Identifying a departmental identity (#1367)

Topics/tags: Academia

This semester, Grinnell’s CS is exploring broad issues of departmental mission and related matters. Why? There are many reasons. Here are a few. The world of computing is changing, and we should reflect on central areas that we may not cover sufficiently, such as ethics and AI [1]. We haven’t conducted a thorough review of our curriculum for years; Curriculum 2023 appeared recently, and we should explore our curriculum in light of its suggestions. The institution has also asked us to consider our departmental identity and the role of computing at Grinnell.

As I said, those are a few of many, many reasons.

Fortunately, a group of faculty from Small Liberal Arts Colleges (SLACs) has provided a Workbook for Distinctive Computer Science Curricula. We’re slowly working our way through it. If all goes well (or at least as I’d like), we’ll also get together for a summer workshop and bring in an external coordinator from the group.

One of the key steps—and where we are right now—is to identify the core aspects of your identity. I thought it would be useful to identify some of the things that I consider part of our identity and to try to fit them into something like the concentric circles from Grinnell’s strategic plan. For those not familiar with the circles, they go something like this [2].

• Innermost circle (Circle 0, in my counting): Signature programs that are distinct to Grinnell.
• Circle 1: Strategic plan priorities, which are essential to the way people experience the College (or, in our case, how students experience the department) [3].
• Circle 2: Mission central activities, which are central to maintaining our excellence [4].
• Outermost circle (Circle 3, in my counting): Options for consolidation/reduction, which represent programs that are not distinctive, explicitly identified, or directly supportive of the strategic plan or central to achieving our mission.

Yeah, those aren’t perfect, especially since we don’t have a strategic plan. I’m going to put some aspirational aspects of our identity in that circle.

Here goes.

Circle 0: Signature Characteristics

These should be the first things that come to mind when you think about Grinnell CS. Ideally, they would also distinguish us from our peers.

• Grinnell CS has a multi-paradigm introductory sequence that exposes students to multiple modes of thinking. Right now, our sequence uses Scheme to cover issues of functional programming, C to cover imperative programming and get students used to thinking of the standard underlying computer model, and Java to cover object-oriented thinking, data structures, and algorithms. We don’t need this particular sequence.Nonetheless, I consider the approach particularly liberal artsy in that it teaches students to think about problem solving in multiple ways. A few other institutions have a similar sequence, but not many.
• Grinnell CS has a rich peer education program. That is, we rely on undergraduates to serve as mentors in our classes, tutors in the evening, individual tutors, and graders. This program contributes to a rich support structure for students in our introductory courses. It also helps the peer educators develop soft skills. For example, in past surveys, peer educators in the sciences have reported that serving as a peer educator has a significant impact on their communication skills. We’re not the only school with a strong peer education program. But it’s a core part of our identity. Still, we could discuss moving this to Circle2.
• Grinnell CS emphasizes active learning techniques in the introductory sequence. I struggled with this one a bit. I consider it part of our identity, but it’s also in place to serve other values and goals. For example, active learning has been shown to better support students from groups historically underserved in CS. Active learning also helps build communication skills.
• Grinnell CS provides every faculty member the opportunity to teach upper-level courses in their area of interest. Most of my characteristics emphasize student education. However, some characteristics relate to faculty (as they should).

Circle 1: Aspirational Characteristics

These might be things we already do, but could do better. They might also be things that we know we should do, but haven’t been able to do yet.

• Grinnell CS provides an opportunity for all Grinnell students to learn programming and computational thinking and to be able to apply these skills to their major discipline. We don’t yet provide such opportunities; we haven’t had the staffing. But our staffing is slowly growing. And so we’re considering what introductory courses for non-majors would look like. We have one such course, which gives students a broad overview of computing and a little bit of programming. We should add one that has a more significant programming aspect and that helps build computational thinking skills (e.g., decomposition, functional and data abstraction, identifying patterns).
• Grinnell CS broadens participation in computing. I’ve long said something like Computers are changing the world. Since computing technology affects a broad range of people, we have an obligation as computing educators to ensure that a broad range of people can build computing technology. I believe that my colleagues support this goal. I’d like to see us be more intentional in achieving that goal.
• Grinnell CS gives its majors the intellectual grounding to understand the ethical, moral, and social challenges in computing. We’ve tried to do this for most of my time at Grinnell, but our work is often a hodgepodge of efforts, including CS table, assorted classroom discussions, and recommended electives.
• Grinnell CS majors graduate with strong communication skills that reveal themselves in group work, presentations, and writing. Is this aspirational? Perhaps not. Most of our majors report that they have these advantages when they compare themselves to coworkers. Still, we lack clear infrastructure for developing some of these skills and so should reflect on how we build them.
• Grinnell acknowledges that CS is an experimental science and, therefore, most CS faculty need research labs. I had to fight for this idea when I started. The College embraced it when we built Phase 2 of the Noyce Science Center. Now we’ve run out of space, so it’s difficult to achieve. And in case you couldn’t tell, this is one of those faculty-centric identities.

Circle 2: Central Characteristics

I think of these as things that most or many CS departments do, but that are nonetheless important for our program.

• Grinnell CS provides every interested major with the opportunity to do scholarly work. At one point, all Grinnell departments were asked to do something like this. But the range of what’s reasonable differs significantly from discipline to discipline. Ten-week summer MAPs and MIPs are my ideal for scholarly work in CS. However, we lack the faculty to support all of our students in summer work, we shouldn’t require all faculty to work in the summer, and not all students want summer research opportunities. Significant projects in upper-level classes are another opportunity, as are academic-year independent studies and MAPs. The CS department also embraces a broad view of scholarly work; as Ernest Boyer suggests in Scholarship Reconsidered, such work need not always involve generating new knowledge.
• Grinnell CS provides every student with the knowledge to explore a wide variety of areas of computing. Many SLACs are struggling with the question of whether to have a small core or a large core. We’ve settled on a large core. I support that approach. Every computer scientist should know and be able to apply some theory, some systems, and some software development. Of course, I also believe that every computer scientist should know some AI, so we need to explore how to expand our core curriculum.

Circle 3: Things to consolidate or drop

Um. I struggled to come up with anything for this category. It may be that I focused on core identity, rather than all aspects of the department. Would it be worth dropping student scholarship as a core identity? I don’t think so; dropping it would conflict with broader institutional values. I also like working with students. I’d hope to drop some red tape, but that doesn’t really fit as an identity issue.

That’s what I came up with. Is it everything the department came up with? I’m not sure, and I’m too lazy too check. I think it covers what I care about in the department and how I identify the department.

Postscript: If I recall correctly, a prospective student recently wrote me about these issues. I should see what they wrote and respond. Perhaps I’ll do that tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll even post my response as a musing.

[1] Those are both separate topics and a combined topic.

[2] Taken from the latest presentation of the Strategic Plan on page 17 of the agenda for the Faculty Meeting of September 15, 2025.

[3] We could also consider how prospective faculty, prospective students, and even employers experience the department.

[4] The Strategic Plan says, Items in this category are central to the achievement of our mission to maintain excellence. I’m happier with a more concise statement.

Version 1.0 of 2025-09-22.