Computer Graphics Education at a Liberal Arts College

The fifth iWARG seminar will take place on Monday 6th June 2011 at the Faculty of Engineering and Computing, Coventry University, Armstrong Siddeley Building, room AS126 between 16:00-17:00. The invited speaker is Professor Terry R. Hostetler, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA. Terry Hostetler’s professional background includes substantial experience in both academia and industry. After obtaining an M.S. in computer science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he worked for six years as a software engineer at an aerospace company, followed by three years as a senior support analyst at a computer graphics software company. After returning to academia in 1991, he earned a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Iowa. His dissertation, Controlling Steering Behavior for Small Groups of Pedestrians in Virtual Urban Environments, explored how individuals and small groups could be modeled in order to produce plausible pedestrian behavior. For the past twenty years he has been teaching computer science at Coe College, a small liberal arts college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His research interests include autonomous behaviors, computer graphics, human-computer interfaces, and computer science education. For more information a brief abstract is provided below:

Abstract Computer graphics is an area of computer science important to education, research, and industry. Though traditionally taught as an elective course as part of an undergraduate degree in computer science, it is also sometimes offered separately by departments of art. Computer science departments typically cover the technological aspects of computer graphics, including the algorithms and mathematics that form its core. Departments of art, on the other hand, are more likely to emphasize creativity and graphics tools. At liberal arts colleges students from both disciplines cross-over at times looking to develop cohesive insights and skills. This talk will provide an overview of methodology used to teach computer graphics to students with varied interests and backgrounds. I will discuss topics and techniques that I have used over the twenty years that I have been teaching this course.