Identifying the Computing Education Needs of Liberal Arts and Sciences Students (Discussion Paper)
Mark Guzdial, AUGUST E. EVRARD · 2023
As a field, computing’s deepest roots lie in liberal arts domains such as philosophy and linguistics. As new technologies rapidly expanded the field, the computer science curricula emerged. The current undergraduate areas of study, including computer science and software engineering, focus on preparing students for careers in the computing industry or academia. The “born digital” students of a modern liberal arts institution need a different, less technology-heavy, form of computing education to support their careers as future scientists, artists, or humanists. At our large, research-focused, US university, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) charged a task force with defining the computing education needs for their students, chaired by the authors. We describe our process, findings and outcomes here with the aim of offering a reference template to faculty at universities that have experienced a similar growth to prominence of computer science in the undergraduate curriculum. The task force identified emergent themes of discovery, expression, and justice that we using to establish a new program, the Program for Computing in the Arts and Sciences (PCAS). Our themes and process may help other liberal arts and sciences programs organize the computing education needs in support of all their undergraduate students.