Florida Polytechnic in Lakeland appoints chairs of two academic departments

Florida Polytechnic University announced the hiring of two department chairs.

Asai Asaithambi is the new chair of the Computer Science Department, and Paul Hettler now leads the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Department, the Lakeland school said in a news release.

Asaithambi was most recently interim director, graduate director and professor at the University of North Florida’s School of Computing in Jacksonville. He has been involved in computer science for more than 40 years, the release said.

Asaithambi takes over from Sharam Taj, who had chaired both Computer Science and Data Science and Business Analytics.

“We think of computer science as a discipline that’s not clearly understood yet,” Asaithambi said in the release. “There are always new things to be explored and new technology to be learned and created. Our professional responsibility is to make sure everybody understands what we’re doing.”

Asaithambi’s goals include having Florida Poly designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense, offering more undergraduate research opportunities through National Science Foundation grants, establishing a seminar series and increasing the department’s outreach efforts to schools nearby, the release said.

Hettler arrived from Pennsylvania Western University, where he served as professor of economics, assistant chair of the Department of Business, Economics and Communication and the chair of the Department of Finance, Accounting and Economics.

Hettler follows Tom Dvorske, who served as interim chair until last year.

“We know that all our students at Florida Poly are STEM students, so we can really tailor what we do to the interest of the STEM population, building further on what we’re doing now,” Hettler said in the release. “Arts, humanities and social sciences shouldn’t be off to the side checking the boxes of what students have to do — it should be part of the foundation of what STEM students do.”

Hettler said he would like to collaborate more closely with the other departments and together develop general education electives that integrate with their efforts. Because all students interact with the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Department to meet state graduation requirements, Hettler said a deliberate effort can be made to support the STEM departments’ instruction with both content and “soft” skills, the release said.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Florida Polytechnic in Lakeland appoints chairs of two academic departments