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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<title>LACS: History</title>
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<body>
<div class="navbar"></div>
<div class="content">
<h1>HISTORY</h1>
<h3>FORMATION</h3>
<p>
LACS began in 1984 when a group of nine computer scientists from liberal
arts colleges met to address the problem that the then-current ACM standard
curriculum for computer science was inappropriate and unachievable for most
liberal arts colleges. The ACM standard known as "Curriculum 78" required
students to complete 12 or more computer science courses, 6 math courses,
and two lab science courses in order to earn a BS degree in computer science.
</p>
<p>
By contrast, the nine liberal arts colleges represented by this group (see
list below) required their undergraduates to achieve breadth of study
across the arts, sciences, and humanities as well as depth of study in a
disciplinary major that was concentrated in principles and theory rather
than in technical applications. This constituted the well-known liberal
arts degree (often called a BA), in which a major typically required
8-9 discipline-specific courses.
</p>
<h3>FIRST MEETING</h3>
<p>
For lack of an appropriate standard, few liberal arts colleges offered
a computer science major in 1984. To offer an alternative that would
bridge this philosophical divide, this first LACS group meeting created
a "Draft Model Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Degree in Computer Science."
This draft reaffirmed the values of liberal arts education and specified
a 9-course computer science major whose core courses were rich in the theory
of computing, and was widely circulated to the community for comment.
</p>
<p>
In 1985, the LACS group reconvened, added four new members (see list below),
and revised its draft in response to the many suggestions received. As a result,
the first "Model Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Degree in Computer Science"
was published in Communications of the ACM in 1986 <a href='#note1'>[1]</a>. These first two meetings
and their outcomes were supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation. The thirteen members of the 1984 and 1985 LACS groups are
listed below (* indicates the original 9 members):
</p>
<ul>
<li>Jim Bradley -- Nazareth College</li>
<li>Joyce Brennan -- University of Texas at Austin</li>
<li>* Kim Bruce -- Williams College</li>
<li>* Bob Cupper -- Allegheny College</li>
<li>Jim Cameron -- Denison University</li>
<li>* Norm Gibbs -- Bowdoin College</li>
<li>* Stuart Hirshfield -- Hamilton College</li>
<li>* Nancy Ide -- Vassar College</li>
<li>* Charles Kelemen -- Swarthmore College</li>
<li>* Jeff Parker -- Amherst College</li>
<li>* Ted Sjoerdsma -- Washington and Lee University</li>
<li>* Allen Tucker -- Colgate University</li>
<li>Henry Walker -- Grinnell College</li>
</ul>
<h3>THE CURRICULUM</h3>
<p>This 1986 Model Curriculum was widely implemented by liberal arts collegs
across the country. Not only did it reflect their philosophy, it also showed
how an undergraduate major could be created by a college that hired a minimum
of three computer scientists, supported two dedicated computer science laboratories,
and developed an institutional acceptance of computer science as a distinct
discipline within the larger liberal arts framework. Since 1986, the LACS
group has continued to meet annually and evolve to its present character and
size of about 18 members (see the <a href='who-is-lacs.html'>Who is LACS</a> page).
</p>
<p>
Throughout this 30-year period, LACS has made significant contributions to
the national discussion of undergraduate computer science education. Individual
LACS members have regularly published articles in ACM and SIGCSE-related
journals on such topics as the importance of mathematics in computer science
education, the integration of laboratory experiences in computer science
courses, computer science enrollment trends, faculty recruiting, and the design
of introductory and service courses. For a more careful treatment of these
contributions, please visit the <a href='what-we-do.html'>What We Do</a> page.
</p>
<p>
In 1996, responding to the ACM/IEEE-CS Computing Curricula 1991 report, LACS
published its "Revised Model Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Degree in Computer
Science" <a href='#note2'>[2]</a>. This Revised Model Curriculum reaffirmed the distinctive principles
that guide the teaching of computer science in a liberal arts setting, and
also updated and modernized various details of the core courses themselves.
A similar round of revisions occurred a decade later, when LACS published its
"2007 Model Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Degree in Computer Science" <a href='#note3'>[3]</a>
in response to the ACM/IEEE-CS Computing Curricula 2001 report.
</p>
<p>
In <a href="http://ai.stanford.edu/users/sahami/CS2013/">the most recent
ACM/IEEE-CS model curriculum</a> "Computing Curricula 2013" <a href='#note4'>[4]</a>,
two of the five curricular examplars are taken from the undergraduate CS programs
of liberal arts colleges that are represented by current LACS members (Grinnell
and Williams). At the time of this writing, fully 37 of the top 40 liberal
arts colleges in the US News survey have fully developed computer science
major programs. These two facts combine to provide strong indicators that
the LACS Model Curricula of 1986, 1996, and 2007 have had significant impact
on the development of undergraduate computer science.
</p>
<hr>
<p id='note1'>[1] Gibbs, N. and Tucker, A., "A Model Curriculum for a Liberal
Arts Degree in Computer Science," Communications of the ACM (29, 3) March,
1986, pp 202-210
<a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=5667">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=5667</a>.</p>
<p id='note2'>[2] Walker, H. and Schneider, M., "A Revised Model Curriculum
for a Liberal Arts Degree in Computer Science," Communications of the ACM
(39, 12) December, 1996, pp 85-95
<a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=240502">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=240502</a>.</p>
<p id='note3'>[3] LACS, "A 2007 Model Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Degree in
Computer Science," ACM Journal of Educational Resources in Computing (7, 2)
June 2007 <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1240202">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1240202</a>.</p>
<p id='note4'>[4] ACM/IEEE-CS Task Force, "Computing Curricula 2013"
<a href="http://ai.stanford.edu/users/sahami/CS2013/final-draft/CS2013-final-report.pdf">
http://ai.stanford.edu/users/sahami/CS2013/final-draft/CS2013-final-report.pdf</a>.</p>
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