Open Letter to Future Students: On the Shortage of Computer Science Faculty

Thanks to Pat Yongpradit for sending the below links article to me. I knew that CS faculty have been complaining about the costs of the enrollment pressure.  This was the first I’d heard of the students rising up to complain, and even to recommend to future students not to go into CS.

Being able to take on and graduate its own majors, which the department already strains to do, is the bare minimum of what we should expect from a department at a liberal arts college. As much as Haverford likes to present itself as an environment where each student can explore a diversity of academic interests and cultivate a multifaceted worldview, right now the CS department is unable to help broaden the education of non-majors. It has even been forced to eliminate the CS minor, because non-majors simply cannot get into upper-level courses to complete it. That this should be necessary at an institution of our caliber is shameful, and as the situation continues to deteriorate it will actively undermine the institution’s status. What kind of a college, prospective students are (appropriately) thinking, cannot offer its students the ability to understand how computing works? Deception by omission from the admissions office about the availability of CS courses is a very limited tool in holding back this information, as illustrated by the recent open letter to admitted Bryn Mawr students urging them to consider not enrolling if they are interested in science (especially CS).

Source: Open Letter: On the Shortage of Computer Science Faculty