<\/a>
\n…and from a somewhat unexpected venue. CIO.com<\/a> is (in their own way) touting the value of a liberal arts education in computing<\/a>. Maria Klawe, the author of the piece, feels that “career opportunities in computer science are at an all-time high” and:<\/p>\n

\nWe\u2019ve got to spread that message among students from a rainbow of backgrounds, or risk becoming a technological backwater.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That “rainbow of backgrounds” is where the liberal arts enter the picture:<\/p>\n

\ncomputing-related jobs are no longer an isolated component of American industries; IT underpins every function of the business community\u2014market research, product design, finance, strategic planning, environmental issues\u2014every aspect of doing and leading. That means these jobs are not only vital but fun. They require people who have strong technical knowledge but who also can work and contribute in a much broader realm. A recent New York Times<\/em> article dubbed this kind of IT professional “the renaissance geek.” The leaders of Microsoft, Google and other companies have made their point clear: Give us more well-trained, well-rounded computer scientists!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah – “renaissance geek”… Gotta love that!<\/p>\n

The article goes on to provide several suggestions for how the business and academic worlds can work to encourage and develop this next generation of Renaissance Geeks. These include thinks like making a computing course a requirement for more undergraduates (and make sure they enjoy it), make connections to other departments\/disciplines, and hire more female faculty.<\/p>\n

UMM<\/a> used to require all<\/em> our students to take a computing course, but this requirement was dropped 6 years ago in the belief that the high schools were getting up to speed and providing our incoming students with the backgrounds they needed. I think there’s a growing sense on campus that they may not have worked out as well as we’d hoped, and I know our experience in Computer Science and UMM is that we’ve seen a much more homogenous group of students (white males with a strong leaning to the more stereotypical geek) than we did before the requirements changed. Making a change to the general education requirements like restoring this requirement wouldn’t an easy thing, though, and we run the obvious risk of entering into an unpleasant “Why is your field more important than my field?” sort of debate since (obviously) every<\/em> discipline at UMM is crucial to being a well rounded citizen in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

We’re doing a pretty good job on the business of making connections to other disciplines, in part in an effort to broaden our appeal in the wake of the aforementioned change of requirements. We’ve got interdisciplinary programs in media comutation (with Studio Art and Speech\/Communications) and bioinformatics (with Biology and Chemistry), and a new faculty in Philosophy has started a conversation on a possible program in Cognition that will likely include us in some form. There’s more than can be done here, but I think the wheels are turning in a useful way.<\/p>\n

And, finally, we’re rocking pretty hard on the gender diversity in our faculty as we currently have 3 of 5 being women, which puts us well<\/em> ahead of most other programs.<\/p>\n

I’ll wrap with this final quote:<\/p>\n

\nAt all levels, schools need to make computing attractive to ambitious students who have a fondness for technology but also want to fold in other skills and interests. These are the students who are going to be leaders and make a difference in the world, and they include women and minorities and the full cross-section of society.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amen, sister!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…and from a somewhat unexpected venue. CIO.com is (in their own way) touting the value of a liberal arts education in computing. Maria Klawe, the author of the piece, feels that “career opportunities in computer science are at an all-time high” and: We\u2019ve got to spread that message among students from a rainbow of backgrounds, … Continue reading “Chalk up another one in favor of the liberal arts…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-education","tag-technology"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-4D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":387,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/10\/26\/on-the-mighty-value-of-the-liberal-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":287,"position":0},"title":"On the mighty value of the liberal arts","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"26 Oct 06","format":false,"excerpt":"We always argue (hope?) that all this wonderful stuff we're passing along at a liberal arts college will have some value down the road, often in strange and unexpected ways, but it's awfully nice when concrete examples come our way, as two have done this week. First, Kirsten Jaglo (UMM\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Monkey River Town fun fotos!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/89\/267293181_ec3605f372_m_d.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1332,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2010\/07\/12\/massive-road-trip-days-7-11\/","url_meta":{"origin":287,"position":1},"title":"Massive road trip, days 7-11","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Jul 10","format":false,"excerpt":"Day 7 started with a vist to Lewis and Clark College, which was interesting if not overwhelming for Tom. It's a gorgeous campus and the study abroad stuff there is very cool, but it didn't particular ring Tom's bells. We then spent most of the day hanging around Portland together,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":822,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/03\/30\/umm-students-are-just-so-cool\/","url_meta":{"origin":287,"position":2},"title":"UMM students are just so cool!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"30 Mar 08","format":false,"excerpt":"As mentioned earlier, our paper \"Semantic building blocks in genetic programming\" with Brian Ohs (UMM '08) and Tyler Hutchison (UMM '07) was nominated for Best Paper at EuroGP 2008 in Naples, Italy. We won! That a paper co-authored with two undergraduates from a small, public, undergraduate liberal arts institution like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"EuroGP 2008 - 495","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3011\/2371833228_575effac29_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":478,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/19\/its-hard-for-us-old-folks-to-get-it-or-teach-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":287,"position":3},"title":"It’s hard for us old folks to get it (or teach it)","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"19 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"John Naughton had a nice column in The Observer last month about the chronic problems with IT courses for kids. There had been a plan for a new required exam in information and communication technology (ICT) for 14 year olds in the UK, but enthusiasm for the requirement has waned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Four heads are better than one","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/100\/279625345_412cdf3ef2_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":273,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/12\/24\/can-i-be-on-the-enemies-list-too\/","url_meta":{"origin":287,"position":4},"title":"Can I be on the enemies list too?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"24 Dec 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Big congrats to PeeZed for his continued annoyance of the Discovery Institute, and equally big props to the admin\/PR folks here at UMM for making sure that people list Paul as being from the University of Minnesota, Morris, and not our little sister campuses in the Twin Cities. It would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"School of bones (red)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/29\/61644006_88ac192f92_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":782,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/01\/25\/rainbow-curves-lost-imagery\/","url_meta":{"origin":287,"position":5},"title":"Rainbow curves (Lost imagery)","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"25 Jan 08","format":false,"excerpt":"As mentioned before, I\u2019ve been pretty insanely busy, trying to get four different co-authored research papers ready in time for the submission deadline next week for one of the major conferences in my field. Part of the reason I\u2019m busy is that I procrastinate, but part of it is that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rainbow curves (Lost imagery)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2238\/2218777063_14c984efc9_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}