The Union-Lafayette NSF CPATH grant:
"Creating a Campus-wide Computation Initiative"

Introduction to the Grant

The big picture

How to participate in this project

Apply for summer support

Questions?

Grant web site

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Introduction

Union and Lafayette Colleges have received a five-year $1.15M National Science Foundation grant for our proposal Campus Wide Computation Initiative: A New Model for Computing Education. The motivation of the CPATH solicitation was to revitalize undergraduate computing education. Rather than focus specifically on computer science enrollments, the goal of our project is to broaden the pool of students who are prepared to integrate computation into their fields of study. We believe that computation can play a role in disciplines across our campuses, and have designed the grant activities for the broadest possible participation.

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The big picture

Key components of the project are:

• Development of an introductory computational science course. At Union this course is CSC-103 Introduction to Computational Science.
• Modification of existing courses and development of new courses in departments other than CS that extend students' use of computational methods.
  • Summer 2008 resulted in modules for macroeconomics, acoustics of speech production, statistical mechanics, and computational chemistry. During summer 2009, nine faculty student pairs are working on courses in astronomy, biology, classics, economics, engineering, film studies, and political science.
• Development of a new Computational Methods minor, which was approved in spring 2009 and is available to students as of the 2009-2010 academic year.
• The development of research projects that involve computation and engage students in the use of computational skills
• Development of a seminar series that highlights computational activities in different fields.

By the end of the grant period we will have several new courses housed in the CS department, in addition to the Introduction to Computational Science. There will be modules added to courses across the college that engage students in using computation within their field of major study. There will also be several general application courses in areas such as visualization, modeling and simulation, and data mining. We also encourage the development of upper level courses within other departments that are heavily focused on discipline specific uses of computation. All of the new CS courses will involve data drawn from a range of disciplines so that students can apply their knowledge and skills to data from their own areas of expertise.

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How can you be part of this project/what's in it for you?

Generate support for the use of computation within your field of study! Help students develop the skills to work on research with you!

Talk about computation within your discipline:

• devote a portion of a class to ways in which computation is used in your field. Or invite me to do that. I'm happy to visit your class to talk about ways in which computation is being used to address problems, to create new resources, and as part of new subfields.

Incorporate computation into your courses, encourage your students to take a CS course:

The grant includes support for two activities which can be rolled into one summer project.

• You work closely with a student on a computationally oriented project within your area of research and interest. Your experience with the student will help you identify the specific areas in which you would like your students to have greater facility and capability
• You then develop a module for one of your courses that will will generate interest in the use of computation among students who take your course.
• Unlike the usual Union summer research program, both you and the student get summer funding!

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Applying for summer 2009 support:

If you are interested in applying for summer 2009, please email me a proposal by February 12, 2009. In your proposal:

• describe the project you want to have a student work on
• discuss the student and why you think he/she is the right student for this project
• explain why you expect working on this project will increase the student's interest in learning about and using computation
• explain how this experience will inform your courses and curriculum. In particular, for what course do you expect to develop a module, and what sort of material do you anticipate adding to it?
• list computing and support resources you expect to need this summer and for a successful roll out of your new course module

I will review the proposals and also confer with Kristin Fox in cases where there are overlapping applications between my program and the Union Summer Research program. Student funding will be $3500 for the summer, and faculty funding will be $1750. There is also money available for supplies and associated research costs. In addition, there is funding for faculty and students to attend conferences and discuss the computational work they have done, particularly in the context of education and motivating students to learn about and utilize computation within their disciplines.

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For more information:

Contact me! Valerie Barr, CS Dept., x8361.