Department Chairs, Now and Then

Andy van Dam, department co-founder and Chair 1979-1985

Most important accomplishments while Chair:

Well, of course, the biggest accomplishment I can think of is helping to start the Computer Science Department. I was head of the Program for Computer Science before that, but forming the department was a long uphill battle that I am proud we won.

An important achievement of the early years was to put the department on a sound footing, with great hardware and infrastructure. We built up the original support staff, some of whom are still with the department, including the two key tstaff members Jeff Coady and Max Salvas, and key astaff members Trina Avery and Jennet Kirschenbaum. On the financial side, I did much of the fundraising (with help from former trustee Frank Wezniak), including getting the money for renovating Kassar House, creating the Gould Lab and its Foxboro Auditorium, and later helping to write the proposal that got us the CIT building.

Achieving departmental status and being the first chair gave me an opportunity to help recruit Eugene Charniak and Stan Zdonik and to bring over Peter Wegner, Tom Doeppner, and Robert Sedgewick (who was my undergraduate and Mmster's student) from Applied Math.

As everyone knows, my faith in the ability of undergraduates panned out better that I could ever have anticipated. I gave (and still give) undergraduates real responsibilities and get great joy from seeing them rise to the occasion. Although the initial reaction to using undergraduates as UTAs and URAs was often negative, the practice has spread at Brown and other institutions. I can claim over 30 past and current CS academics whom I personally worked with when they were my UTAs and URAs. Of all things I have done over the last four decades of teaching, I am proudest of this cadre of academic children, and now grandchildren and even great-grandchildren too.

Eli Upfal, Chair, 2001-present

Most important accomplishments while Chair:

I have been Chair for a year now and have been working chiefly on issues of new faculty recruting, space and budget.

Recruting and hiring promising new faculty is of course top priority. We have secured a number of new slots from the administration. One new faculty member was hired last year, and we'll probably be in a hiring mode for the rest of my tenure as Chair.

New faculty need new space, for offices, labs, and students. Tom Dean had worked hard to get a University commitment to expand our space by taking over the third floor from CIS. After a number of ups and downs this long-sought goal is finally happening: if you peek out on the third floor from the elevator you can see the CIS sign "XX days to the move". We will be moving to half of the third floor by January and will acquire the rest of the floor by the end of the year. Furthermore, we are now working with the University on a longer-term plan in which the entire CIT building will be dedicated to the Computer Science department and related interdisciplinary centers.

As we expand our activities, there is a growing need for new resources for teaching and research. I've been working with the administration on updating our university budget, and on a new Capital Campaign for various Departments needs, renovation of the CIT Building being the most urgent one. As for long-term goals, I guess that an ideal chair would have all the faculty happy all the time. Considering the circumstances, I'd be happy with having most of the faculty being happy most of the time...

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Andy van Dam, department co-founder and Chair 1979-1985 Most important accomplishments while Chair: Well, of course, the biggest accomplishment I can think of is helping to start the Computer Science Department. I was head of the Program for Computer Science before that, but forming the department was a long uphill battle that I am proud we won. An important achievement of the early years was to put the department on a sound footing, with great hardware and infrastructure. We built up the original support staff, some of whom are still with the department, including the two key tstaff members Jeff Coady and Max Salvas, and key astaff members Trina Avery and Jennet Kirschenbaum. On the financial side, I did much of the fundraising (with help from former trustee Frank Wezniak), including getting the money for renovating Kassar House, creating the Gould Lab and its Foxboro Auditorium, and later helping to write the proposal that got us the CIT building. Achieving departmental status and being the first chair gave me an opportunity to help recruit Eugene Charniak and Stan Zdonik and to bring over Peter Wegner, Tom Doeppner, and Robert Sedgewick (who was my undergraduate and Mmster's student) from Applied Math. As everyone knows, my faith in the ability of undergraduates panned out better that I could ever have anticipated. I gave (and still give) undergraduates real responsibilities and get great joy from seeing them rise to the occasion. Although the initial reaction to using undergraduates as UTAs and URAs was often negative, the practice has spread at Brown and other institutions. I can claim over 30 past and current CS academics whom I personally worked with when they were my UTAs and URAs. Of all things I have done over the last four decades of teaching, I am proudest of this cadre of academic children, and now grandchildren and even great-grandchildren too.

