Spring 2013 – Seidenberg School News

Associate Dean Dr.Hill pens Op-Ed in The Hill’s Congress Blog about immigration reform

Associate Dean of the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Jonathan Hill, recently penned another opinion piece for The Hill’s Congress blog about the importance of comprehensive and fair immigration reform. In the piece, titled “Practical enhancements must not be lost in push for immigration reform”, Hill talks about the importance of providing H1-b visas to qualified foreign born workers and F-1 visas for qualified students at universities.

Associate Dean of the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Jonathan Hill, recently penned another opinion piece for The Hill’s Congress blog about the importance of comprehensive and fair immigration reform. In the piece, titled “Practical enhancements must not be lost in push for immigration reform”, Hill talks about the importance of providing H1-b visas to qualified foreign born workers and F-1 visas for qualified students at universities.

Without comprehensive immigration reform the piece warns that we may not be able to provide enough technically skilled employees to major tech companies to keep the American economy at the top of these sectors. Hill hopes that “the ongoing need for comprehensive immigration reform that will create adequate, timely access to high quality scientists, technologists and engineers to support American scientific leadership and innovation cannot be left unaddressed.”

The full piece can be accessed on The Hill’s website.

What do you think is the right direction for immigration reform? Tell us in the comments. Be sure to follow the Seidenberg School on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, to get the latest updates about our faculty and what they’re saying.

Seidenberg student Douglas Kandl 13′, 14′ featured in Pace Pulse

When you ask students why they chose Pace, you’ll hear a lot of great answers: from the location to the internships to the small classroom experience. But for Seidenberg student Douglas Kandl ’13, ’14 what drew him to Pace was a matter of national security: the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Information Assurance Program, a program that only select universities designated as National Centers of Academic Excellence have access to. Pace is one of them.

“When I was a high school student and touring the Pleasantville Campus, the Seidenberg academic adviser told me about the program and Pace’s affiliation with the DoD. I came to Pace because of the program and the scholarships it offers,” Kandl says.

IBM Fellow Emeritus to be Honored

Nicholas Donofrio, fellow emeritus & EVP Innovation and Technology (Ret.) at IBM, has been named this year’s recipient of the Leadership and Service in Technology Award. The award, presented annually by the Seidenberg School to an outstanding leader in the IT community, will be conferred at a reception to be held at Bank of New York Mellon, in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday, May 21, 2013.

Please join us on this special night to honor Mr. Donofrio for his leadership and service in the technology sector. Take a look at his bio for a glimpse at his previous accomplishments: Bio

The Leadership and Service in Technology Award Reception is the school’s primary fund-raiser. Proceeds provide scholarship support for students and underwrite key academic initiatives. This year’s event is being co-chaired by advisory board member Steve Caporale (BS ’86).

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Pace University’s First Massive Open Online Course

New Dean of the Seidenberg School Dr. Amar Gupta has started of his tenure at the school on an innovating foot teaching the University’s first ever MOOC class. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course and refers to the current trend of online courses being offered to students both within and outside the University.

Dr. Gupta’s course is entitled “International Technology Services in the Knowledge Economy” and is being done through the website Udemy.com The main focus of the course is the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory model that Dr. Gupta pioneered and perfected during his time at University of Arizona and MIT. The model envisions that a professional in the US will work the usual work day of 9 am to 5 pm and then transfer his work to a colleague in China or Australia at the end of his work day. His colleagues will work their local 9 to 5 and then transfer the work to someone in Eastern Europe at the end of their work day so they too can work their 9 to 5 and transfer the work back to the American at the end of the day. This system allows for projects to be finished in the same amount of work hours but in a much quicker calendar time frame.

Students, alumni and professionals with backgrounds in information technology are encouraged to study the new technical concepts that will foster the 24-hour collaboration mentioned above. Other students will be encouraged to study the economic, business, legal, political, and other aspects of such knowledge-oriented frameworks based on the student’s interest and background.

The course is a great experience for anyone interested in the future of the global economy and how it responds to changes into a knowledge based economy and also a geographically delocalized economy. Anyone can sign up for the class on Udemy.com and current Pace students may qualify to received credits for the class.

