The National Science Foundation recently informed the President of Southern Polytechnic State University of the award of a grant of $113,000 to Dr Andy Wang, Chair of the Department of Information Technology and Professor of Information Technology, and Drs Chih-Cheng Hung and Patrick Bobbie, Professors of Computer Science. The primary objective of the grant, which will also involve researchers from Armstrong Atlantic State University, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Kennesaw State University, is to explore ways of making undergraduate education in computing more attractive to a wider range of students. The research project will revitalize computing curricula and help prepare a workforce with the computing competencies and skills contributing to sustained U.S. leadership in computing in a wide range of application domains and career fields.
The NSF is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 with the aim of promoting the progress of science; advancing the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and securing the national defense. NSF's interest in computing undergraduate education is no doubt driven by concerns about the declining number of students opting to do a computing degree in college. At the same time, the Bureau of Labor predicts that the US economy will create more than 800,000 new jobs for computing professionals between 2004 and 2014. This is in addition to the circa 3 million computing vacancies that will be created over the next 10 years or so by retirement. While the School of Computing and Software Engineering at SPSU has bucked the national trend in that enrollments in its computing programs have increased slightly over the last few years, it will have to do more if it is to produce the number of computing graduates that industry needs. The research project that Drs Wang, Hung and Bobbie are about to start is one of the avenues that CSE is exploring to help it increase the number of graduates in computing.