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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2000)
CIS program celebrates 30-year anniversary ■ The department, popular among students, will host a gathering and dinner Saturday in Deschutes Hall By Adam Jude Oregon Daily Emerald Despite being one of the more prominent computer science pro grams in the country and the most popular major among next year’s incoming freshmen, computer and information science is still maturing in the mind of its de partment head. “We’re still a developing de partment,” said Sarah Douglas, CIS department head. “We’re not established like biology or mathe matics.” Since it was established more than 30 years ago, CIS has grown tremendously. The pro gram, which moved from the first floor of the Computing Center in 1969 to the basement of Prince Lu cien Campbell Hall and then to its current home in the 30,000 square-foot Deschutes Hall, has awarded more than 1,800 degrees. “Students apply from all over the world to come here to study,” Douglas said. “We get a lot of stu dents coming here to just do com puter science.” To celebrate its 30-year an niversary, the department — com posed of 18 faculty members — is holding an open house and din ner on Saturday that will feature a keynote speech by Pulitzer Prize winning author Doug Hofstadter. The festivities begin at 1:30 p.m. in Deschutes Hall. Hofstadter, a professor at Indi ana University who wrote “Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid,” will give a public lecture titled “Will Spiritual Ro bots Replace Humanity by 2100?” in Willamette Hall at 7:30 p.m. CIS was created in the fall of 1969 by three math professors who understood the demand and significance of computer technol ogy. David Moursund, one of the founders, said the University granted the program $1 million to purchase the 1966 IBM 360, a computer running on 256 kilo bytes of memory - 250 times less memory than a modern 64 megabyte machine. During its first years, Mour sund said he wanted CIS to be a department that offered tradition al degrees. The program was strongly oriented toward majors who wanted to pursue computer science as a career, he said. “Oodles of students wanted to take our course,” said Moursund, now an education professor. “It’s a ticket to a well paying job.” One of the goals of the CIS founders was to establish a con nection with the education pro gram. Today, the relationship be tween CIS and the University’s College of Education is strong as they jointly offer a masters degree for computers in education, Moursund said. “That has had a major impact on the whole country,” Moursund said of the number of graduates who go on to teach about comput er education at other schools. The focus of the department has shifted from math to an exper imental science. “We’re very research oriented,” Douglas said. Because of its expansion in 1982 that made doctorate degrees avail able, Douglas projected that the CIS program is one of the nation’s top 50. According to the Office of the Registrar, three of the 506 CIS stu dents are working for a doctorate. “A lot of computer science de partments have become more engi neering oriented, and of course we’re not an engineering school,” Douglas said. “We very much think of ourselves as one of die sciences.” Both Moursund and Douglas said they are looking forward to Saturday’s anniversary party. “It’s going to be fun to see some CIS Timeline 1937: English mathematician Alan Turing proposes the idea of creat ing a machine that could replicate logical human thought. 1966: IBM’s360 computer is re leased. 1973: The Palo Alto Research Cen ter, a prod uct of Xerox, completes the first personal computer, a $40,000 product called “Alto.” 1977: Apple Computer, Inc. is offi cially created. 1982: The CIS department adds a Ph.D. program to its offerings. 1999: CIS creates a new minor pro gram, called Computer Informa tion Technology. SOURCE: CIS and various Websites of the old guys,” Moursund said. “It’s nice to know that somebody recognizes us for the stuff we did a long time ago. Candidates meet informally to discuss their platforms ■ Bobby Green and Charlie Strange talk over ice cream as part of a forum hosted by the Rubicon Society By Darren Freeman Oregon Daily Emerald At an occasion unusually cor dial for an election season, two of the three candidates running for the Lane County Board of Com missioners seat representing the North Eugene area met Thursday at the Pearl Street Ice Cream Par lour and Restaurant to discuss the future of Lane County. Eleven other people gathered at the noon meeting to hear Bobby Green, D-Eugene, and Charlie Strange, R-Eugene, speak at the meeting organized by the Rubi con Society, which regularly holds public forums featuring state and local politicians. Rep. Kitty Piercy, D-Eugene, is the third candidate for the seat and was not present at the meeting. All three candidates will be on the May 16 primary election ballot. “This election is important be cause Lane County hinges on good leadership at the local lev el,” Green, who currently holds the District 4 seat, said. “Local government, county government, is the closest government to the people.” The Lane County Board of Commissioners is made up of a board chair and four commission ers who represent five county dis tricts. The board makes policy de cisions affecting Lane County infrastructure, roads, public safe ty, land use and social services. Green, 45, is a New Orleans na tive and University graduate. At Thursday’s meeting, he stressed what he called his “leadership based on achievement,” mention ing his efforts to encourage long term goals for the board, his role in creating the Boys and Girls Clubs of Emerald Valley, and his work in funding construction to make the Beltline Highway safer. “I’m standing for re-election be cause I have a record I’m proud of,” Green said. Green has served on the board since 1995, and prior to that he served on the Eugene City Coun cil from 1989 to 1995. He is also a current board member of the Uni versity Alumni Association. Green said if re-elected, he would address traffic problems proactively, work to encourage economic growth without sacri ficing Eugene’s green lands, and create social service programs for troubled youths to help prevent crime. Strange, a newcomer to poli tics, said he decided to run for public of fice after the city’s Christmas tree was removed from the Hult Cen ter in De cember. The tree was removed after a Eugene resi dent complained that the city shouldn’t give preference to any religious celebration. “I grew up with Christmas trees, and they always represent ed peace on Earth and good will to men,” he said. Strange said the § LANE CO. ELECTIONS tree shouldn’t have become an item of political debate but should have been left in place as a symbol of holiday cheer. The tree’s removal was a symptom of the community’s diminishing co hesion, he said. “People always tell me: ‘Char lie, that’s just the way it is,”’ Strange said. “But why does it have to be that way?” Strange said he wants to revive the patriotism and optimism that he said has waned during the past three decades. He said he would work to promote political partici pation and reduce public cynicism of government. He said he would also address traffic problems and ease tensions between businesses and Eugene residents concerned about the environment. Strange recently retired from the Eugene Water and Electric Board where he worked for 28 years. A New York native, Strange, 65, played eight years in baseball’s minor leagues before moving to Eugene. He started at EWEB reading meters and moved his way up the public utility’s ranks to the position of communi ty affairs coordinator. During a telephone interview, Piercy said she too was con cerned about low public opinion of local government. “One of the reasons I chose to run was because many people have come up to me and said there’s no communication be tween the commission and the community,” she said. Piercy, 57, said she would con sider founding a commission newsletter and create programs to receive suggestions from county employees. “We have to really think about how our decisions affect people’s lives,” Piercy said. “They’re not just grids on a map, but people.” Piercy said she hopes to boost efficiency in Lane County’s social programs to better service senior citizens and troubled youths, pro mote dense urban growth to pro tect the outlying farms and forests and better include all of Lane County in decision making. 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