John Savage, department co-founder and Chair, 1985-1991 Most important accomplishments while Chair: My goal as department Chair was to help create a place where I would want to spend the rest of my professional life. A great culture doesn't happen by accident, and virtually everything about the CS department has been a hard-won battle fought by passionate faculty striving to inculcate their beliefs and values. I enjoyed helping to shape the Department during an important period and coined the phrase "a balance between theory and practice" to describe the distinguishing character of the Department in the 1970s one of its strengths to this day. Replacing the workstation infrastructure in the late 1980s was one of our greatest challenges and our small technical staff was at the time overwhelmed by the effort of maintaining nine different operating systems or versions thereof. Fortunately, we were able to agree on one vendor to be maintained by our technical staff, Sun Microsystems. This decision helped to make tstaff the terrific resource they continue to be today. Our computing environment is the envy of other Computer Science Departments. Physical infrastructure is also important and I was involved while chair in supervising the renovation of Kassar house for the Department. (I spent so much time in the building that the contractors gave me my own hard hat.) I also was a liaison with CIT architect Peter Kuttner. I struck a deal with alums (my in-laws) to direct their annual gifts to us so that we could purchase wooden desks as well as rescue the beautiful oak table now in our library from a renovation at the John Hay library. All chairs seek sources of support beyond grants and contracts. I established the successful Industrial Partners Program in 1989 and in 1991 hired Suzie Howe to help run it. This year IPP is celebrating its 15th anniversary. At the time that I was Chair, the value of software as intellectual property was a hot topic. This caused me to study the Brown's copyright and patent policies and suggest that the copyright policy should be changed. After lengthy discussion, the faculty and Brown administration agreed on a wise policy that including sharing proceeds with the department, greatly to our advantage.

Eugene Charniak, Chair 1991-1996 Most important accomplishments while Chair: My major accomplishment was getting avd to let go of his junk room accross from his office. Everything else pales besides that.

Tom Dean, Chair 1996-2001 Most important accomplishments while Chair: Perhaps the accomplishment I am most proud of was negotiating commitments from the administration to grow the department by 50% and increase salaries. I hired Amy Greenwald, Anna Lysyanskya, David Laidlaw, Michael Black, Nancy Pollard, Shriram Krishnamurthi, Thomas Hofmann and Ugur Cetintemel, and rehired Pascal. I also arranged appointments and funding for Roger Blumberg and Don Stanford who now teach the very popular CS002 (Don) and our hallmark CS92 (Roger), which was created and first taught by Andy van Dam and David Niguidula over a decade ago. I introduced Town Meetings (which are still being held) to help create community, encourage solidarity and, when necessary, deal with crises. I also worked expand space for that community by starting negotiations for Department space on the third floor of the CIT. Finally, I worked with several friends of the Department to add to our endowment and fund a future endowed (very plush) chair in Computer Science.

Eli Upfal, Chair, 2001-present Most important accomplishments while Chair: I have been Chair for a year now and have been working chiefly on issues of new faculty recruting, space and budget. Recruting and hiring promising new faculty is of course top priority. We have secured a number of new slots from the administration. One new faculty member was hired last year, and we'll probably be in a hiring mode for the rest of my tenure as Chair. New faculty need new space, for offices, labs, and students. Tom Dean had worked hard to get a University commitment to expand our space by taking over the third floor from CIS. After a number of ups and downs this long-sought goal is finally happening: if you peek out on the third floor from the elevator you can see the CIS sign "XX days to the move". We will be moving to half of the third floor by January and will acquire the rest of the floor by the end of the year. Furthermore, we are now working with the University on a longer-term plan in which the entire CIT building will be dedicated to the Computer Science department and related interdisciplinary centers. As we expand our activities, there is a growing need for new resources for teaching and research. I've been working with the administration on updating our university budget, and on a new Capital Campaign for various Departments needs, renovation of the CIT Building being the most urgent one. As for long-term goals, I guess that an ideal chair would have all the faculty happy all the time. Considering the circumstances, I'd be happy with having most of the faculty being happy most of the time... back to top

The Department Chairs, Then and Now

Andy van Dam, department co-founder and Chair 1979-1985

John Savage, department co-founder and Chair, 1985-1991

Eugene Charniak, Chair 1991-1996

Tom Dean, Chair 1996-2001

Eli Upfal, Chair, 2001-present