Despite being one of the more prominent computer science programs in the country and the most popular major among next year’s incoming freshmen, computer and information science is still maturing in the mind of its department head.
“We’re still a developing department,” said Sarah Douglas, CIS department head. “We’re not established like biology or mathematics.” Since it was established more than 30 years ago, CIS has grown tremendously. The program, which moved from the first floor of the Computing Center in 1969 to the basement of Prince Lucien Campbell Hall and then to its current home in the 30,000-square-foot Deschutes Hall, has awarded more than 1,800 degrees.
“Students apply from all over the world to come here to study,” Douglas said. “We get a lot of students coming here to just do computer science.”
To celebrate its 30-year anniversary, the department — composed of 18 faculty members — is holding an open house and dinner on Saturday that will feature a keynote speech by Pulitzer Prize winning author Doug Hofstadter. The festivities begin at 1:30 p.m. in Deschutes Hall.
Hofstadter, a professor at Indiana University who wrote “Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid,” will give a public lecture titled “Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?” in Willamette Hall at 7:30 p.m.
CIS was created in the fall of 1969 by three math professors who understood the demand and significance of computer technology. David Moursund, one of the founders, said the University granted the program $1 million to purchase the 1966 IBM 360, a computer running on 256 kilobytes of memory ­ 250 times less memory than a modern 64 megabyte machine.
During its first years, Moursund said he wanted CIS to be a department that offered traditional degrees. The program was strongly oriented toward majors who wanted to pursue computer science as a career, he said.
“Oodles of students wanted to take our course,” said Moursund, now an education professor. “It’s a ticket to a well paying job.”
One of the goals of the CIS founders was to establish a connection with the education program. Today, the relationship between CIS and the University’s College of Education is strong as they jointly offer a masters degree for computers in education, Moursund said.
“That has had a major impact on the whole country,” Moursund said of the number of graduates who go on to teach about computer education at other schools.
The focus of the department has shifted from math to an experimental science.
“We’re very research oriented,” Douglas said.
Because of its expansion in 1982 that made doctorate degrees available, Douglas projected that the CIS program is one of the nation’s top 50. According to the Office of the Registrar, three of the 506 CIS students are working for a doctorate.
“A lot of computer science departments have become more engineering oriented, and of course we’re not an engineering school,” Douglas said. “We very much think of ourselves as one of the sciences.”
Both Moursund and Douglas said they are looking forward to Saturday’s anniversary party.
“It’s going to be fun to see some of the old guys,” Moursund said. “It’s nice to know that somebody recognizes us for the stuff we did a long time ago.