George Verghese named Course VI Education Officer

August 25, 2004

Dear EECS community,

I am delighted to announce the appointment of George Verghese as Course VI Education Officer, effective September 1, 2004. George's responsibilities as Course VI Education Officer will be to manage all EECS education activities and resources. George is going to be assisted in this role by a Course VI Education (VI-Ed) Committee. The members of the VI-Ed Committee, effective September 1, 2004, will be Jim Kirtley, Martin Rinard, Seth Teller, Joel Voldman, and Anne Hunter. Two student members will be added to this committee shortly.

In addition, I am delighted to announce the creation of a Course VI curriculum initiative to be spearheaded by a Curriculum Initiative Committee (CIC) under the leadership of Tomas Lozano-Perez, effective September 1, 2004. The members of the CIC will be Hal Abelson, Vladimir Bulovic, Denny Freeman, Daniel Jackson, Leslie Kaelbling, Charlie Sodini, Madhu Sudan, George Verghese (ex-officio), and Jacob White. The charge to the CIC is to examine whether our present Course VI curriculum is effectively teaching our students the knowledge, skills and modes of thought that our graduates need today and in their future careers. The committee will engage department faculty as needed in this examination. The committee will also coordinate the development of any modifications that are decided on through this process --- modifications of the Course VI curriculum as a whole and of individual subjects. The goal is to have the recommended modifications to the Course VI curriculum substantially in place by September 1, 2007.

On behalf of the department, I would like to thank them all for their willingness to serve in these important operational and strategic department committees.

Rafael