A retrospective

NINE YEARS AGO THIS MONTH I wrote my first Percolations column. I was a year and a half out of my doctoral program, happily ensconced as faculty in a computer science (CS) department, and driving a new car whose existence led me to a discussion of the relationship between personal experiences and the decision to study computing. I challenged Inroads readers to consider the implications of our global computing infrastructure for computing education as seen through the lens of contemporary challenges: falling enrollment, the perception problem, the twenty year decline of women in the field, and global outsourcing. Today, my beloved vehicle is still going strong despite one very large dent and dirt that seems to have sealed itself permanently into the white paint. However, time has not stood still for computing education any more than it has for me or my car. I, you, we all have the dents that come with taking on the big challenges. The computing education community has driven itself hard to arrive at solutions to problems in the field. On the eve of this, my last Percolations column, I wondered how we are doing. How much progress have we made since 2006 on falling enrollment, the perception problem, the twenty year decline of women in the field, and global outsourcing? Let's start with the screamingly obvious: falling enrollments? There has been a 180 degree turn this issue. No longer are we discussing how to increase our student body. As you are no doubt well aware, one of the prime topics of conversation in the computing education community today is how to effectively address exploding enrollments in undergraduate computing programs (" the Surge "). The joy and excitement of having increased numbers of students is temporized at many institutions by the fallout from the recent recession. Budgets and resources were reduced and never reinstated. The challenges posed by the Surge are wide spread enough that a panel on the topic at SIGCSE 2015 filled a small ballroom. I sat about half way back in the room listening to tales from computing educators struggling to serve significantly more students with less time and fewer resources—virtually everyone was worried about potential negative effects on the quality of teaching and learning. It is ironic that we have gone from a state of falling enrollments to one of surging enrollments yet often still find ourselves struggling to justify resource …