This year, Simmons celebrates 50 years since the establishment of the Bachelor’s in Computer Science (BS). We spoke to faculty about how computer scientists shaped the computer science program at Simmons, and how a women-centered university can uniquely prepare students to enter a male-dominated field.
Adjunct Faculty and Professor Emeritus Bruce Tis, who joined the Simmons faculty in 1998 with a background in computer engineering, valued the opportunity to teach computer science to women.
“I loved teaching students who had been told their whole lives that [computer science] was not something a woman does, then discovered they loved it, and were really good at it. It was fascinating to watch a student grow in that way,” Tis says.
Tis notes the importance of offering students a sense of belonging in a field that actively excluded them. Further, the skills learned in computer science have a wide application. “The focus of computer science is how to think critically and logically, how to define a problem and work through a solution. Those skills transcend a lot of other areas.”
Computer Scientists Enter the Game
The late ’90s brought a distinct shift to the program, given the arrival of faculty with academic backgrounds in computer science, Tis and Nanette Veilleux, now Professor and Director of the Data Science Program, who was hired in 1999.
“At a larger institution, the number of women [in this program] would be insignificant,” notes Veilleux. At Simmons, she saw that the faculty who had established the computer science program were “taking young women seriously.”
Veilleux, who came from an engineering background, says, “I had never been in a classroom of all women before.” She recalls the graduate courses she taught at a local co-ed university, which were dominated by men. “There were a few women [in those classes]. They were very smart, but never spoke in class.” At Simmons, Veilleux found young women who wanted to speak up. “That’s what has kept me here for years.”
Veilleux also notes a close alliance with the Simmons mission, enabling graduates of the program to earn a livelihood in their field. “Our students were ambitious enough to be the only woman on a team after graduation,” she says. “They all went out there and broke a glass ceiling, all of them did. And they were educated in a place where you could talk about the glass ceiling, about how you will be in a fishbowl for your first 10 years in the field. It prepared these young women for their professional lives.”
While students enjoy the supportive atmosphere at Simmons, Veilleux stresses the importance of providing rigorous and cutting-edge instruction. “Our students will be competing on the job market with students from MIT, Boston University, and Harvard,” she says. “So far, we’ve done well [with job placement of graduates], but they need to have every tool in their toolkit.”
That focus on the current market needs led to the creation of a Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Analytics in 2015. “That major was also ahead of the curve,” says Professor Margaret Menzin, who pitched the idea once she realized that computer science alumnae/i were getting jobs in “big data.” At the time, Menzin says, “About half a dozen colleges in the US had data science programs, but they were all different depending on whether they came out of computer science, statistics, or business departments,” notes Menzin. “The strength at Simmons was our collaboration across disciplines.”
In turn, the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and Cybersecurity was launched in 2001 and led to Simmons being designated a Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cybersecurity Education by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security.
“We broke into a field that was hostile to women, and increased the number of women in that field,” says Veilleux, noting how this has benefited the field itself. “You need all the perspectives at the table, or else you have blind spots everywhere.”
In addition to providing insight into potential consumer needs, the emergence of women helped redefine the computer science field. “The stereotype of the lone individual programmer living in his parents’ basement has never been a useful industry model,” says Veilleux. “You’re not going to write 2,000 lines of code by yourself, no matter how much your parents support you. A more productive model involves collaboration. Women came to the field with a clean slate, not as part of that stereotype.”
A New Generation of Programmers
Denise Carroll ’04, Assistant Professor of Practice and Director of the Computer Science Online Degree Completion Program, and Amber Stubbs ’05, Associate Professor and Undergraduate Computer Science & Informatics Program Director, were students of Veilleux, Tis, and Menzin.
“I was horribly shy and quiet when I started the program,” says Carroll. “Simmons lets you foster relationships and find yourself. It helped me build confidence and find who I was. We had access to our professors; they help you, but they also let you struggle.”
Carroll's experience as a software engineer informs her teaching practice: students in her Software Engineering class (CS 335) are tasked with pitching an idea to their teammates, then collaborating on the design and code. “Everyone solves problems differently, and they take pieces of everyone’s ideas and incorporate them.”
Regardless of which idea they choose, each student contributes to the design and programming. “By the time they get to the end, they have to rewrite what they did in the beginning, because they’ve figured out a better way to do it. That’s the lifecycle of software development,” says Carroll. “When they graduate, they’ve been on an active software design team. They’ve created amazing software and apps [in class].”
Stubbs pursued a double major (with English) at Simmons when she realized that her interest in logic puzzles lent itself to computer science. By the time she reached graduate school at a local co-ed university, she felt uniquely prepared for the challenge — more so than if she had begun her studies in an introductory course with over 100 students, the majority of them male.
“Instead, I walked into a class of 16 students, all of them women, with Nanette at the front of the class,” recalls Stubbs. “Either way, I would have learned the ability to program, but at Simmons, I had the support.”
Laney Strange ’02, now a Teaching Professor at Northeastern University, reported a similar experience in graduate school, at an institution that was primarily male and White. “If that had been my first experience [as an undergraduate in computer science], I would not have stuck with it,” says Strange. “I built my confidence and felt supported at Simmons.”
Weathering Changes in the Field
Carroll and Stubbs praise the computer science program at Simmons for staying abreast of current trends. With the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence), Carroll notes, programs across the country are seeing enrollment decline.
“Because of generative AI, there is a belief that anyone can be a programmer, that no one needs to study computer science,” says Carroll. “But you have to be a good programmer to know when [generative AI] is wrong, and that comes with education and experience. You need to learn these skills so you aren’t reliant on this fallible tool.”
AI, Stubbs agrees, just that: one tool of many. “There are a lot of opportunities for people who study computer science to make the world better. There’s a lot of room for innovation and self expression and creativity if you can learn to use a computer and get it to do the things you are envisioning,” says Stubbs. “That rush you get when you hit the button and it does what it’s supposed to do — that’s a great feeling!”
If students rely on AI, Stubbs warns, “you’ll never see all of the opportunities. It’s like looking through a pinhole. When you study computer science, you see the whole picture, with innovation and problem solving.”
All of this is to say: we need more computer scientists in the world, not fewer. Specifically, we need Simmons students, well-versed in software, programming languages, and teamwork.
“If you want something new, you need humans,” says Veilleux. “Computer science is not just about coding. We think about how to solve problems and conceptualize solutions, then code and test the result. You need humans to do that.”
While the industry is seeing the impact caused by AI on programming jobs, these fluctuations are to be expected.
“The field has changed a lot, just in my time,” notes Strange, who was at Simmons during the beginning of the ‘dotcom’ boom. “People latch onto what is the sexy thing right now. In the early 2000s, it was the internet, then data science, now it’s AI.” She encourages prospective students to explore a breadth of subjects within computer science during their studies, as that will better prepare them to work in a constantly evolving field.
And if you’re considering Simmons? “Visit, if you can,” says Strange. “Being there in person, there is something that can’t be captured in a description. Sit in on a class and see what it’s like. I found that incredibly valuable [as a prospective student]. It was that experience that clinched it for me.”
