Disciplinary thinking, computational doing

Abstract

This paper describes a 10-year multi-pronged project to introduce students campus-wide to computing, increase enrollments in the computer science department, and change the demographics of students in the introductory computer science courses. The Union College Computer Science (CS) department has changed curricula at the introductory and intermediate levels, and worked with two dozen faculty from 15 disciplines who incorporated computing into their courses. The percentage of women in the introductory CS course has increased from 10% to an average of 37% when measured over a multi-year period.