Chapter 26: The Autumn of my Life

Making a Start

November 13^th – 25^th, 2000

“Well, consider today the start of our Autumn,” I said.

“So, we now start to reap all the benefits of what we’ve learned, of all the work we’ve done over the last twenty years?” Michelle said. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it. I like to think that in maybe twenty years’ time, we can retire, and sit back and enjoy relaxing and growing old together. Isn’t that how all this is meant to work?”

“I don’t want to think about being of retirement age,” I said. “That’s way, way in the future!”

We had pulled into my reserved parking space; it was convenient to the exit to the Computer Science Building.

“Well, are you ready?” Michelle said. “I guess we can leave most of the stuff in the car until we have time to bring it all into our new offices.”

I grabbed my briefcase from the back seat, and we walked out of the parking garage, and into the Computer Science Building. We took the elevator up to the third floor, where the school administrative offices were located.

“This is a nicer building than the old Electrical Engineering building,” she said. “That was starting to show its age back when we were here before, and I’m sure it’s worse now!”

As we exited the elevator and started to walk up the hallway towards our offices, I saw a crowd of people; there were multi-coloured balloons, and a large banner over the hallway, ‘Welcome Back Professor Morris and Michelle Jones’. As we got closer, everyone started clapping and cheering, I could see Dean Wainwright, and many of the computer science staff were there as well.

“Great to see the two of you back here,” Mark said. “Welcome home, if I might be so bold.”

People continued clapping, and I waited until the noise abated.

“Good morning, everyone, this is a surprise, we didn’t expect a welcoming committee!” I said. “I am planning to have a meeting with everyone a bit later this morning, closer to noon, where I’ll let everyone know about the plans I have for us. It is great to be back here, there are plenty of familiar faces that I am happy to be back working with. Thank you for the warm welcome, and making us feel like we are back home.”

There was more applause, and Mark suggested that we go into my office, and start getting settled in. The office suites that had been set up included a large office for myself, with an adjoining conference room – there was a table that looked like it would comfortable seat ten people around it. That also connected to Michelle’s office, which was almost as large as mine, and in front of our offices was a waiting area, with seating and a desk for I assume would be my personal assistant. That question was answered, when Mark introduced a middle-aged woman to Michelle and me.

“This is Ann Baker, she was the administrative assistant to Professor Compton, when he was interim Head of School,” he said. “Unless either of you have any strong feelings, you may wish to keep her in that position, at least in the short term.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said, “I assume you know your way around the arcane parts of the University administration, Ann. Your thoughts, Michelle?”

“I remember Ann from when I was here earlier,” Michelle said. “You worked in the Bursar’s office, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I was there, I seem to recall you were in Student Records at one stage,” she said. “I would be more than happy to stay as your administrative assistant, Professor Morris, and also to you, Ms. Jones.”

“Great, then that’s the first of my decisions,” I said. “Ann, please, my name is ‘Will’, you don’t need to use the title, not unless it’s some formal occasion. Now, how about the three of us sit down, and plan what needs to get done. Thanks for the welcome, Mark, I’ll call in to see you once I’ve got the initial stuff in train here.”

“I’m busy from now until later in the afternoon, Will; so pop over any time after 3:30. As I’ve already said, welcome back, it’s great to have you here, and we can talk later.”

He shook hands with us as he left, and the three of us sat around my conference table.

“I’ll be honest, Ann, I’ve never had my own personal assistant before, so I’m not really sure what the role entails. What did you do for Professor Compton, and what do you see as your role for us?”

“Well, I was his gatekeeper, essentially,” she said. “I would answer phone calls for him, not on his private line, of course, that goes directly through to your desk. But anyone wanting to see him would first see me, make an appointment – I would check with him, see if it was urgent, and if he wasn’t busy, they could see him right away. I would maintain his appointment schedule, his calendar, remind him of meetings, make sure all school and Faculty minutes were kept and filed, handle requests for stationary items, incidentals, be the main liaison between him and the main Faculty and University administration. The school has their own Finance officer, Yvonne, I’ll introduce you to her later, and Cassandra Nock is the Student Office Manager, I suspect you’ll want her with Dr. Whale, looking after all enrolment and student records matters.”

