You’ve read about the threatened demise of Western Washington University’s Computer Science Department, here and on GeekWire.
You’ve watched the KING5 video on the red-hot computer science job market in the Puget Sound region.
You’ve marveled at the bureaucratic gibberish from the administrative brainiacs at WWU in an email and a GeekWire interview.
In the “What’s new?” department, here’s an excellent letter to WWU from the Washington Technology Industry Association. The email message transmitting it said:
“Washington’s inability to fill the demand for educated tech workers is the number one pain point for most of our tech companies in an industry representing 43% of the state’s employment base. On behalf of the board of the WTIA and the association’s 125,000 tech employees in 1,000 member companies, we hope you will preserve the Computer Science program at WWU and limit budget cuts to STEM programs.”
Additionally, the WWU Computer Science faculty has written an excellent letter outlining the apparent position of the WWU administration (compare it to the GeekWire interview linked above … when people change their stories, we get twitchy), and stating their response. Read it here. It concludes as follows:
“According to the Mission Statement for Western, our number one Strategic Goal is: ‘Build upon Western’s strengths to address critical needs in the State of Washington.’ It is an established fact that computer science will be the most pressing need from higher education for the State of Washington in the foreseeable future. This indicates to us that the Administration of Western has made some mistakes in judgment, and we only hope they can be persuaded to change their minds before they do irreparable harm to WWU, and to the businesses and people of the State of Washington.”
GeekWire continues to follow the story … but John Cook, as a professional journalist, is more polite than we are – you won’t be treated to any “bureaucratic gibberish from administrative brainiacs” or “Must … Take … Shower …” in his posts … zzzzz …