COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	\\M1BASL30\M2BASB30\M3NGR25\M4NGR20\F2\CSTANFORD UNIVERSITY
C00007 ENDMK
C⊗;
\\M1BASL30;\M2BASB30;\M3NGR25;\M4NGR20;\F2\CSTANFORD UNIVERSITY
\F3\CSTANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305
\F4COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT\←L\-R\/'7;\+R\→.\→S   Telephone:
\←S\→.415-497-4971
\F1\CJun 16, 1975



Dr. Shu-Park Chan, Chairman
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara, Cal



Dear Dr Chan:


\JI have completed the application and am enclosing it. I am asking
the following people for letters of recommendation:
\.

Dr. Edward Feigenbaum and Dr. Cordell Green of Stanford University;
Dr. William McKeeman Chairman at Santa Cruz
Dr. Michael Gordon, Research Associate at Stanford
Dr. Anthony Hearn Chairman at Utah
Dr. Michael Burke of San Jose State

\JI know that some of these people are currently traveling and therefore
will be slow in responding.

After talking with your faculty and reading the course material I would like 
to make a few comments. It seems to me that  you should make a 
a commitment to build a strong undergraduate program in computer science
as distinct from electrical engineering or mathematics. 
Currently the offerings mathematics and engineering are quite meagre, and
not sufficient to really educate students to perform adequately as
computer scientists. I am not talking about training programmers; that is not
the role of a university education in computer science. I am talking about
the discipline of computation and its practical and theoretical aspects.
There is a sufficient body of knowledge to support such a program.

From a practical point of view a good graduate program must also be fed
from its undergraduate curriculum. Depending on industry for students
and for direction in planning course structure is dangerous. I have
worked in industry  several years and have taught students coming from
working environments at UCLA and at San Jose State and have found
that people who are too close to the bread-and-butter aspects of the field
really want to be trained rather than educated. They want skills
which are readily applicable to their current job. That attitude
is not conducive to good computer science. Dijkstra has noted that the
half-life of a computer scientist is about five years. 
I think this is a result of the attitude
to train rather than educate.

The way to educate is to start with the proper foundation in the 
student's early work. 
I am quite willing and able to start building such a program.
\.

\←L\→S\←R\-L\/'2;\+L\→L

Yours sincerely,



John R. Allen
Research Associate
Computer Science Dept
Artificial Intelligence Lab

\←S\→L