The Rise of Computer Science - The Computer Boys Take Over - page 117

fi t into the established hierarchy of the university. 20 Some pushed for a
theoretical approach akin to philosophy or mathematics, and others for
engineering-oriented programs emphasizing practical techniques. A few
departments continued to view hardware development as relevant, while
others dismissed it entirely. How much to stress programming training
was a perennial question, with industrial sponsors encouraging one
approach and the academic hierarchy encouraging another.
Throughout the 1960s, aspiring computer scientists struggled to defi ne
a compelling, coherent agenda for their discipline. The ultimate success
that they achieved conceals the messy social and intellectual work that
was required to carve out a niche for computer science in an already-
crowded university hierarchy. As William Aspray has suggested, the
nascent discipline of computer science crossed virtually every academic
boundary then established within the university, drawing content and
people from mathematics, electrical engineering, psychology, and busi-
ness. 21 These are not boundaries to be transgressed casually; academic
departments are notoriously fi erce about protecting their intellectual and
curricular territory. 22 For example, at many research universities comput-
ing activity had been traditionally located within departments of mathe-
matics or electrical engineering. By the end of the 1950s, an even broader
range of disciplines in the sciences, engineering, and business not only
controlled their own computing resources but were also offering their
own courses in practical computer programming. It was not clear at all
to these established departments that specialists in computer science had
anything to offer, intellectually or otherwise. Indeed, as computer science
threatened to draw resources and students from these traditional disci-
plines, heated battles erupted over faculty slots, graduate admissions, and
courses.
This chapter explores the rise to dominance of theoretical computer
science as the representative science of modern computing. It suggests
that this rise was anything but inevitable, and that the academic disci-
pline of computer science as it emerged in the period between 1955 and
1975 refl ects a series of messy compromises about what the academic
study of computing should look like, what subjects it should address,
and how it should relate to other, more established disciplines—as well
as to the rapidly growing commercial computer industry. It argues that
the advocates of theoretical computer science pursued a strategy that
served them well within the university, but that increasingly alienated
them from their colleagues in industry. As the software crisis heated up
in the late 1960s, university computer science programs served as a