Hi, all,

I guess I'll jump in here, mostly with a question.

I think we already have a strong case for the need for a permanent
organization, and that case will likely be made stronger by the second,
larger survey that has been suggested.  In my opinion, this organization
would ideally serve two purposes: networking within the liberal arts
computing community, and providing leadership that could be our "voice" to
others (others = non-liberal-arts computing + non-computing liberal arts +
other others).  Perhaps thinking about our intended audience will help us
clarify our "voice."  I think it's natural that it would sometimes be
directed at the broader SIGCSE and ACM communities.  It would also be
useful for the new organization to put together cohesive information/data
about liberal arts computing that could be presented to college/university
administrators at our institutions to put what we do and what we need in
context when issues or opportunities arise.

So... in response to Doug's question: Why do we need a voice?  Because we
have unique qualities that sometimes need to be communicated to parties
outside the community.  Identifying those parties could go a long way
toward helping us think about what the "voice" should be saying and why.
Where/ to whom would it make sense to communicate our unique successes,
challenges, needs, goals, etc?

Angela

----------------------------------------------------
Angela Berardinelli, PhD
----------------------------------------------------
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Department of Mathematics and Information Technology
Mercyhurst University
----------------------------------------------------
E-mail:       [log in to unmask]
Direct Line:  814-824-2421
Website:      math.mercyhurst.edu/~aberardine
Office:       Old Main Tower 403
Mail:         501 East 38th Street
              Erie, PA 16546
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On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 11:13 AM Douglas Baldwin <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> The liberal arts computer science consortium (LACS) had its summer meeting
> last week, and asked me to give a report on our committee's progress. The
> format was short report followed by discussion. For those interested, I've
> attached my slides from the "short report" part; you can also get them from
> Google drive at
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5sz1b6oYhEWWS00cHR6SDRMRWs/view?usp=sharing
>
> The discussion suggested that LACS is very supportive of this committee
> spinning off a larger permanent group of liberal arts computing educators,
> which group would probably have many LACS members in it.
>
> Also, two things occurred to me as I was making these slides: first, apart
> from the two slides inviting discussion (or maybe even with something like
> them), they might suggest a structure for our eventual report. Second, the
> place where I think we need the most additional data or support for that
> report is the question of whether liberal arts computing needs an
> institutional "voice" -- we probably think it does, but I haven't seen much
> discussion of that question, and particularly of why it does. Maybe
> something to talk about now...
>