November 28, 2000

Dear Former Dean’s Scholar:

I would like to invite you to the First Dean's Scholar Alumni Reunion. This will be the Saturday and Sunday of March 3 and 4, 2001. I will be sending you another message in about a month with details and with a form to return indicating your desire to attend, but I am writing now so you might set aside that time to come back, visit the campus, see some old friends, and hear what's new in the Dean's Scholars program.

On Saturday morning we will listen to talks by several of the lab directors. There will be a catered lunch and, in the afternoon, there will be presentations from the dean and faculty who have been associated with the program. Saturday evening will be the major event, the dinner. If you are able to stay over until Sunday, you can attend a picnic at Eastwoods Park.

You might enjoy visiting the Dean's Scholars web site at

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cline/dsbrochure.html

to learn more about the program. We have a large number of photographs in the site, but almost none from the early days. (If you have any and can scan them and send them to me, I'd be delighted to add them to the site.) In particular, please click on the Alumni link to see what your old friends are up to. If you haven't done it already, take a couple minutes to fill out the form so the rest of us know what you've been doing.

You'll hear more about this at the reunion but let me say just a few words now about the expansion of the program. At its inception in 1983, the plan was for about 100 Dean's Scholars. Jim Vick was the director back then, and he was succeeded by Mike Starbird in 1988. I became the director in 1991, and we finally reached the target size of 100 in 1994. However, prior to reaching that number, the new dean, Mary Ann Rankin, had asked me to try to double the size. Currently we are at about 160 and growing towards 200, but a committee is being formed in the college to consider a much larger program that would have special courses and degree status much like Plan II. Stay tuned.

Remember, please mark March 3 and 4 on your calendar now and expect to get more information from me in about a month.

Yours,

Alan Kaylor Cline

Director, The Dean's Scholars Program

and David Bruton, Jr. Professor of Computer Sciences