Why this project matters
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Helps CS departments develop or update undergraduate CS
majors to meet evolving student needs while balancing
international curriculum guidelines with local priorities.
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Supports mission-aligned CS programs at liberal arts and
primarily undergraduate institutions that play a key role in
the STEM workforce.
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Builds long-term capacity for ongoing curriculum innovation
and institutional change.
National interest and project design
This project aims to serve the national interest by helping
computer science (CS) departments develop or update
undergraduate CS majors to meet evolving student needs while
balancing international guidelines for CS curricula with local
needs and priorities. This Level 1 Institutional and Community
Transformation Project includes plans to deploy, test, and
revise a structured, facilitated process for faculty at liberal
arts institutions to use when reviewing and revising
undergraduate CS curricula.
Liberal arts institutions play an important role in educating
the nation’s STEM workforce, with roughly a third of CS majors
each year graduating from liberal arts and primarily
undergraduate institutions. These programs often prioritize
opportunities for greater computing literacy across the student
body and provide pathways for students to switch into or add CS
majors to their degree during their sophomore or junior year,
allowing them to recruit students who may not enter college
with an intent to study computing.
CS curricula require regular revision to respond to new
advances in the discipline, such as generative AI and quantum
computing, changing needs of employers, and shifts in the
interests, preparation, and career goals of students. The
project aims to understand how best to develop faculty capacity
for curriculum innovation and encourage CS departments to
develop adaptive, effective, mission-aligned curricula that
contribute significantly to the development of a broadly
prepared computing workforce.
Liberal arts & PUI share
~1/3 of CS majors
Graduate from these institutions each year.
Project type
Level 1 ICT
Institutional & Community Transformation project.
Backward design process and expected outcomes
The project plans to guide departments through a backward
design process for curriculum revision in which the distinctive
programmatic mission and goals drive the later decision-making
about program outcomes, curriculum structure, and selection of
core and elective content. This process is grounded in the
curriculum design literature and designed to work alongside the
latest international curriculum guidelines,
CS2023: ACM/IEEE-CS/AAAI Computer Science Curricula.
The project aims to show that successful adoption of this
process will result in liberal arts CS programs that are (1)
prepared and inclined to regularly update their curricula to
respond to changes in the discipline and their operating
context, (2) equipped to do so effectively and efficiently, and
(3) able to do so in a manner that results in distinctive,
institutionally aligned, and innovative curricula that respond
to advances in the discipline and employer needs.
Departments will be recruited to participate in facilitated
working groups and complete the curriculum review process. Both
single-department and cohort-based working group modalities
will be tested. The project will study the efficacy of this
process through three key measures: curriculum innovation and
alignment, faculty engagement and efficacy in curriculum
design, and long-term institutional capacity for ongoing
program revision.
Evaluation strategies include analysis of revised curricula and
associated documentation, participant feedback through surveys
and focus groups, and longitudinal data on program change.
These investigations will advance understanding of the support
needed for successful use of the process and prepare for
broader deployment and long-term systemic change.