“All that sounds great,” I said. “I am – in fact, both Michelle and I – will be on a steep learning curve, and we are going to need your expertise in helping us work with the wider university administration. My initial thoughts are that Michelle, as the school’s executive officer will be primarily responsible for finance and accounts, personnel matters, accommodation, things like that. I’ll have the responsibility for academic matters, assigning lecturing and tutoring staff, making sure the syllabus is right, our research programs are on track, things of that nature.

“The first thing I will need you to do is call a meeting of all the school’s staff – academic, administrative and support staff. I assume we have our own lecture rooms that will fit everyone in?”

She nodded, saying there were several lecture rooms on the second floor.

“Great. Can you get a message to all of the staff saying I want to have a school-wide meeting at... 11:00? Can we do it by then? I want to introduce myself to everyone and give a high level view of my plans for the school. At that talk, I’ll be asking every member of staff to make an appointment for a one-on-one meeting with me over the next two weeks – I assume you can manage those times?”

“Yes, I’ll get a calendar set up for you,” she said. “Will that be for everyone, or just the academic staff?”

“Everyone, administrative, support people, I’m sure everyone who works here has some ideas on how we can make the school better.”

“Will you need anything set up for your meeting?” she asked.

“As long as there’s a microphone, that’s all I will need. Now, what I will also need from you is a copy of the floor plan, showing all the rooms, and what they are used for – lecture rooms, tutorial rooms, labs, staff offices. I’m going to have to learn my way around the building. Plus, a staff list, with everyone’s office number and phone extension, plus email address. I assume we have a staff directory; is that something you maintain?”

“Yes, and I have an updated one, with your name and Michelle’s on it. I’ll make enough copies to hand out at the meeting.”

“Great. Now, can we get a small trolley, we have a few boxes of stuff to bring over from my car, I want to start getting things set up in my office.”

“I’ll get onto setting up for the meeting, if that’s okay, then once that’s organized, I’ll get our facilities person to bring you a trolley. Is there anything else you need right now? I’ll start on those things.”

“That’s great, once the meeting is set up, let me know,” I said, and she headed out to her desk.

“She seems pretty competent,” Michelle said. “I remember her, at least by name, from the Bursar’s office. She was a very good financial administrator, always on top of the accounts, never let anyone do anything slightly dodgy. If you don’t mind, I’ll meet with some of the administrators, start to get things going here. Let me know when you’ve got the trolley.”

“Great, I’ll probably talk with Geoff and the Student Office Manager, start to get them working on what will be needed for the First Year unit,” I said.

Michelle went to her office, and I sat at my desk, and called Geoff.

“Geoff, Will Morris here,” I said when he answered the phone.

I said I would like to speak with him, Cassandra Nock, and whoever else he thought was appropriate about the first year unit, and if they could meet up in my office in an hour, that would be great. I decided to have a good look at my office, it was on the south-west corner of the building, the windows looked out over the new Rupert Myers Building, and between that and the Old Main building, towards the Physics Lawn – or what was left of it. In the distance was the main university oval, the quaintly named ‘Village Green’. At least I had plenty of windows, the desk was large, with a bookcase behind it, and filing cabinets against the wall to the right. The walls were bare, but that would soon be changed.

There was a knock at the door, and I said, ‘come in’, there was an older man, wearing overalls, who I assumed was from building maintenance.

“Professor Morris? Alf Thompson, facilities, I’ve got the trolley you were looking for,” he said.

“Thanks, Alf, I just have some stuff to get from my car,” I said. “Where can I leave this when I’m done?”

