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To: Tenured CS Faculty
From: Doug Lenat
Date: 2/8/83


I have recently received a letter conveying your concerns about my
level of involvement in the department; a copy of it is appended,
as I understand that some of you did not receive copies.  Overall,
I agree with your remarks, and appreciate your concern.  This letter
is meant to explain why I want tenure, why I want to be a member of
this department, and why I am pursuing the course you've taken notice of.

My research interests in AI focus on discovery, and one major obstacle
has been the lack of a testbed.  For instance, to test the power of
analogical reasoning, we would need a very broad "expert system" which
knew something about 10,000 topics, not 1 topic.  That is the kind of
effort which I could work on as a tenured faculty member, without
the pressure to produce results biannually.  It is an important project,
yet not suitable for industrial development, nor for an untenured
faculty member to embark upon.  In the past two years, I have pursued
a vigorous research effort, which is now culminating in several journal
articles, some prizes and invited talks, and widespread recognition
within AI.  The cost of that has been singlemindedness: as you have
noted, I have been doing my research on the only facilities I could
have access to that were adequate (PARC), I have not taught more
than my required 2 courses/year, I have not had many advisees, etc.
Hence your letter, and my recognition that it is warranted.

In informally discussing the matter with some of you, it appears that
a few data presented to you at your meeting were inaccurate.  I was
on research leave last year, which is why I didn't teach or advise much,
though I did serve on the Forum and both Comprehensive committees.
I am the principal adviser of 5 PhD students: Russ Greiner (completing
his research; should be out in Dec.), Dan Berlin (should be out by
Spring, 1984), Paul Cohen (should be out by Dec.), Jane Hsu, and
Stuart Russel. Paul is a special case, as he is not formally in CS,
and Ed Feigenbaum is co-advising him.  Of the Computer Forum talks
from HPP in the past two years, 2/3 of the students were mine, 1/3
Bruce Buchanan's.  Perhaps the picture painted at the tenured faculty 
meeting was a bit more extreme than it might have been, but overall
I concur with your advice.  Unfrotunately, that places me in a kind of
Catch-22 situation; if I DO now begin to take a more active