Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 8)

THE COUNTERCULTURE AND COMPUTERS academics PHOTO FROM COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM ON CAMPUS LEHIGH RANKS WITH NATION’S BEST The ﬁrst computer mouse A diverse cross-section of Lehigh University’s academic programs earned nods of recognition from a pair of major media outlets in recent months. Lehigh was listed among the top 50 of America’s best graduate schools by U.S. News & World Report, with both of the university’s schools that were eligible for this recognition appearing in the magazine’s annual rankings. The College of Education was ranked No. 40 out of 242 colleges of education, and the P Rossin College of Engineering and Applied .C. Science was ranked No. 42 out of 192 colleges of engineering that grant doctoral degrees. In addition, BusinessWeek included Lehigh’s College of Business and Economics as among the nation’s best undergraduate business programs for the third straight year, ranking the college 25th in the country. And in the magazine’s annual survey of business school seniors, Lehigh’s accounting program ﬁnished ﬁrst in the nation. Such rankings are just one tool available for students who are evaluating a variety of graduate programs, according to S. David Wu, dean and Iacocca Professor, P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Beyond rankings, there are a wide range of resources available for prospective graduate students looking to determine the best graduate school for their needs,” Wu said. “Lehigh faculty and current students are available to speak with prospective students about any of our programs, and we invite them to visit Lehigh’s facilities in person or online to find out more about what our graduate schools in both engineering and education have to offer.” According to J. Gary Lutz, interim dean, College of Education, Lehigh has an excellent array of graduate programs led by research-active faculty who have national and international reputations for their scholarly work in their speciﬁc areas of research. “Lehigh is deeply committed to helping its graduate students on their path toward an advanced degree, encouraging a deepening of their research interests, and working to make graduate studies at Lehigh an enriching and gratifying experience,” Lutz said. “As I look John Markoff, a New York Times journalist who has been writing about technology companies and the hacker culture since 1977, regaled an audience of almost 100 Lehigh students in March with tales of how the counterculture contributed to the creation of the personal computer. Many components of the personal computer originated from two laboratories at Stanford University: the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) and the Augmentation Research Center or the Augmented Human Intellect Research Center, Markoff said. Although they were in close proximity to each other, their philosophies were miles apart. SAIL was run by John McCarthy, an active communist, who sought to create a computer that would function without a human operator. The founder of the Augmentation Research Center, Doug Engelbart, wanted to enhance the human mind. Computers, he believed, were one way to improve the mind; the drug LSD was another. “On one side of campus, Doug was trying to augment the human mind. On the other side, there was McCarthy trying to replace the human mind,” Markoff said. Although their goals were different, “both were signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by the counterculture,” he added. Engelbart’s laboratory at the Stanford Research Institute gave birth to the mouse (then a large wooden block with three buttons), the cursor, hypertext links, word processors, and windows. Across campus, McCarthy not only designed the programming, which was widely used by artificial intelligence researchers, but also coined the term “artificial intelligence.” He also created time-shared operating systems that enabled interactive computing, Markoff said. —Becky Straw BusinessWeek ranked Lehigh’s College of Business and Economics among the nation’s best undergraduate business programs for the third straight year. across the various metrics that are used in this assessment, it’s apparent that the outcome is a result of the quality of the students we are attracting, the high level of scholarship that faculty and students are producing, and the solid programs that have been designed and put in place.” In recognizing the College of Business and Economics, BusinessWeek noted its academic quality, popular faculty, and support among corporate recruiters. “It’s an exciting time for the college on a number of fronts,” said Paul R. Brown, dean of the college. “I am especially pleased that the strength of our faculty continues to be a hallmark of our business programs.” In addition to placing Lehigh’s accounting program first among the country’s premier programs in that discipline, students in the College of Business and Economics had high marks for the college’s internship and employment initiatives, academic rigor, and return on investment, a category that compares annual tuition costs with the median starting salaries of its graduates. 8 lehigh alumni bulletin PHOTO BY DOUGLAS BENEDICT

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008

Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Research Arts & Culture Sports Alumni News Cover Story: In Galileo's Wake Technically Funny The Healing Game Looking for America The Last Word

Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008

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