Computer science program expands offerings to Manhattan Christian College
Thursday, June 25, 2020
MANHATTAN — A program developed by the computer science department in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University has expanded its outreach through a new collaboration with Manhattan Christian College in Manhattan.
The Computational Core Program is a set of computer programming courses designed by the department to provide students of any major with the fundamental knowledge to utilize programming in a variety of situations. The first five core courses form the computer science certificate program, which can be taken by itself or in conjunction with any other degree program at the university.
Beginning in fall 2020, those same five courses will be offered online to students at Manhattan Christian College. Scott DeLoach, professor and head of the department of computer science, collaborated with Greg Delort, vice-president for academics at Manhattan Christian College, to incorporate the plan into the college's four-year liberal arts curriculum.
"Our Computational Core Program is multifaceted in that it uses the same basic courses to make computer science available to non-computer science majors online, on campus and throughout the state at other smaller colleges that do not have the resources or expertise to offer their own computer science classes," DeLoach said.
"Other parts of the program include the Cyber Pipeline aimed at providing these courses to high school students — we have a beta version that will begin this fall at Manhattan High School," DeLoach said, "and we are working on a teacher education program with the College of Education at K-State for training educators to teach these courses at the high school level."
The five courses offered at Manhattan Christian College will include Introduction to Computing for three credits, Fundamental Computer Programming Concepts for four credits, Data Structures and Algorithms for three credits, Data Structures and Algorithms II for three credits, and Advanced Programming for four credits.
K-State Global Campus, a provider of services to faculty and instructors who teach courses offered by distance learning, is a partner in this program as well by providing the interface to Manhattan Christian College both administratively as well as through its noncredit Canvas-Pro learning management system.
"We are very happy to partner with Kansas State University and Global Campus in providing the Computational Core Program to our students at Manhattan Christian College," Delort said. "We believe it will give our students the unique opportunity to broaden their marketability in several areas of ministry. It also connects with those who have an interest in more advanced computer science courses than we can offer at our institution."
The computer science department is also partnering with the Kansas State University College of Arts and Sciences to create a new bachelor's degree in integrated computer science. It will be designed to serve students who want computer coding skills but are not seeking an engineering degree. The proposed program will combine the basic courses in computer science, in which students learn coding skills, with preparation in a specialized content area defined within the arts, humanities, social science, hard science or almost any degree area within the university.
