MICHAEL
FREY is the kind
of
guy you read a lot about
in the late 1990s. Smart.
Tech-savvy.
Ambitious. Able to start a
software
company with two buddies and
venture
capital money, and in five years
,sells
it for a whopping $60 million. And
Frey
’93 credits the Stonehill computer
science
program with giving him the
tools
he needed to realize his dreams.
“The
training by the Computer
Science
Department gave me the foundation
I
needed to fulfill my entrepreneurial
needs,”
Frey reflects. “If I had
gone
to another school, I don’t think I
would have had as well-rounded an
education.
Nobody knows this gem of a
Computer
Science Department exists.”
Quietly, consistently, the computer
science
program has for years been
graduating
young men and women of
high
achievement who go on to have
outstanding
careers in high technology.
The
education those graduates received
at
Stonehill often distinguishes them
from
co-workers who come from more
well-known
schools.
Frey, who is now principal software
engineer
at Pepper Computer, Inc. in
Lexington,
says he works with graduates
of
“top-tier schools” who are not as
well-trained
and prepared as he was for
the
challenges of the workplace.
“The stuff I learned at Stonehill is
far
beyond what my peers have learned,”
Frey
states. “There hasn’t been a situation
(in
the workplace) I went into
where
I wasn’t fully prepared because
of
the training I had.”
Amy Johnson ’99, a software engineer
at
General Dynamics in Taunton,
has
in her department graduates from
schools
like Brown University and
Northeastern
University as well as four
other
Stonehill graduates. She says the
Stonehill
graduates “are equal, if not
better.
We can compete with anyone else.”
Johnson credits the strong curricu-lum
taught
by her computer science
professors
as the reason she and her fellow
Stonehill
graduates are able to compete
at
such a high level once they embark
upon
their careers.
“They challenge you at Stonehill,”
Johnson
says. “When you enter the
workforce,
you can handle anything they
hand
you. My assignments at work are
easier
than my assignments were at
Stonehill.”
The College has been offering computer
science
courses since 1981. For
most
of that time, computer science had
been
part of the Mathematics Department
and
the first mathematics-computer
science
degrees were awarded in 1983.
But
in 2001, Computer Science became
the
College’s newest department. The
computer
science program has seen 154
degrees
awarded in computer science or
mathematics-computer
science in the
last
20 years. In that time, the number
of
graduates from the program have
been
as low as two and as high as 14 in
any
given year. This year, 15 students
graduated
with computer science degrees.
The department has three full-time
professors:
Ralph Bravaco and Shai
Simonson,
and, newly-hired Robert
Dugan.
If
the Stonehill Computer Science
Department
is not as well-known to the
general
public as those at larger schools,
then
others have taken notice and have
awarded
the department thousands of
dollars
in grant money for excellence
and
innovation.
In the last seven years, the department’s
faculty
has been recognized by
the
National Science Foundation, which
has
awarded them close to $500,000 in
grants
to partially fund the computer
lab
in Stanger Hall as well as for sabbaticals and workshops, such as highly
successful
seminars in Java developed by
Bravaco
and Simonson for secondary
school
teachers.
In 2002, Stonehill was one of only
18
colleges and universities to be awarded
a
Claire Booth Luce Scholarship. The
award
went to the Computer Science
Department,
which in turn awarded the
grant
to Jennifer Burge ’04, a computer
science
major. This year, Burge was also
awarded
a prestigious National Science
Foundation
Graduate Research
Fellowship
grant worth $30,000 a year
for
a maximum of three years. Other
schools
across the country awarded NSF
grants
this year included: Brown, Duke,
Harvard,
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology,
Princeton, Stanford and Yale.
“Jen is the first Stonehill student to
ever
get one,” Bravaco says of the NSF
grant.
There were more than 9,000
applicants.
There were 1,021 awarded
overall
and, in computer science, 77
were
awarded. Burge will attend Duke
University
where she will pursue a
Ph.D.
in computer science.
Computer science graduates give a
lion’s
share of the credit for the success
of
the program to the dedication of the
faculty
as well as Stonehill’s small
school
environment.
They said all the computer science
professors
truly care about every student
and
are always willing to put in extra
hours
for instruction to make sure
students
understand the lessons being
taught
in the classroom and labs.
Sean O’Donnell ’95, a network
planner
at Shields Healthcare in Brockton,
said
Bravaco even has a flair for the
dramatic
in order to get his students to
understand
a complex problem.
“One day Ralph stuck his leg out
the
window and threatened to jump
when
we didn’t understand something,”
O’Donnell
chuckles.
Shields Healthcare has a long history
of
hiring Stonehill computer science
graduates
and interns. Besides O’Donnell,
Maura
Switzer ’89, David Mackey ’02,
and
John Ellis ’01 as well as four
Stonehill interns work there. In all,
approximately
25 Stonehill computer
science
students have interned at Shields
since
1994.
“After 10 years of working with
Stonehill
students, Ralph keeps sending
students
who impress us,” Switzer reports.
Johnson recalls that the infectious
enthusiasm
of the professors makes the
students
eager to learn.
“The difference with the professors
at
Stonehill is the direct attention,” she
says.
“They made classes interesting. They
were
excited about it. Ralph and Shai put
so
much effort into it. Ralph won’t let you
fail.
That’s a unique professor.”
With grants and awards galore and
highly-skilled
graduates taking the
workforce
by storm, the Department
may
be on the verge of wider recognition.
Indeed,
the college ranking book,
Rugg’s
Recommendations On The
Colleges,
ranks Stonehill’s computer
science
program as one of the best in
the country.
“The program is rigorous academically
as
we prepare students for either
industry
or graduate school,” Simonson
says. “The standards and expectations
are high, but the faculty is willing to
help
each student so that anyone who is
willing
and able can succeed.
“Satisfaction comes from hard work
and
accomplishment. There is no short-cut.
Our students earn their stripes.”
—Michael
Reardon
Stonehill Alumni Magazine, Summer 2004
