Rising CS Enrollments: Meeting the Challenges

Over the past decade, the number of computer science majors has skyrocketed. Faculty numbers have not kept pace. Figure 1 shows the growth rates for undergraduate majors compared with the growth in tenureand teaching-line faculty. [1] In many ways, the growth in student numbers—which arises not only from a rapid rise in the number of majors but also from increased interest by non-majors in computer science courses—is not surprising. Computing is a rapidly growing sector of the Figure 1: Relative growth rates for majors and faculty.