DePauw Stories

Many professors spend years studying their chosen discipline within a formal academic setting in order to prepare for the challenge of educating others. Gloria Townsend, professor of computer science at DePauw University, took a less conventional path.

“When I started my undergrad at Indiana University, there were no computer science classes,” she recalls. Instead, she studied mathematics, and her plan was to follow several of her family members into a career in education.

Following college, she did just that, spending eight years as a high school math teacher. Although she enjoyed the students she worked with, after successfully completing a master’s and a PhD, Townsend set her sights on higher education. In 1980, her journey brought her to DePauw.

Throughout the 1980s, when computer science was still very much in a formative stage, DePauw located computing courses under the mathematics label. Townsend explains, “I joined mathematics colleagues who were teaching introductory computer science.”

Her lack of experience didn’t deter her. Instead, Townsend wasted little time learning about coding, reading extensively on her own, and entering computer science graduate school. “I began my career completely self-taught,” she says.

The hard work paid off. In time, Townsend not only proved that she could teach computer science, but she also assumed an integral role in establishing a computer science department at DePauw. With all the rapid advancements taking place at the time, Townsend’s adaptability and appetite for learning allowed her to keep pace with the changes and equip her students with versatile skills for long-term success.

“Computer science — more than any department — is constantly catching up,” she notes. “In those early days, equipment was in its infancy. We had one teletype machine here before personal computers, and we tried to share resources as they slowly became available. We all grew up together — our equipment and our teaching and computer science as a whole.”

For Townsend, part of that growth process involved identifying a glaring need both within her department and within the larger field of computer science: a disproportionate lack of female representation. She recalls one particular two-year stretch when only one woman graduated from DePauw with a computer science degree. She was determined to address the disparity.

“Community is the big word. I certainly wanted to recruit and retain women, but I also wanted to celebrate them and form a community. It was difficult in the early years. Women were not attracted to computing. Our culture projected a computer scientist as a man in a lab coat with a pocket protector. That's hard to combat. Very hard.”

Once again, Townsend got to work. In 1994, she created a student group to begin building the community she envisioned. The organization, Women in Computer Science (WiCS) at DePauw, still exists under thriving student leadership. But Townsend didn’t stop with proactive initiatives on campus. She also advocated at a wider level for the inclusion and advancement of women throughout the industry. For 17 years, Townsend chaired two community building projects for the international computer science professional organization, resulting in a Lifetime Service to the Computer Science Education Community Award.

By 2017, her relentless effort and activism had transformed the landscape. In an article that year by the Chronicle of Higher Education, DePauw was included among the top five institutions nationwide for the largest percentage of women pursuing an undergraduate computer science major. Out of 62 graduating seniors in the program at the time, 30 of them were women, signifying an overwhelming amount of progress from earlier years.

Yet Townsend’s true impact as an educator cannot be captured by any number or statistic. Instead, it’s best embodied in the lives she has touched over four and a half decades of service.

“Scarcely a day – and certainly not a week – goes by that I don't hear from a former student,” she says. “They inhabit my mind all the time. I’m always thinking about them. We have such wonderful students here.”

Fittingly, three of those students are currently Townsend’s colleagues, having returned to DePauw to join the computer science department as faculty members. They are just a few of the many graduates who have found success in diverse careers thanks to the education they received as undergraduates.

“A liberal arts college is the very best place to study computer science, because we're not teaching for the short term,” Townsend contends. “One might go to an R1 school and learn the latest technology that will be obsolete in two or three years. But employers tell us constantly that our students know how to learn. We teach for the long term. It's like a greenhouse here. The environment is perfect for producing a student of the future, a lifelong learner with soft skills.”

When it comes to lifelong learning, DePauw computer science students can hardly find a better role model than Townsend herself. Throughout her career she has collaborated with faculty members in other departments, used sabbaticals to expand her academic horizons and contributed extensively to professional associations in numerous capacities.

“Computer scientists just can't stand still,” she says. “That's one of the things that attracted me to it. I enjoy the creativity, the ability to move.”

And she isn’t interested in slowing down anytime soon. After agreeing to another three-year term as chair of the department, Townsend is as excited as ever about the future. “I don't have any plans for retirement,” she says. “I just can't think about it. I get up every day, and I'm happy to drive here and do what I do.”