“There’s the delivery dock, down on the ground floor, at the back of the building,” he said. “Just leave it outside the double doors. Good to see you here, I remember you from before, when we were over in the Elec Eng building.”

“No worries, Alf, I’ll probably be thirty minutes, if that. Now, I will have some stuff I will want hung up on the wall, are you the guy to see about that?”

“Sure, I’ve got all the tools, when you’re ready, give me a call in the maintenance workshop, extension 1139, and I’ll be right up.”

“Will do, thanks mate. I’ll be done with this soon.”

I told Michelle I would be getting our boxes from my car, she was meeting with Yvonne, the school’s finance manager. It didn’t take long to bring things across from my car, one big advantage of the new building was its proximity to the car park. When I had unloaded the trolley with our boxes, Ann told me the meeting was organized, it would be in lecture room CS-2-01, and showed me where that was on the floor plans. It would take me a little while to get to know the layout of the building, maybe later in the day I would take the plans and just walk around each floor. I returned the trolley to the ground floor, leaving it outside the delivery dock, and returned to my office, just as Geoff and Cassandra arrived.

Geoff introduced me to her; she had been working at the university for about ten years, mainly in the admissions and student records area. She talked about her experience in the Student Office, her role had mainly been sorting out enrolment and class allocation issues, which I felt was all very good experience to work with Geoff in our First Year unit. I then spoke to them – mainly for Cassandra’s benefit – about how we had originally set up the unit, what the problems were that we were trying to address, and how I felt we could do the same again. I told them that I felt Cassandra’s experience would be what we needed to help new students navigate the ‘university experience’, while Geoff would be the main academic mentor and guide; he suggested having two of the senior tutors to assist, Rex Kwok and Eric Martin. He would work with Cassandra, get a suitable area set up, much like we had back on the third floor of the Electrical Engineering Building, and get a paper to me by the end of the month on how he proposed to run the unit, and what services it would provide. I thanked them for their time, telling them I was sure I had chosen the right people for the job, and they headed back to their offices to work on the project.

It was almost time for the staff meeting, so I knocked on Michelle’s door, and went in. She told me that the people she had spoken to so far – the Finance manager, the Facilities manager, and an interestingly designated ‘Business Development Manager’ (she wasn’t completely sure what that person – Carroll Graham actually did) – all seemed competent but jaded from several years of mismanagement from the previous head of school.

“I think once you can get people on board with your plans, and sharing your vision, then we will find a big turnaround in staff morale,” she said. “The ‘welcome home’ for us was a good sign, I think everyone is desperate for someone to actually lead the school. You are the right person for that, you know how to motivate people, you know how to get people on board with your vision. Let’s go and fill them with enthusiasm!”

“I like your enthusiasm, but I agree with you, all we have to do is convince the staff that we have a vision, and if we all work together, we can be the best CS school in the country again.”

“And maybe one afternoon, I can get on your desk, and you can fill me with something else!” she said softly.

“Michelle! That might get us into deep trouble, if we get caught!”

“So, we make sure we don’t get caught. I’m sure there are places in this building were we could...”

“But I thought your fantasy was on my desk...”

“Well ... Something for me to think about and make plans. Let’s get down to that lecture theatre.”

We found our way to lecture theatre 1, on the second floor; when we walked in, it was about half full, and as there were still a few minutes before the scheduled start time, I waited until 11:00, when I took the microphone, and started to talk.

“Good morning, everyone, it’s great to see that everyone made it on time, given the rather short notice,” I said. “Some of you here know me well, from when I worked here previously. Some of you know me by reputation, and some of you probably don’t know much about me. Now, we will get time in the next few weeks to meet one-on-one, but in the interim, for those who don’t know me, let me introduce myself.

