Des,

This jives with what I recall, but that doesn't make it right, either.

Googling for "history of computer science" brought up some pages at
Waterloo, and in particular

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/Courses/134/history.html

The first entry under the 1960's was

<quote>
In the 1960's, computer science came into its own as a discipline. In
fact, the term was coined by George Forsythe, a numerical analyst. The
first computer science department was formed at Purdue University in 1962.
The first person to receive a Ph. D. from a computer science department
was Richard Wexelblat, at the University of Pennsylvania, in December
1965.
</quote>

Using that, I think you'll be able to dig further more effectively.

Ah. Yes. "history computer science purdue" turns up

http://www.cs.purdue.edu/history/history.html

where you'll find a more thorough history of the department, as well as
some references to papers that you can try and dig up and cite.

Good luck,
Matt

(Having spent some time south of there helped, as this factoid resides in
the "Indiana regional history" brain cell.)

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Des Traynor wrote:

  | Hey everyone,
  |             I am trying to show the youth of computer science education in a small
  | piece i am writing, and I was hoping to refer to when the first computer
  | science course was ever offered by a university. Does anyone know
  | offhand where and when it was. i've tried googling, but with little
  | success thus far.
  |
  |             Thanks
  |

________________________________________________________________________
Matt Jadud                             http://www.cs-ed.org/blogs/mjadud/
Canterbury Weather: High 41 F / 5 C, Low 35 F / 2 C, Light rain
 
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