Published: March 2005,  Issue: Vol. 17/No.2, Download as PDF

Archive of articles published in the March 2005, Vol. 17/No.2 issue.

President’s FY 2006 Budget Cuts IT R&D Funding Overall


Citing a need to continue to foster economic growth and address the deficit, as well as continue to prosecute the War on Terror, President Bush released an austere FY 2006 Budget Request that would sharply limit overall discretionary spending, including a significant reduction in the overall federal investment in information technology research and development. The President’s budget plan, released February 7, 2005, would cut overall spending in FY 2006 for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program—the federal crosscut for all agencies involved in funding information technology R&D—by 7 percent compared with FY 2005, decreasing the federal investment to $2.127 billion from $2.282 billion planned for FY 2005.

CRA Elects Officers to Two-Year Terms


The CRA board has recently elected its officers who will serve two-year terms (July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2007). Dan Reed (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) was elected Board Chair Lori Clarke (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) will serve as Vice Chair Carla Ellis (Duke University) was elected Secretary Phil Bernstein (Microsoft Research) was re-elected CRA’s Treasurer

CS Bachelor’s Degree Production Grows in 2004; Poised for Decline


This article reports on CS bachelor’s degree enrollments and production among Ph.D.-granting departments in the United States since the mid-1990s. For figures that group CS departments by rank, the rankings are based on information collected in the 1995 assessment of research and doctorate programs in the U.S. conducted by the National Research Council (see http://www.cra.org/nrc).

New STEM Workforce Report


Preparing the STEM Workforce of the 21st Century: Broadening Participation through a Comprehensive, Integrated System, prepared by C. Dianne Martin (The George Washington University) and Willie Pearson, Jr. (Georgia Institute of Technology), has recently been released.