“I am Professor William Morris, but I prefer to be called ‘Will’, there’s no need for the formal titles. I did my undergraduate degree here, starting in 1976, and graduating with First Class Honours, and being awarded the University Medal, at the end of 1979, with a Science Degree, majoring in Computer Science. I then spent a year working for the State Government as a network engineer, then in 1981 I returned to do my PhD, where my project was the design and implementation of the first substantial Internet implementation in Australia, AARNET. During that time, I worked as a tutor, then a lecturer, teaching some of the introductory computer science subjects, along with Data Communications, and supervising some thesis projects.

“After a few years, I completed a Master of Arts degree, and continued lecturing, and during that time, I literally took a bullet – actually, three bullets – and shed blood ensuring the University’s integrity and reputation was maintained. I’m sure those of you who don’t know the full story can get that from other people. I was appointed Professor of Computer Science in 1992, and then at the end of 1993, the then head of the school and I had a ... had a disagreement about how a student who had failed a subject should be graded. Again, I’m sure those of you who don’t know the full story can readily learn all about it from the others. It was decided the best thing for everyone would be for me to take a leave of absence from my teaching position.

“Now, back in 1985, I had set up a consulting company, with some other UNSW graduates, so I went to work for that full time; during the last seven years, I have been running some major projects for government and the private sector. WTM Consulting has grown into a major provider of IT Consulting services, and employs over one hundred and twenty people, not just here in Sydney but also in Canberra. So, I have not just the academic experience and research background, but I have plenty of real-world experience in running major IT applications development and network implementation projects.

“Now, as I see things, the big problem we have facing the school is our reputation as the best CS school in the country has dropped. Not that we have become bad, we have let other institutions overtake us. We’ve lost our focus, we haven’t kept pace with developments in the industry, we are still doing much the same, subjects are much the same as they were back in the late 1980s. There’s a whole new world out there, people, and we need to catch up. From what I understand, we really don’t have a single ‘vision’ of what we should be doing, there has been no real leadership, no guidance for quite a few years. I know Paul Compton, as interim Head of School did what he could to improve things, and I intend to build in what he started this year. But there’s a lot of damage that has to be repaired, and I will need the help of each of you to get there.

“I have some ideas of my own on what needs to be done, but I would like to get your views, your thoughts on how we can restore our reputation. As such, I want to spend at least an hour with each person working for the school, hearing your thoughts and ideas. Sometime today, I would ask that each of you scheduled a time with Ann where you can meet with me and tell me what your thoughts are. What I would like you to bring to that meeting is some background about yourself – your degrees, what you currently do, what subjects you teach and research areas you are active and participate in, if you are part of the academic staff, and the syllabus of those subjects. Tell me where you believe those subjects fit into the overall course, and what additional subjects we need to teach, what knowledge are our students NOT getting here. Tell me what role you would like to play in the school, where you see your skills best used.

“I will warn you right now that my ability to remember names is terrible, so if I don’t call you by your name, I’m not being rude or high-handed, I’m just forgetful. So, when I see you in the hallways or anywhere around the campus, remind me of your name, I won’t take offense.

“Now, as you all know, Michelle Jones is returning with me, to take over as the school’s Executive Officer. Her main responsibilities in that position will be – in addition to keeping me under control and focussed on my tasks –to manage the administration side of the school – finance, supply, accommodation, student records, scheduling – basically all of the stuff that I would screw up if it was left in my hands. Those of you who have been here for a while will know her and her capabilities. Since she left the University when I did, she’s been the director of the Networking Division at WTM Consulting, managing some major projects involving complex data networks, and she was the project manager for the Y2K Project for the NSW State Government. She has been invaluable in her role at WTM Consulting, and without her abilities, I would not have been able to achieve what I did. I’m sure all of you will soon learn just how good a manager she is, and she will quickly become key to regaining our focus and drive, and getting us back to where she should be.

“I know that time is against us redesigning the course for this coming academic year, but we can certainly get some better structure to our organization, and make sure we have a well-publicised set of goals and objectives. We all need to be pulling in the same direction, working towards the one set of aims. What I see is us focussing on four main areas for our teaching and research:

“The first is basic computer science – how computers work, Boolean logic, program design, the fundamentals of computer programming. Secondly, more advanced information systems; databases, advanced programming, language design, operating systems fundamentals. Thirdly, data communications and networking, hardware design, more about the inner workings of operating systems. And finally, future developments – embedded systems, microcontrollers, artificial intelligence, robotics.

