CS Teaching Faculty Leading the Way to Innovative and Inclusive CS Education

Illinois Computer Science is committed to providing students with an enriching and meaningful experience throughout their academic journey. Beyond imparting knowledge, the goal is to expose students to the fascinating process of creating cutting-edge research, fostering an environment of innovation in curriculum, pedagogy, and educational technologies. At the forefront of this drive are the esteemed teaching faculty, who play a pivotal role in shaping the future of computer science education, both on campus and globally. With their expertise and dedication, these faculty aim to empower students with the skills and insights necessary to thrive in the dynamic world of technology and make significant contributions to the field.

“I believe we have successfully made the case here that all of our faculty play equally important roles and all are crucial to maintaining our ability to stay at the cutting edge of education and research - all while still enabling us to fulfill our land grant mission to provide access and opportunity to all,” Abel Bliss Professor and Department Head Nancy M. Amato said. “In particular, we have recognized the absolutely critical importance of our teaching faculty, both to the success of our department, as well as to the intellectual and financial well-being of the institution, overall. And as such, we have implemented fundamental changes that have been strongly supported by the college administration and are serving as a model for other departments in the college and across campus.”

These changes ensure that all faculty have the same basic rights and privileges in matters related to department governance, intellectual freedom, and the opportunity to serve in leadership roles in the department and the broader university community. The department has worked to reduce the differences in compensation and working conditions between teaching faculty and tenure-stream faculty as much as possible while working within the overall university structure in which teaching faculty are not eligible for tenure. Salient aspects of these changes include:  

• All faculty have the same voting rights in department matters including faculty recruiting, curriculum development, and department administration. 

• Teaching faculty, like tenure track faculty, can serve as sole advisors of MS and Ph.D. theses and participate fully in graduate admissions. 

• Teaching faculty can be PIs on both internal and external grants, making it easier for them to pursue their scholarly interests.

• All teaching faculty are on multi-year contracts that are renewed annually providing them greater job security. 

• Mentoring practices have been standardized in the department for all faculty, including the assignment of formal mentors and midterm reviews intended to prepare them for timely and successful promotion.

“As a department, we have been fortunate to have teaching faculty who are committed to the well-being of our students through a desire to impart the highest quality education to them,” said Mahesh Viswanathan, professor and Associate Head for Academics. “Our teaching faculty are creative and are constantly innovating. They have been utilizing new pedagogical methods, developing new educational technologies, and exploring curriculum innovations. Through their leadership, they have helped create a more inclusive department culture.”

Photo Credit: University of Illinois / Holly Birch Photography

Tiffani Williams takes on leadership roles to broaden participation at Illinois CS, Grainger Engineering

When Tiffani Williams joined Illinois CS in 2020 as a Teaching Professor and Director of Onramp Programs, she came equipped with the right blend of experience and sense of purpose needed to undertake a major change in computing.

The longstanding underrepresentation of various populations in the field - including women, African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, persons from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and persons with disabilities in the computing field - needs meaningful action to be offset. 

Williams built the Illinois Computer Accelerator for Non-Specialists (iCAN) to be a difference maker. 

iCAN is a program that provides an accessible and welcoming introduction to computer science to students with a non-computing background who nonetheless have an active interest in computer science topics. Coursework in the iCAN program introduces students to programming, algorithm design, and the foundations of computer science to prepare them for success in both a career in high-tech and graduate school in computer science.  

Along with Professor Yael Gertner, Williams has nurtured this program through three cohorts, with a fourth starting this Fall.

“I’m driven to not only teach but be our Director of Onramp Programs because we must address the level of inequality in terms of who gets to participate in computing,” Williams said. “We are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of widening participation in computing. From that perspective, having the opportunity to develop new programs from the ground up provides a tremendous opportunity to tackle the problem in a way that can create systemic change. 

“Since 2020, we have developed the iCAN program with the promise of the impact it can have – not just on students, but us as a department. We’re thrilled students have chosen the iCAN program, because, if we get it right, iCAN will speak volumes about how we can broaden participation in computing.”

After just a year with Illinois CS, Williams also expanded her efforts by accepting a position as Dean’s Fellow in Inclusion, Belonging, and Engagement with The Grainger College of Engineering.

Williams’ work in this role took root with two primary initiatives.

First, she developed a plan to scale the CS CARES Committee to all departments in Grainger Engineering. CS CARES Committee consists of members of the computing community at Illinois CS who are approachable and willing to listen. Their goal is to help people concerned about or who experience a potential violation of the department’s Values and Code of Conduct.

Second, Williams said she sought to “expand our college’s interaction and engagement in Chicago with efforts focused on the expansion of our computing ecosystem in the city and our partnership with Discovery Partners Institute (DPI).”

“This position with Grainger Engineering is one way in which we have recognized there is a serious issue,” Williams said. “Considering we are a public institution that's supposed to serve all residents in the state of Illinois, we have a lot to get right. And if we get it right, the impact is unimaginable.

“Our history in innovation here at Illinois has already cemented our reputation in the United States and around the world. Because of that, it will be hard for anyone to ignore progress if we succeed in making our university, The Grainger College of Engineering, and computing more accessible.”

Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider helps Illinois CS expand to the forefront of accessible computer and data science education

In his early 20s, Illinois CS professor Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider knew he was at a crossroads and an important decision loomed.

While he was content and made a comfortable living working at the intersection of tech and finance, he also felt the sense of a greater calling. The question: continue working within the industry, or go back to school at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to finish his Ph.D. in Computer Science?

