SIGCSE 2022 Affiliated Event by the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges
Contributed by Alec J. Engebretson, alec.engebretson@doane.edu, and Mark M. Meysenburg, mark.meysenburg@doane.edu
At Doane University we have instituted an on-campus entity designed to spread a culture of computing throughout the university. This entity is the Doane University Institute for Computing. We define computing as “the skill of solving problems in such a way that the solution can be carried out by a computer.” With this definition, the mission of the Institute for Computing is to create a culture of computing at Doane University that affords integrity, innovation, and transformation, by supporting any member of the Doane community who applies computing, and by promoting to the community and beyond through outreach. Two key components of the institute are the Center for Computing in the Liberal Arts (CCLA), and funding for computing micro-grants and computing fellows.
The Doane University Center for Computing in the Liberal Arts (CCLA) provides a collaborative and supportive environment for Doane students, faculty, and staff, who are interested in incorporating computing into their schoolwork, projects, or research. Our operating analogy is that the CCLA is like a Writing Center, but for computing instead of prose.
Ultimately, the Institute for Computing aims to foster a culture of computing at Doane – all of Doane. Therefore, the CCLA supports any academic discipline on campus: STEM disciplines, Business, Art, Social Sciences, Theater, and so on. Likewise, the CCLA supports a wide range of computing skills, from spreadsheets and word processing through databases and programming and into more advanced technologies such as machine learning and high-performance computing. The CCLA’s mission is to be available to help any student, faculty, or staff member with any computer-related problem-solving task. Creating this culture of computing at the university will help equip our students with the computing skills necessary to become outstanding contributors and leaders in both the public and private sectors.
Through the Institute, we have established programs to provide micro-grants to Doane community members and to help support outside computing experts who visit the university. The Wiley micro-grants program helps to fund projects that apply and/or promote computing with grants of $500 or less. These funds might be used to fund special software or hardware needed for a project, specialized training on a particular tool, or for travel to present the results of computing-related projects. The Mekota-Moore Fellows program provides small amounts of money to help fund stipends and travel for speakers, teachers, or researchers that visit the university to talk about computing. Visiting fellows will help connect students and faculty with professionals who apply or promote computing in their fields.
There are several challenges the Institute will face as we move forward. Some challenges are enumerated below, along with our ideas on how to meet these challenges.
Budgetary realities prohibit hiring staff to run the institute, and Doane faculty are already fully engaged.
The two full-time faculty of the computing department have been relieved of traditional university committee assignments, and instead focus their university service activities on runnin the Institute. Prof. Alec Engebretson is serving as the director of the Institute, and Prof. Mark Meysenburg is serving as the director of the CCLA.
Students working in the CCLA can provide assistance as their time and talents allow. For example, a CCLA Peer Consultant designed and produced logos used to brand CCLA materials, while another senior consultant served as the training supervisor for a new cadre of consultants.
Ongoing funding for the Institute must be procured.
Initial function for the Institute came from two sources. Micro-grant and fellows funding came from approximately $75,000 of funding from Doane alumni (Omar Moore, John Wiley, and John Mekota). CCLA activities have been funded via an NSF Cybertraining grant (award #1924094) that will end on July 31, 2022. To operate the Institute in the long term, we need to procure additional funding.
Our goal is to raise $500,000 in the next five years, to be able to endow the institute and provide it with an annual budget of approximately $25,000. Our goal is to raise $100,000 each from the following threads: alumni / faculty / friends of the University, corporate partners, our Doane Computing faculty training program (in cooperation with the Nebraska Dev Lab (NeDL)), grants and foundations, and our Board of Trustees.
How do we achieve buy-in from disciplines outside those that traditionally use computing?