Computing and the National Science Foundation, 1950-2016. William Aspray

infrastructure required for the maintenance of U.S. leadership. CISE also has a unique NSF role in the improvement of scientific and engineering computing and communications through shared use facilities, training, and network links among researchers. What is the NSF role in Computer and Information Processing research? NSF has unique responsibility for long-term and theoretical research and for the broad base of academic research. NSF is critical for the improvement of the national academic infrastructure in the CISE areas. Advanced Scientific Computing is a unique first step toward conditioning the general scientific research community to use computing as a new mode of research. What are the Programmatic Gaps? The academic base of computing and information processing research and the support base from both federal and private sources are too small. Too many research universities lack the necessary manpower and infrastructure in computing and information processing research to achieve the critical mass needed for quality research in this important technology. What are your priorities in the event of reductions? None of the major areas of CISE would be dropped; fewer awards would be made. Graduate student and young faculty support will have a high priority. Grant sizes will be maintained. Network access to the supercomputer centers will be given higher priority than maintaining all the centers. If necessary, we would reduce the CER program in favor of individual faculty research project support.

2.13Summary and Conclusions

      In a mere 12 years, computing programs at NSF transitioned from two weakened offices, OCA and OSIS, to a directorate that had positioned itself to lead the major national initiatives described in later chapters. Along the way, a number of significant initiatives and activities fundamentally changed the perception of computing as a discipline. Not only did dozens of Turing Award winners begin their careers with NSF funding, but so did hundreds of ACM, IEEE, AAAI, and AAAS fellows. Theorynet led to CSNET and then to NSFNET. The Computer Science Research Equipment program laid the ground work for the Coordinated Experimental Research program. CER fundamentally altered the capacity for experimental research in colleges and universities.

      Table 2.3NSF CISE FY 1988 budget request

      Source: NSF OBAC 1986

      I am fortunate to have had a career that spanned those 12 years and the opportunity to observe how far the field came during those years and to contribute to its growth. The narrative above names a number of important people, but it omits a great number of administrators, program managers, program assistants, and other staff who made the successes of the period possible.

Notes

      1.Engineering became a separate directorate in 1978 and the Computer Science Section remained in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Directorate.

      2.Theoretical Computer Science was a program in the Computer Science Section (CSS) of the Mathematical and Computer Science (MCS) Division within the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Directorate.

      3.National Research Council. 1982. Ad Hoc Panel to Study the Conduct of Basic Research in Computer Science and Its Interaction with Applied Research and Development. National Academies.

      4.L. Fein. 1959. The role of the university in computers, data processing, and related fields. Communications of the ACM, 2(9): 7–14. DOI: 10.1145/368424.368427.

      5.S. Gorn. 1963. The computer and information sciences: A new basic discipline. SIAM Review, 5(2): 150–155. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2027479.

      6.G. E. Forsythe. 1967. A university’s educational program in computer science. Communications of the ACM, 10(1): 3–11. DOI: 10.1145/363018.363038.

      7.A. Newell, A. J. Perlis, and H. A. Simon. 1967. Computer science. Science, 157(3795): 1373– 1374. DOI: 10.1126/science.157.3795.1373-b.

      8.D. E. Knuth. 1968. The Art of Computer Programming. Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms (1st ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing.

      9.P. Wegner. 1968. Programming Languages, Information Structures, and Machine Organization, McGraw Hill.

      10.T. J. Misa, ed. 2016. Communities of Computing: Computer Science and Society in the ACM, Morgan & Claypool.

      11.J. Abbate. October 2013. Is computer science “Science”? A half-century debate. Keynote talk, 2nd International Conference on History and Philosophy of Computing, Paris. https://hapoc2013.sciencesconf.org/27047/document.

      12.S. D. Conte, J. W. Hamblen, W. B. Kehl, S. O. Navarro, W. C. Rheinboldt, D. M. Young, Jr., and W. F. Atchinson. 1965. An undergraduate program in computer science—Preliminary recommendations. Communications of the ACM, 8(9): 543–552. DOI: 10.1145/365559.366069.

      13.G. E. Forsythe. 1965. President’s letter to the ACM membership: Why ACM? Communications of the ACM, 8(3): 143–144. DOI: 10.1145/363791.363792.

      14.H. A. Simon. 1969. The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 21.

      15.J. Abbate. 2016. From handmaiden to “proper intellectual discipline”: Creating a scientific identity for computer science in 1960s America. In Communities of Computing: Computer Science and Society in the ACM (edited by T. Misa). Morgan & Claypool, p. 28.

      16.Gordon Bell. January 23, 1974. Letter to Edward C. Creutz (AD/R), internal document.

      17.This idea would return in the Feldman, Snowbird, and other reports.

      18.National Science Foundation. 1974. Twenty-Fourth Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1974. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

      19.B. W. Arden. 1976. The computer science and engineering research study (COSERS). Communications of the ACM, 19(12): 670–673. DOI: 10.1145/360373.360376.

      20.B. W. Arden. 1983. What Can Be Automated?: Computer Science and Engineering Research Study. MIT Press.

      21.J. A. Feldman and W. R. Sutherland. 1979. Rejuvenating experimental computer science: A report to the National Science Foundation and others. Communications of the ACM, 22(9): 497–502. DOI: 10.1145/359146.359147.

      22.D. D. McCracken, P. J. Denning, and D. H. Brandin. 1979. An ACM executive committee position on the crisis in experimental computer science. Communications of the ACM, 22(9): 503–504. DOI: 10.1145/359146.362786.

      23.P. J. Denning, E. A. Feigenbaum, P. Gilmore, A. C. Hearn, R. W. Ritchie, and J. F. Traub.1981. A discipline in crisis. Communications of the ACM, 24(6): 370–374. DOI: 10.1145/ 358669.358682.

      24.National Science Foundation. May 21–23, 1979. Summary Minutes of the Advisory Subcommittee for Computer Science. Washington, DC.

      25.P. J. Denning. 1981. ACM President’s letter: Eating our seed corn. Communications of the ACM, 24(6): 341–343. DOI: 10.1145/358669.358672.

      26.J.