“Now, those are just my initial thoughts, I’m sure you will have other ideas, I want you to tell me about those when we meet individually. Now, that’s pretty much all I have to say at the moment, are there any questions?”

One person raised his hand, and I pointed to him, told him to stand up, introduce himself, and ask.

“Um, Frank Phillipson, property maintenance,” he said. “Are you sure you want to meet with everyone? Not just the teaching staff, but someone like me?”

“Absolutely, Frank; let me give you my thoughts. “Everyone here has a vested interest in this school being the best in the country, everyone here benefits from our success. Just being a lecturer or professor doesn’t automatically give you some special knowledge on what we should be doing, how we should be teaching the students, and what we need to do our job to the best of our abilities. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and the thoughts of everyone else here.”

“Ron van der Meyden, Associate Professor,” another said, standing up. “Are you thinking about changing the programming languages that we used in our classes? Will we still teach C, on Unix?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “To the best of my knowledge, we have never gone chasing the ‘language of the month’, what is more important is teaching students sound program design principles, how to structure and code their programs in an efficient, maintainable manner. That can be done in ANY language, on ANY platform. I’m open to suggestions, I have developed in a variety of languages, on different platforms, I have my personal favourites, but that is just my preference.”

There weren’t any more questions, so I reminded people to see Ann to reserve a time slot to meet with me, and I returned to my office, and started to work out where I would get some of the pictures and other items put up on the wall.

“I think that went quite well,” Michelle said. “I looked around, most people seemed to be nodding their heads, I think they agree with a lot of what you were saying.”

Ann asked me when I wanted the individual meetings with the staff members to start, and I suggested tomorrow morning, and to allocate hour long slots from 8:00 to noon, then from 1:00 to 4:00. That wouldn’t leave me with much time to get anything else done, but I felt it was important to not just hear what each person had to say and to get their ideas on how to improve things, but also to learn about them, what their skills and experience was, and for the academic staff, get their views on the subjects they taught.

I called Alf in the Facilities area, and he said he would be up after he had finished his lunch break to hang things on the wall. I was starting to file some of the material that I had brought with me when there I was paged by Ann, telling me that professors Compton and Sammut wanted to see me briefly.

“Send them in, Ann, thank you.”

“Grab a seat, guys, let me move that out of your way,” I said, taking my guitar off one of the easy chairs.

“I see you are still going to play your guitar,” Claude said. “You probably didn’t get to hear him that much, Paul; whenever Will needed to relax, he would pick up his guitar, playing it and singing along in his office.”

“I’m hoping I can get to experience a private concert from Will,” Paul said. “Very impressed with what you said just then, Will. I know a lot of us are looking forward to working with you, you seem to know just what we need to get things done.”

“Absolutely, you are the person we need,” Claude said, echoing Paul’s comments.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. “I know I’ve got a big challenge facing me, but I’m confident we can get it done. The first thing I want to find out is just what staff resources I have to deal with, what are their areas of expertise, and what are the details about the existing subjects. Then we’ll work out what syllabus changes need to be made and make a transition plan from the current course to a new one.”

“What’s your thoughts on a good programming language and development environment?” Paul asked. “Should we remain Unix-based, or move to Apple, or Windows?”

“I’ve done both Unix, writing code in vi, and using gbd, and also Visual C on Windows,” I said. “Plus, a Windows development product called ‘SQL Windows’, which had a pretty sophisticated IDE, and it’s a C-based object-oriented language. That was probably the most efficient, most productive development tool I’ve used; at my old company we did a lot of rapid applications development using that. I suspect its days are numbered though, and next year, Microsoft are coming out with their ‘.Net environment’, and a replacement for Visual C with something called ‘Visual Studio’. The stuff I’ve read about it, and the pre-release stuff I’ve seen is very impressive.

