The following is a portion of a guest column written by UIS Chancellor Susan J. Koch. It was published in the November 9, 2014 edition of The State Journal-Register.
"Those ever-increasing opportunities in STEM fields are certainly evident on the University of Illinois Springfield campus, where our Computer Science program has grown from just over 100 students in 1990 to well over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students today.
The program has earned the prestigious Center for Academic Excellence designation from the U.S. National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security and its online Computer Science degree has been cited as one of the four leading online Computer Science programs in the country (along with MIT, Oregon State and Udacity).
UIS Computer Science professor Svet Braynov was attracted to UIS a decade ago from the University of Buffalo because of the department’s reputation for high-quality teaching.
'On many campuses, a student can get lost,' he says, 'but not here. Our students feel a great atmosphere in the department and both students and faculty grow together.'
'We don’t really recruit students,' adds longtime department head Ted Mims. 'Our recruiting is done by our own graduates, who tell others about their great experience in the program.'
A constantly innovating curriculum is another reason that students are attracted to the UIS Computer Science program."
Read the full column online
