Three quick notes …

First, I can’t believe that there weren’t more comments on John King’s terrific post,  “Fratricide and the Ecology of Proposal Reviews.”  This is serious business.  And it’s not “new news” — CISE has had the lowest average proposal scores in NSF for years.  We are killing ourselves in a misguided effort to show how smart we are.  (The number of “highly ranked proposals” that can’t be funded is, quite naturally, a criterion argued within NSF for the allocation of funds among Directorates.)  For god’s sake!

Second, the NSF Graduate Fellowship awardees have recently been announced.  Did you know that the number of fellowships awarded to each field is related to the number of applicants from that field?  And did you know that CISE has dramatically fewer applicants than other fields of comparable size?  Once again, we are killing ourselves.  Get with it!!

Third, many of you are aware that Jeannette Wing will be leaving CISE on June 30, after a truly spectacular run as CISE AD that has led to a dramatic increase in the recognition of our field as a “player” and as central to advances across-the-board.  We’ll have more to say about that in a subsequent post.  You may not know, though, that Debbie Crawford also is leaving her role as Deputy AD.  Debbie, too, is a star — she has been an extraordinary contributor.  In addition, all three CISE Division Directors are nearing the ends of their IPA appointments — Sampath Kannan (CCF), Ty Znati (CNS), and Haym Hirsh (IIS).  Sampath, Ty, and Haym — like Jeannette and Debbie — are tough acts to follow.  For the past few years we have had some of our very best in leadership positions at CISE.  Nothing could be more important than continuing this trend.  It’s all about leadership.