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?