Hi, I’m Janet Davis. After nine years teaching computer science at Grinnell College and ten years leading a new computer science program at Whitman College, I have followed my husband to the University of Cambridge where his research group is based.

This blog was started to tell my story at Whitman (2015 – 2025). It discusses many of the decisions and challenges I faced while building a new program. The primary audience was intended to be my colleagues in computer science education, although I hope my blog is readable and interesting to Grinnellians, Whitties, and other friends too.

I am continuing the blog as I start over, again, as an Official Fellow and College Teaching Officer at King’s College, Cambridge. The academic culture of King’s aligns in some ways with my past experiences at liberal arts colleges, and my job here is in some ways the best parts of being a college professor. But not in all ways. As much as I can, I am continuing my involvement in communities around CS education in US liberal arts colleges.

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About the current cover photo

The cover photo shows the spires of the King’s College Porter’s Lodge against a sky of dappled clouds lit from behind. The Porter’s Lodge is a landmark on the street outside, King’s Parade, but this is a view from the front lawn inside the College. I took this picture on the day of my first graduation at King’s.

About the title, the original tagline, and the original cover photo

“Counting from zero” is a play on the phrase “starting at square one” and the zero-based numbering system found in many data structures. This is a bit of a misnomer, as I am not truly starting at zero: My math colleagues David Guichard and Albert Schueller have been teaching Introduction to Programming (CS1) and a data structures course (CS2) for many years. However, these courses are open to revision, so I feel I am truly building a CS curriculum from the ground up.

The original tagline was “Building a liberal arts CS program in the age of ubiquity.” This was also a double entendre. (So were the names of some of my cats: Pixel, Sprite, and Eliza.) “The age of ubiquity” refers first to ubiquitous computing: “a concept…where computing is made to appear everywhere and anywhere.” With smartphones in our pockets and the dawning Internet of Things, arguably we have arrived in the age of ubiquitous computing, making a basic understanding of computing all the more critical to the educated citizen. But I am also referring to the near ubiquity of computer science at top liberal arts colleges. Whitman is years—if not decades—behind the curve in offering a CS major.

The original cover photo pictured John T. Young’s Soaring Stones #4, one of many sculptures on Whitman’s campus. Computer scientists and those with programming experience may notice the resemblance to an array. I was particularly tickled by the “zeroeth” stone embedded in the ground.

You can see my first blog post as it originally appeared in the Wayback Machine.

Acknowledgement

My thanks to Zach Dodds of Harvey Mudd College for suggesting that the SIGCSE community would be interested in reading about my adventures at Whitman.

Disclaimer

This blog represents my views and not the views of my employers, past or present.