SCS Hosts Computer Science Education Summit

Educators Address Challenges of Burgeoning CS Enrollments

Friday, September 29, 2017 - by Byron Spice

The School of Computer Science is bringing together about 80 educators and computer science leaders for a two-day summit to discuss the challenges facing undergraduate computer science programs as enrollments continue to surge.

"Many colleges and universities are seeing a huge increase of students in computing-related disciplines," said Tom Cortina, assistant dean for undergraduate education and organizer of the Computer Science Education Summit. "Interest in computer science is at an all-time high and outreach efforts to increase diversity are gaining traction. Now we're all facing a tidal wave.

"This summit will serve as a think tank for all of us to brainstorm how to serve these students while maintaining quality and continuing our efforts to improve diversity," he added.

The summit, sponsored by SCS and the National Science Foundation, will be Oct. 2–3 at the Wyndham Pittsburgh University Center. Representatives from a wide range of colleges and universities, as well as the NSF, the National Academies of Science, the Computing Research Association, Association for Computing Machinery, Google and Intel will participate. CMU Interim President Farnam Jahanian will deliver the opening address.

Cortina said the participants will assess what resources and research will be needed to scale programs to accommodate more students. They will consider how diversity efforts can be helped or hindered by the growth, and what can be done nationally to help expose more students to research and advanced study to increase interest and diversity in graduate programs.

A white paper will summarize the discussions and suggestions that emerge from the meeting.

For more information, Contact:
Byron Spice | 412-268-9068 | bspice@cs.cmu.edu