The course is split up into four main lectures with a number of supplementary materials available online. The first lecture was titled “Offshoring: The Transition from Economic Drivers toward Strategic Global Partnership and 24-Hour Knowledge Factory” and was an introduction to the idea of a delocalized global workforce. For most of history distance was seen as an impediment to growth but with the 24-Hour Knowledge factory model Dr. Gupta was able to show the potential for increased productivity for a business that is not located solely in one geographic space. The second lecture was titled “International Management of Services” and focused more on the managerial techniques and skills necessary to maintain a 24-hour workforce.

For the third lecture Ivan G. Seidenberg, noted alumnus, visited the school to give a talk entitled “Inventing Verizon: Innovation & Growth in a Transforming Communications Industy” which focused on his time as CEO of Verizon and how the company was able to transform itself from a local utility monopoly to a national powerhouse in the fields of fiberoptics and wireless cellular service. The final lecture of the series will focus on telehealth and the role that the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory will have in that field.

While the University has been making great strides into online education through services like iMentor this MOOC is a bold step for both the University and the Seidenberg school. MOOCs have been pioneered by companies like Coursera and EdX and this will be Pace’s first contribution to the arena. The course is part of Pace’s efforts to use the most advanced technologies to bring their students the best educational experience possible. This course connects students interested in the future of global economics with an expert on it and will prepare them for the forthcoming knowledge based economy.

Ivan Seidenberg visits Seidenberg School to give speech titled “Inventing Verizon”

Ivan Seidenberg took time out of his busy schedule to deliver a guest speech entitled “Inventing Verizon: Innovation & Growth in a Transforming Communications Industry” as the third lecture of Dean Amar Gupta’s Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) entitled “International Technology Services in the Knowledge Economy”

Mr. Seidenberg spoke about his time at Verizon as CEO and chairman and how he was able to lead the company through extraordinary transformations. The communications industry has experienced incredible disruptions due to technological and social changes and Mr. Seidenberg oversaw the Verizon Corporation at this time as it transitioned itself into an innovative leader in broadband and mobile communications. He talked about how when he started out the black telephone was the center of everyone’s universe and Verizon acted as a local municipal monopoly. But as times changed and wireless phones became the norm, including smart phones that could transmit data, the company had to re-envision itself as an internet and service provider that could compete at the national level.

His work at the company is a powerful example of how to lead a company in turbulent times, and how to take advantage of changing trends to move ahead.

Seidenberg started his career as a cable splicer’s assistant at New York Telephone right after high school and received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Lehman College in 1972 followed by an MBA degree from Pace University in 1981. Through hard work Seidenberg eventually rose up to become head of NYNEX in 1994. When Bell Atlantic merged with NYNEX he took a senior position with the company, and when Bell Atlantic became Verizon he was the sole CEO of the company.

In 2006, Seidenberg donated $15 million to Pace University. Pace’s School of Computer Science and Information Systems was officially renamed the Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems in his honor.

Seidenberg is a member of the President’s Export Council, which advises the President on how to promote U.S. exports, jobs and growth, and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, which provides counsel on communications issues related to national security. From 2009 to 2011, he chaired the Business Roundtable, an influential association of CEOs of leading U.S. companies.

Seidenberg is also a member of the New York Academy of Sciences’ President’s Council and serves on the board of trustees of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, The New York Hall of Science, Pace University, the Paley Center for Media, and on the Board of Directors of BlackRock Inc.

Disability Film Festival: First-of-Its-Kind at Pace

To honor individuals with disabilities in films, in the national Disability Awareness Month of April, the Seidenberg School held an evening of A Celebration of Individuals with Disabilities in Films: Film Festival and Expert Panelists at Pace. This first-of-its-kind session at the university featured the best-in-class of films from the disability festival media in the city, and at the session the film highlights were discussed in depth by expert practitioners in the field of disability media representation, focusing on proper representation and the rights of individuals with disabilities in the media. There were frequent interactions with the attendees of the session on the topics. There were over 150 attendees at the session that included current and former undergraduate and graduate Pace students. The program was organized by Dr. Jim Lawler of Seidenberg and students in his CIS 102W community engagement courses at the university.