“I’m still feeling that for the introduction to programming, we stick with the proven tools, C, Unix, vi. We don’t want to overly complicate things while we are trying to teach the basics – and no pun intended with ‘basics’. What I want to look at is using Linux as our operating system of choice, the days of the PDP-11 minicomputers running Unix are numbered. Maybe as a back end, but that’s becoming about as relevant as mainframes are, unless we want to teach CICS / Cobol, things like that.”

“Have you given any thought to what our research program should look like?” Claude said.

“I haven’t given any thought to that yet,” I said. “Apart from seeing there’s a need to have someone as the overall coordinator of thesis projects for honours year, Master of Engineering and PhD students. Once I know where each person’s interests lie, I’ll have a better handle on that. I would imagine Carroll, as the ‘Business Development Manager’ would be responsible for keeping an eye on research grants and possible projects, but apart from that, I’m open to suggestions.”

“There’s about ten months before the next round of applications for various research grants will be due,” Paul said. “We got the ones for next year submitted by the end of October, so we should hear next month what will be funded. And yes, Carroll coordinates those things, you should talk to him about what ones we’ve applied for.”

“So many things to sort out, so little time to get them all done,” I said.

“At least you don’t have to do them all yourself, Will,” Claude said. “Once you know what needs to be done, and who you’ve got here able to take on things, it won’t seem nearly so daunting as it does now.”

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “I just have to keep telling myself that, otherwise I’ll get overwhelmed. I think I’ll be relying on my guitar quite a lot over the next few weeks!”

“You’ll pull it off, Will, we’ve all got great faith in your abilities,” Paul said. “Now, we’ve taken up more of your time than we should have, we will catch up later.”

I shook their hands as they left my office, and I stuck my head in Michelle’s office.

“Feel like some lunch?” I asked her. “I’m not sure what’s close to here, but I’m sure we can find something nearby.”

“There’s still a little sandwich place in the Mech Eng undercroft,” she said. “I don’t think they still do the ‘build your own monster sandwich, and pay by weight’, but we can go and look to see what’s there.”

It was only a short distance to the sandwich place, and we got some sandwiches – a ham salad roll for me, with a can of Coca Cola, and a salad for Michelle, with a fruit cocktail drink. Several of the staff from the school came in while we were eating, and once they had their food, I invited them to sit with us. William Wilson, Ian Gorton, and Albert Nymeyer (they reminded me of their names!), all of them associate professors, pulled up chairs and ate with us.

“Some of us have lunch here every day,” Ian said. “It’s the most convenient place to eat, unless you want to walk up to the cafeteria under the Commerce building.”

“I remember it was here, back in the late 70s,” I said. “They had this deal where you could build your own sandwich, putting on whatever you wanted, as much as you liked, and they would weigh it, and you paid so much per gram. Some mechanical engineering students made a massive sandwich, at least two hundred centimetres tall, I think it cost something like twenty dollars – that’s when a ‘standard’ sandwich would cost maybe a dollar. There were photos of it on display, it was a stunning construction. I have no idea how you could actually eat something that thick though!”

“I think somewhere there are the photos of that,” William said. “There’s the Mechanical Engineering library on the first floor of their building, and there’s a bunch of old photos on the walls.”

“I might have to go up there and look around,” I said. “There will probably be quite a few photos that will bring back memories of my early years here.”

“Has the campus changed a lot from when you started, Prof ... I mean, Will?” Albert asked.

“It has, I mean, the building we are in has only been there for a few years, the same as the Rupert Myers building,” I said. “I can remember the Physics Lawn went all the way from the oval to the embankment along Willis Street, they were still building the library extension, the main computer centre was on the third floor of the Electrical Engineering building. There were still the prefabricated huts where the Quadrangle building is.”