“The projects I worked on were making large and profitable investments, but none of the work really made the world a better place,” Fagen-Ulmschneider said. “It was one of the toughest decisions I ever made, but I left Wall Street to finish my Ph.D. in order to be able to share my work with others, and the world. Since I joined the faculty at Illinois, my work has been to teach the next generation of computer scientists.”

Now as a Teaching Associate Professor with appointments in CS and Statistics, Fagen-Ulmschneider has focused on addressing barriers to CS education accessibility. 

This dedication has allowed him to now teach over 10,000 students in person, along with nearly 200,000 more through three Massively Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and a Coursera specialization.

Since 2021 collaboration with Statistics professor Karle Flanagan has resulted in an open-source and free-to-consumer platform, called Data Science DISCOVERY, to provide the best introductory data science content on the internet. It is now, according to Fagen-Ulmschneider, the basis for one of the largest data science courses in the nation and is ranked at the top of Google search results for dozens of Data Science topics.

“I have not looked back,” he said.

In fact, his demonstrated dedication to teaching also earned him placement as a Faculty Fellow with the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) here at UIUC.

Citing CITL as the “campus-level center for teaching excellence” Fagen-Ulmschneider said that becoming a Faculty Fellow there was one of the greatest honors of his career thus far. He’s thrilled to engage with the other Fellows and everyone else involved with CITL because of their passion for education.

His own growth has also cemented his role as a member of the university-level Senate Committee on Educational Policy, or EdPol.

This committee includes campus leaders, faculty, and students, including CS major Kylie Zhang. Fagen-Ulmschneider has been thrilled to see the way EdPol can help advance degree programs, provide accommodations during exceptional events (e.g., the use of pass/fail for a large set of courses during the COVID-19 semesters), and set guidelines and standards for the campus.

He has helped see through several new X + Data Science (X + DS) majors and two new CS + X majors, including the first two in Grainger Engineering, during his time on EdPol and looks forward to further entrenching himself on the committee.

“As a teaching professor, my role at The University of Illinois has allowed me the time to build resources that are world-class and used by hundreds of thousands of learners,” he said. “At the same time, as a member of the faculty, I actively have a meaningful part of the shared governance that leads the University of Illinois forward.

“It is extremely rare to both be entirely focused on building the best learning experiences for students and to have leadership opportunities at the campus level. All the while, I have been supported by the department, college, and all our students.”

Mariana Silva established research connections to alter and improve teaching methodologies

Over the 11 years, she has taught within The Grainger College of Engineering - first in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering and most recently with Illinois Computer Science, since 2017 - professor Mariana Silva has remained steadfastly interested in course innovation to support teaching at scale.

Her motivation stems from a belief that this will improve outcomes and student experiences - something she understands first-hand.

“I’ve always liked teaching large classes, maybe because I never had a small one,” Silva said. “So, for me, it’s natural to think about course innovations that support teaching at scale.”

Beyond making a difference in the courses she teaches, the ability to improve teaching methods for large courses creates a broader benefit, namely, the promotion of inclusion and access.

But implementing these sorts of changes properly takes time, effort, and collaboration.

Over her career, Silva has supplemented her teaching with research efforts that formalize these initiatives. Initially, she did this through projects funded by the University of Illinois.

From the time it was created in 2012, Silva tapped into funding from the Strategic Instructional Innovations Program, otherwise known as SIIP grants. Managed by the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education (AE3) within Grainger Engineering, SIIP funding “competitively awards education-innovation grants to faculty teams using a model similar to research-grant funding.”

Her dedication to this kind of educational improvement through AE3, led to Silva being named an AE3 Education Innovation Fellow (EIF) beginning in 2021-2022. This group of faculty connects with AE3 staff, departmental colleagues, and others across Grainger Engineering while seeking opportunities to innovate and implement educational change.

“I have been involved in seven SIIP grants, with each grant renewed for up to three years, so my transition as an EIF was very smooth,” Silva said. “I really enjoy helping other teams with course innovations, knowing that these innovations have a great impact on students throughout Grainger Engineering.”

Having such a thorough grasp of the ways in which she can alter educational delivery within the college and campus setting also led Silva to other research efforts.

Thus far, she has been a part of two NSF-funded projects.

First, she served as senior personnel in a project entitled “Improving Collaborative Learning in Engineering Classes Through Integrated Tools for Instructors and Students.” Her latest NSF-funded effort, “Enhancing Equity and Access Via Digitally-Mediated Collaborative Learning Experiences,” was her first as PI and was proposed collaboratively with CS professor Geoffrey Herman and MechSE professor Matthew West.

Silva’s involvement led to an even stronger belief in collaborative learning activities during lectures and discussion sections, which represented a shift in the CS student experience from the way CS courses were traditionally taught.

She admitted there was student resistance to the idea of more collaborative, open-ended project work at first. But between the pandemic’s impact on education and her own efforts with fellow CS teaching faculty like professors Geoffrey Herman and Abdu Alawini, that initial resistance has softened.

“Nowadays, these types of lecture activities have become part of the department culture and students appreciate working with others while having an increased sense of belonging in our courses,” Silva said.

These advancements, she said, grow from a sense of togetherness and shared belief in pursuing the next best idea – a prevailing theme she’s experienced as a teaching faculty member in the department.

“Even when compared with other departments at Illinois, CS does an outstanding job creating a great environment for the teaching faculty, where we feel included and connected,” Silva said.