Public Safety is tracking a significant snowfall that will be arriving in our area late Sunday morning (Jan. 25). It will snow heavily throughout the day and evening eventually tapering off Monday (Jan. 26) with 10-14 inches expected statewide. A sleet and freezing rain mix is also possible along the shore. Temperatures will be in the teens and twenties.
Due to this significant winter storm and the extensive campus clean-up operations that will need to take place, all in-person day and evening classes scheduled for Monday, January 26, 2026 have been cancelled. All scheduled in-person classes will transition to being held online or remotely. Additional information on the virtual format for each class will be provided by your instructor.
Faculty have been asked to prepare for Online or Remote sessions in the event of in-person meeting cancellations. These options will be determined by the Faculty member and all questions should be directed to the Faculty teaching each course section. Faculty also have been asked to be very understanding and accommodating of the individual situations of their students who may have difficulty managing these alternative online or remote class meetings on short notice.
Please note that only essential employees, as previously determined by their respective department leaders, should report to campus. All other employees should fulfill the requirements of their role remotely.
Campus operations for residential students, unless otherwise noted, will operate as scheduled, though hours may be modified or changed based on the conditions. Separate messages will be sent from the Peterson Library, the Beckerman Recreation Center, and Dining Services regarding any changes to their normal hours of operation. The Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation will remain open for residential students to use for study space and to participate in online classes.
Off-campus students that live in the City of West Haven should abide by the city’s parking ban during inclement weather to avoid having their vehicle tagged and towed. Please check the City of West Haven’s website for further information on their snow parking ban.
The Charger Blog
The generous donation of a new server from Dell Technologies is enhancing students’ and faculty members’ ability to train and test machine learning models while offering new and exciting data science research opportunities.
November 18, 2021
From crunching numbers to training with new computing models and simulations, the Connecticut Institute of Technology at the University of New Haven has received a big boost from Dell Technologies. The company generously donated a server to the University, which is providing a serious infusion of power for students, faculty, and staff to better test models and simulations in data science research.
Ibrahim "Abe" Baggili, Ph.D., the founding director of the Connecticut Institute of Technology, called the server a "necessary resource," and explains in layman's terms that the server is "one big computer, working with other computers, to crunch numbers." The importance of the server is that it provides "research students with on-demand access to graphics processing unit (GPU) computing for training and testing machine-learning models."
Dr. Baggili says the technology was integrated into an existing network of four other computers, specifically the GPU work stations on campus, to create a mini-cluster, configured via Kubernetes/Jupyterhub, open source technologies for automating computer applications. The server is able to store significant amounts of information, as well as access and recall data, all while performing myriad of essential tasks required in data science research.
Some of that computing power goes into training and testing of deep reinforcement learning models and large transformer models, according to Dr. Baggili. The latter focuses on tasks such as taking neural networks to model social networks, as well as predicting or spotting intrusions and classifying cyber threat intelligence. Additionally, Dr. Baggili says the server helps researchers here at the University use simulations, including ones that train robot coordination and communication.
Already, a first batch of results from these models and simulations has been collected. Student and faculty researchers are writing up what they have learned from the heavy-duty computing possible from the cluster of GPU workstations. The goal is to submit the findings to academic conferences, including the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).
Vahid Behzadan, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Tagliatela College of Engineering, says "this cluster has enabled new lines of research that require the training and fine-tuning of massive deep-learning architectures," which is enabled by the processing power and speed from the server Dell Technologies provided to the University. He says prior to the donation, the University’s "experimental capacity was limited to the availability of just a few GPUs in the lab cluster.
He adds, "The addition of this powerful server to our computing cluster has significantly increased our capacity, and has enabled us to train multiple large models in parallel and generate results at a significantly faster pace."
Dr. Behzadan says a student abstract called “Hybrid Deep Graph and Transformer Model for Fake News Detection in Social Network” is one of the most recent projects in a larger automated fake news detection effort. That abstract has since been accepted for presentation and publication for AAAI's 2022 conference. Dr. Behzadan explains that projects underway, thanks to the Dell server, have already been accepted for the Conference on Applied Machine Learning in Information Security (CAMLIS) and others are under review for other artificial intelligence (AI) conferences.
Jeffrey Lancaster, Dell Technologies’ higher education strategist, provided some insight into why the company chose the University of New Haven for the server, saying the “standout cybersecurity and esports programs “align with many of Dell’s current areas of focus.”
Lancaster says the goal was to support education and research in “cybersecurity, data science, and other computationally intensive areas” after a meeting with Dr. Baggili in 2020. Since then, Lancaster says Dell has found “fantastic collaborators” at the University, including teaching a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Esports class for the Master’s in Esports Business Program.
Lancaster continues, “We look forward to further exploring the bounds of industry-academic partnership with the University of New Haven.”
“We are grateful for Dell Technologies' generosity and excited for the opportunities that their investment will provide for the students and faculty of the Connecticut Institute of Technology,” adds Dr. Baggili.
University News
New University-wide council will advance strategic partnerships, immersive student opportunities, and innovative research, supporting the University’s strategic plan the development of its pioneering Center for Innovation and Applied Technology.
The Charger Blog
Entrepreneur David Sussman, Pompea College of Business Advisory Board Member and chief visionary officer of The Family Security Plan®, is collaborating with University of New Haven students, faculty, and staff to create a program and app that helps Chargers support each other to achieve academic, personal, and professional goals. It’s called Uccountability.
University News
Vice President for Innovation and Applied Technology Paul Lavoie will serve on the Board of Directors and as America’s Chief Manufacturing Officer for the newly launched American Manufacturing Futures Institute.