Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mandrill!gatech!ncar!ames!ucsd!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!ndsuvax!ncmagel From: ncmagel@ndsuvax.UUCP (ken magel) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: CS with Laboratories Message-ID: <1018@ndsuvax.UUCP> Date: 3 Jul 88 20:38:11 GMT Organization: North Dakota State University Fargo, ND Lines: 26 Recently, a draft proposal from an ACM group headed by Peter Denning which is updating Curriculum '78 suggested that Computer Science programs adopt the model of many other sciences ( Physics, Chemistry, etc.) which use courses and laboratory sessions. The course meetings cover the theory and provide motivation while the laboratory sessions handle how to do things of interest to that science. In Computer Science, the introductory courses would cover the theory including some automata theory, proofs of program correctness, etc. while the laboratories would teach how to program. One problem with this approach it seems to me is timing. Many Universities are having to reduce funding these days or at least are not growing nearly as quickly as in the late 1960's and 1970's. Computer Science is no longer the darling area it was just a few years ago. Enrollments in CS have dropped by at least a third nationally and much more in many programs. How can CS programs convince their Central Administrations that substantial additional expense for laboratory facilities is justified? Of course, the top fifty schools or so in the country already have nice lab facilities, but what of the rest which are primarily depending on a central mainframe computer and perhaps a few clusters of micro's? Chemistry, Physics, Biology and the other lab-based science education programs are finding it extremely difficult and often impossible to maintain upto date labs for their students and they already have been using labs for generations. SOme science programs are going to computer simulations instead of actual labs. Are we in real danger of having "true" Computer Science taught only at the top fifty schools with the rest having due to economic factors to teach MIS or data processing? Would this be good for American CS education?