Here’s my usual report on our fall 2024 enrollments, as of week 2 of the semester.

Number	Title	Enrolled	under Math	Women:Men	Waitlist
CS 167-A, -B, -C	Intro. Computational Problem Solving	68/60		3:4
CS/Math 215	Introduction to Data Science	25/24		2:3
CS/Math 220-A, -B	Discrete Math & Functional Programming	37/24	3	1:2
CS 270-A, -B	Data Structures	30/24		1:3
CS 302	ST: Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development Goals	3/16		2:1
CS 310	Computer Systems Programming	19/20		1:3
CS/Math 320	Theory of Computation	25/20	0	1:2
CS 360	Interactive Computer Graphics	14/24		1:2
CS 495	Capstone Project I	23/16		1:3

Commentary

Starting with my courses, I am once again teaching CS/Math 220. Up until almost the last minute, I had planned to use the draft second edition of Thomas VanDrunen’s textbook, Discrete Math and Functional Programming, which would have introduced functional programming in Python. At the last minute, I chickened out and opted to use the Discrete Mathematics Zybook again.

CS 220 had a long waitlist after spring pre-registration. But we hadn’t yet filled our visiting faculty positions, and I was afraid to create a second section of CS 220 in case I was needed to teach something else. Fortunately, we filled both positions and were able to fully staff our other courses, which let us add a second section of CS 220.

I polled the students and enlisted the help of the registrar to enroll waitlisted students in the new section and also move students from the original section to the new section. But still, as of the first day of classes, there were something like 24 students enrolled in the original section and only 8 in the second section. This made me very nervous. However, over the first week of classes, the students balanced themselves out between the two sections, ending up with 20 in section A and 17 in section B – really not too bad.

We had initially planned a double section of CS 320, Theory of Computation, because we thought we had a large class of nearly thirty seniors, most of whom still needed to take this course. However, in the end we have only 23 students enrolled in CS 495, the senior capstone project course, and so CS 320 was only a few students larger than expected. Likewise, CS 310 is also not overly large.

It’s my third time teaching CS 320, and for now I’m making only minor tweaks to the assignments and grading scheme.

CS 167 seemed to have a long waitlist as of New Student Orientation – I told far too many of them to reach out to the instructor and/or show up on the first day of class. Our new summer registration system has incoming students register for two of their four courses in mid-August. CS 167 filled that day. But we no longer have summer waitlists, so we had know way to track the unmet demand except by individual students reaching out either to me (as department chair) or to the instructors.

Fortuitously, I had assigned Visiting Assistant Professor Sachintha Pitigala to teach an upper-level Artificial Intelligence elective. Because we missed pre-registration, announcing the special topics course in August, only one student enrolled. So after an email exchange with my elected chairs and the new Dean and Provost, Elisabeth Mermann-Jozwiak, it was straightforward to cancel the AI elective and add a third section of CS 167 to Sachintha’s teaching load. I’ve never before done this after the first day of class.

CS/Math 215, Introduction to Data Science, is being taught by Albert Schueller in the Math and Statistics Department this fall. I know he’s really been looking forward to getting back to this course, which he piloted before the pandemic.

In contrast to CS 220, the two sections of CS 270, Data Structures, remain very unbalanced, with only five students in section B and the rest in section A. While my colleague John is teaching section A, Visiting Instructor Richard Torres Molina is teaching sections B. Richard just finished a Masters degree, and I hope this will be a good warmup for teaching two sections of CS 270 in the spring.

Richard’s special topics course, CS 302, Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development Goals, also ended up having a very small enrollment, but enough to run the course. The course is cross-listed in Environmental Studies and relates to Human-Centered Design, but the three enrolled students are all CS majors.

Last but not least, CS 360, Interactive Computer Graphics, was announced on the usual timeline. Enrollment is fairly robust. William is also teaching a section of the First Year Seminar this fall looks forward to offering a new 200-level elective next year.

One of the most exciting developments for this year is not directly reflected in the individual course enrollments: 9 of the 18 CS majors declared in the class of 2026 are women. That’s 50%, half and half, which is unprecedented. I’m so excited to see what happens with this cohort and how it affects major declarations in the years to come.