Posted on Mar 29, 2006

Says Valerie Barr, chair of Union's Computer Science Department, “It's quite wonderful that the digital arts program is being constructed by computer science and visual arts – two departments that traditionally have remained separate. There's a lot of potential to bring these two communities of students together to do interesting, creative, team-based work.”
“It will be a real showcase of how our two areas overlap,” agrees Chris Duncan, associate professor of visual arts.
Adds Barr, “Union is one of the few institutions where computer science and visual arts are equally involved in building such a program. Financial support comes from both departments. Once the program becomes more established, we want to add a game programming track, aimed at students who want to combine art, animation, and serious programming. Few undergraduate programs offer this.”
Of hiring Orellana, she says, “We badly needed someone to teach computer graphics, and we thought, why not someone who could teach it from the art perspective!”
Barr, who is teaching a new course called Creative Computing-“an introductory computer science course based on image-processing and sound-processing”-is finding an amazing range of interested students. “Computer Science has rarely gotten students from other departments.” However, in this course, she has a neuroscience major, an art major and a psychology major. “The course filled, so I added a second section. Next year, I'm introducing a course, Robots Rule–an introduction to robotics. Students can go on if they want, but they don't have to be majors.”
She is hoping to address the problem of low enrollment in computer science. “Most high school computer science appeals to the nerdy, geeky audience.” she explains. “So there's no incentive for high school kids to try it at college. Between that and the dot-com bust, enrollments have dropped everywhere: Only 1.4 percent of entering freshmen are interested in studying computer science. For Union, that means we get maybe five new students each year. One way to recruit is to offer introductory courses that don't assume students already know something about computer science. In other words, courses with interesting applications.”