Douglas Fisher

I’ve been a faculty member in Computer Science at Vanderbilt University since 1987. For much of that time I bought into the idea that computer science particularly, but also science and engineering generally, could be taught decoupled from larger societal and ethical concerns. I may not have realized I was doing that, but I suspect that like many faculty, I thought that a course called ‘Computers and Society’ or ‘Computing and Ethics’ or the like was the proper place for students to see the connections between computing (for example) and larger ethical and contemporary issues. I did not think it my place, in a technical course, to talk about larger concerns. Thus I was supporting and modeling the kind of compartmentalization that I would hate to see in a computing professional who was afraid to stand up and say “I don’t think that’s right!”

In the last few years a number of activities have conspired to change my views — to dismantle the compartmentalization that I was stuck in — one was ABET accrediting site visit of the Computer Engineering program, in which we (Vanderbilt’s computer engineering program) were expected to demonstrate the inclusion of contemporary and ethical issues in our technical program — engineering is not divorced from purpose and context. I also became a faculty-member in residence, the last couple of years in the “Philosophy Dorm”, McGill Hall, where I interact with students on a more informal basis. It was students at Vanderbilt that fought the good fight for a living wage for employees; it was students that were instrumental in getting LEED certiified dorm facilities in the first-year student COMMONS.

As a Computer Science (CS) professor worried about the decline in student CS enrollment, particularly the steep decline in participation by women and minorities, all of whom were already underrepresented, I started to ask myself questions such as “If I’m a 20 year old coming of age in a world of rapid global climate change, or any of a large number of pressing issues that I’ll be facing, why on earth am I going to study computer science — even if I’m really good at it — even if I love it.”  Love and good just may not be enough for a smart, societally and environmentally concerned student! And my gosh, we need such people to be studying and developing one of the most transformative technologies around! It doesn’t help the case for COMPUTER SCIENCE study that we can already do some real cool things with computing — Computer science is about building those cool, transformative artifacts — not (simply) about using them.

Frankly, my journey to this point was also influenced by losing one of my best friends, Will ClenDening, on June 3, 2006 in a motorcycle wreck, a few hours after I’d been riding with him on the Nathez Trace — what’s it all about?!

So a large number of things have conspired to start me thinking about science, society, ethics, and the environment. I’m at the National Science Foundation (NSF) now, 9 months into a 2-year leave from Vanderbilt, as a program officer in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering — retooling for the second half of my career — probably the more productive and interesting half, because I expect that it will be less compartmentalized.