Bethel University

Contributed by: Dr. Cathy Bareiss, cathy.bareiss@betheluniversity.edu

Institutional and departmental context

1. Location: Mishawaka, IN
2. Student body size: 1,300
3. Degree(s) offered: Computer Science (traditional) and Cybersecurity (online for adult students). Both are one year old.
4. Department/major name: Math and Engineering
5. Number of contributing faculty: 1.0 for CS and 0.5 for Cybersecurity
6. Number of majors annually: 12 in the first year for both majors (10 for CS)

Since the CS program is very new, we have been able to be very innovative in our approach. We also have the full support of the administration to develop a strong CS program that can be a leading program for small colleges that are around our size. While we have the cybersecurity program, it is overseen by a different administrative body and not something discussed in this proposal.

Bethel also a strong commitment to a liberal arts mind set. With that in mind, we plan to create majors/minors that allow for multi-disciplinary degrees. We also hope to help the campus integrate computing into all majors. This work will start in a few years after the major has achieved strong beginning.

Curricular overview

Major program: CS

Standard courses:

Intro to Programming, Programming I & II (CS 1 & 2), Database, Networking, Software Engineering (2 semesters), Theory, Internship, Senior project, and a capstone course.

More innovative courses:

1. Self-directed learning courses: There are two level of courses: guided and independent. In the guided level (sophomore level), students are taught a topic (web programming, system administration, etc.) via online lessons with weekly discussions. They are also shown how to design a quality learning program including setting goals, time lines, etc. This is to show them how they can structure their own online learning. In the independent course, students must then structure their own learning on a topic they choose and create work that demonstrates what they have learned.
2. Focus on cutting edge technology. The independent learning and topics courses (which are both required) will cycle through things such as cloud computing, big data, machine learning, mobile computing, and Internet of Things.
3. Seminars. A ½ hour seminar is required every semester with one for the freshmen and sophomores and one for the junior and seniors. Seminars cover ethics, cybersecurity, career issues, introduction to systems, overview of some CS topics, and guest speakers
4. Ethics and cybersecurity are integrated into all courses in a planned and highly structured way.

Non-major programs

We have two minors: A computer science (with a focus on programming with options for additional areas) and an information systems (designed for those in other majors wanting to learn to apply computer science in their field).

Co-curricular environment

The IT infrastructure of this program is being placed on the cloud. We are not building our own infrastructures (with servers, etc.) but taking advantage of the cloud resources available to us. This has a number of advantages (and a few challenges):

• Costs: We don't have to buy equipment
• Availability: The resources are available to students everywhere even when outside the campus firewall without using the campus VPN.
• Introduction to the cloud to prepare for careers
• Some systems will be kept current via the cloud architecture
• Ease to provision machines for students' individual work in courses such as networking, system administration, etc.
• However: more administration work will be needed to by done by the CS faculty as opposed to the campus IT staff.

Key contributions

1. Purposeful teaching students how to learn effectively on their own. Most institutions teach lifelong learning skills by requiring students to learn something on their own and prepare a report or presentation on that material. Our curriculum not only requires them to do so but also teaches them how to do it in a way to maximize what they are learning.
2. How to add the new areas of computing to the curriculum. As things that were once the domain of specialists (such a machine learning, big data, distributed computing) become the tools of all computing professionals, other things must be abstracted out to provide room in the curriculum. This is similar to why we typically don't have entire courses on assembly language programming anymore. Our curriculum has try to identify what can be generalized to make room for the new knowledge
3. Use of the cloud for our infrastructure

Limitations/challenges

1. I will need to find adjuncts to teaching the Topic courses. This will be a challenge.
2. Coordinating and mentoring the adjuncts to ensure quality and cohesion with the goals of the program.
3. Recruiting with limited time and resources