The Rhodes College Vision Statement proclaims that the College “aspires to graduate students with a life-long passion for learning, a compassion for others, and the ability to translate academic study and personal concern into effective leadership and action in their communities and the world.”

In the Computer Science program at Rhodes, we take the last statement of the vision especially seriously. We recognize that computer science and the technologies enabled by computers have enormous impact on society. Computer scientists have the ability to enable rapid, large-scale change—change that can help society and individuals or can reinforce structures that marginalize and impose inequality.

As such, we are firmly committed to creating computer scientists that recognize their value and responsibility to society.

Trained computer scientists have specialized abilities, knowledge, and positions. As a result, this specialization requires that computer scientists have a duty to society, just as do many other trained specialists like medical doctors.

As in the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Code of Ethics, this duty starts with a commitment to use your training as a computer scientist for the betterment of society and world, recognizing your potential for positive contributions and for harm. Rhodes Computer Science students are trained to be actively ethical in their practice, taking ethical considerations as core to their approach to the research and development of technologies.

Along with this, central to the department’s ethical mission are its core values of diversity and inclusion. We believe that not only should computer science be open and accessible to every student regardless of background, but that a diverse field is critical to the success of a society that is enabled by technology. Computer Science at Rhodes is for everyone.

Each course in the Computer Science program has learning objectives designed to specially address this mission, and the culminating senior experience for CS students is to build a software system or engage in independent research that has a clear and justifiable benefit for society.

As a computer science student at Rhodes, you will not only be prepared for an exciting and impactful career, but you will also be prepared to enable and enact real and powerful change.