University of Minnesota.

"We're looking to quickly become a major center for software design and development," says Ms. Mirrer.

The current CUNY grad center budget, if approved, would double the allocation to computer science and would focus strongly on forging ties with industry, a major departure from the research-intensive emphasis of prior years. The university has just set aside $200,000 to create the CUNY Institute for Software Development and Design, or CISDD, which would sponsor internships and provide grants for -professors to collaborate on research with software companies.

A joint venture with the New York Software Industry Association, CISDD has requested $5 million from the state Legislature to fund the program. .

The city's undergraduate institutions are also teaming up with industry as well as with larger academic institutions to expand their offerings in computer science. The Knowledge Workers Educational Alliance, a collaboration among five local colleges and Polytechnic University, will offer a -one-year master's in computer science to liberal arts students. The program, which is seeking about 8 1.5 million to tie together the schools in a virtual university, gives the small institutions previously unaffordable resources that they can use to recruit students.

"It enables us to stretch our curriculum offerings and give our students greater breadth and depth in technology that we couldn't individually afford," says Sister Elizabeth Hill, president of Brooklyn's St. Joseph's College.

The feeling is that if you're in a place like New York City, everyone has to be on the cutting edge'

St Joseph's, which has 4,300 students and an annual operating budget of $30 million, is also planning to float a $6 million bond issue to finance a new building for computer science, math and business at its Patchogue, L.I., campus.

The Borough of Manhattan Community College, which helps train students for the workforce, has been one of the most active in developing high-tech capabilities. BMCC has landed nearly $3 million in grants in the past two years to fund. multimedia-oriented coursework, create internships and train faculty.

Not enough classes

"The feeling is that if you're in a place like New York City, everyone has to be on the cutting edge to be competitive," says BMCC President Antonio Perez. "Employers want people to be highly skilled."

Still, there are snags in the schools' efforts to enhance their technology profile-specifically, the difficulty in hiring top faculty. Nationwide, the shortage of technical people is acute, and New York must compete for the best computer scientists not only with other universities but also with high-paying employers like Microsoft, Intel and IBM. Already, programs are idling for lack of instructors.

Some of the CUNY colleges, for example, car~t satisfy demand for classes for all of their computer science majors.

"There's enormous competition nationally, and even internationally," concedes CUNY's Mr. Brier. "The key is we're really going to enter the market aggressively."