The academic year 2000-2001 has come to a very successful close for our department, although it was marked by a rather tumultuous and disappointing legislative session at the State Capitol for the University as a whole.

First of all, we want to thank all of our friends, supporters and alumni who launched a fierce campaign in the state legislature for the desperately needed funding and resources for the University and the department. When the chips were down, the University received half of the budget increase it requested and was forced to increase student tuition substantially for the next two years. Our department fared slightly better. Instead of the 17 new faculty positions originally requested, we received 13 new positions spread over four University campuses. I believe we will receive a lion's share of these new positions. We are obviously disappointed we did not receive all of the new positions we requested. However, judging from the difficult circumstances surrounding this year's budget, we have every reason to be pleased with what we received from this legislative session. With these new positions, we will be able to hire faculty members in strategic new areas and further strengthen some of our core areas in computer science and computer engineering during the next two years.

This year for the first time we became the largest undergraduate program in the Institute of Technology, surpassing Mechanical Engineering which has held the title for many years. This has happened despite the fact that the GPA requirement to enter the computer science major has been raised over the past few years and is now tied with Chemical Engineering and Materials Science as the highest in the Institute of Technology. This certainly marks an important milestone for the department. We are very proud that, despite the limited resources we have had over the years, we have managed to continue our growth and excel in both providing quality undergraduate education to our students, and building an impressive research infrastructure and graduate program along the way. We believe the new resources provided by the legislature this year will allow us to continue our phenomenal success for many years to come.

We have also completed another very successful recruiting season. Three new faculty members will be joining the department next academic year. They are Professors Gary W. Meyer in computer graphics, Eric Van Wyk in programming languages and software engineering, and Paul Schrater, who has a joint appointment with the Department of Psychology and who specializes in computer vision and motor control. This has been another very difficult and fiercely competitive recruiting season, with most schools chasing after a smaller pool of top faculty candidates. However, we came through with three very strong faculty recruits. We would like to thank our Faculty Recruiting Committee under the leadership of the Associate Head, Ravi Janardan, and many other faculty members, staff and students in our department. They spent an enormous amount of time and effort to make this a very successful recruiting season. Faculty recruiting is the most important task in our department because these new faculty members will shape the heart and soul of our department for many years to come. With the new positions from this year's budget, we have a tremendous opportunity and a lot of hard work ahead of us. I believe together we will meet that challenge and elevate our department to a higher level of excellence within the next few years.

Our Open House Organizing Committee has been working very hard for several months. The third Open House, celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the department, will be held on October 19, the first day of the University's Homecoming Week. We have an excellent program planned with keynote speakers, research exhibits, alumni reunion, workshops and panels. This year's Computer Science and Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award will be presented to Professor Arvind of MIT. He is an internationally renowned scholar on high performance computer systems. I would like to extend our warmest invitation to all of our alumni, friends, industrial partners, and supporters, and ask you to join us on this wonderful occasion and to participate in many of these events. I particularly urge our alumni to join us this year as there will be some special events for you. For additional information on the open house, please visit our Web site: http://www.cs.umn.edu/open-house.

-Pen-Chung Yew