Transforming education

"Serving as department head during 2002-07 provided a unique opportunity to guide and impact changes happening in our field and the department. Three significant ones were the department’s space crisis; the undergraduate enrollment plummeting due to the .com bust; and emerging new research areas becoming new hiring priorities. The space crises led to the planning, fund-raising, building, and finally the move into Lawson. Being involved in this effort from beginning to end was exciting and a great experience. The enrollment roller-coaster led to rethinking our curriculum and to the development of a new lower division core followed by tracks. Building up new research areas was challenging as many departments competed for a small number of candidates in highly sought after areas - especially in machine learning, data mining, and later AI. All of our successes would not have been possible without the cooperation of our faculty and the support from the university. In particular, then-President Martin Jischke should be recognized as one of our big supporters."

- Susanne Hambrusch, professor of computer science, Purdue University
  department head, 2002-2007 and 2018-2019 (interim)