Interim President Jahanian Speaks at Computer Science Education Summit

Educators Address Challenges of Burgeoning CS Enrollments

Carnegie Mellon University Interim President Farnam Jahanian delivered the opening address to the Computer Science Education Summit on Oct. 2 in Pittsburgh. Hosted by CMU's School of Computer Science and the National Science Foundation, the summit is bringing together about 80 educators and computer science leaders for two days to discuss the challenges facing undergraduate computer science programs as enrollments continue to surge.

Jahanian's remarks addressed representatives from a wide range of colleges and universities, as well as the NSF, the National Academies of Science, the Computing Research Association, Association for Computing Machinery, Google and Intel. Jahanian, who has a master's degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, led the National Science Foundation Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering from 2011 to 2014.

Tom Cortina, assistant dean for undergraduate education and organizer of the summit, said participants will assess what resources and research will be needed to scale programs to accommodate more students. They will consider how diversity efforts can be helped or hindered by the growth and what can be done nationally to help expose more students to research and advanced study to increase interest and diversity in graduate programs.