Carnegie Mellon Archives

A Series of Webinars That Could Enhance Your Knowledge of AI

May 25, 2023 Wally Boston

Across the broad spectrum of LinkedIn notifications and unsolicited email, I found out about Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science’s series of virtual events related to generative AI.

May 19 was the date for the icebreaker events with a keynote talk by Dr. Tom Mitchell, the founding professor of CMU’s Machine Learning department which was the first Machine Learning department in the world.

Online Disruption, MOOC Mania, and Change in Higher Education – How Crazy (or Bad) Will it Get?

June 10, 2013 Wally Boston

(keynote delivered at the Distance Learning Administration Conference on June 5, 2013)

I began writing this speech nearly three months ago. A week and a half ago, I wrapped it up and thought I had better run through it one last time in case any new educational technology had been released that I needed to discuss today.

Higher Education in the Digital Age by William Bowen

April 15, 2013 Wally Boston

Bill Bowen is an economist, president emeritus of Princeton University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as founding chairman of ITHAKA. His most recent book, Higher Education in the Digital Age, received much advanced press so I pre-ordered a copy through Amazon. Stanford University President John Hennessy invited Bowen to deliver the 2012 Tanner Lectures given last October. Higher Education in the Digital Age is a revised publication of the lectures given. The book is organized in a way to explore two current topics in higher education: 1) the cost disease and productivity concept in higher education and 2) whether the deployment of technology and online learning in particular can cure the cost disease. Stanford arranged for formal responses to the lectures with participation by President Hennessy, Andrew Delbanco of Columbia University, Daphne Koller of Stanford University and Coursera, and Howard Gardner of Harvard University. Those responses and Bowen’s comments are included as part of the book.

What is your Lifelog?

September 18, 2009 Wally Boston

In the September 14, 2009 issue of Business Week, Stephen Baker and Arik Hesseldahl pen an interesting article about Lifelogs. The bulk of the article is about Gordon Bell, a 75-year-old computer science legend who works for Microsoft Research in Silicon Valley, California (yes, the Gordon Bell of Digital Equipment Corp and Carnegie Mellon fame, and who as Chair of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Cross Agency Committee probably had a lot more to do with the creation of the internet than former Senator and Vice President Al Gore).

In Memoriam – Randy Pausch

July 26, 2008 Wally Boston

Randy Pausch, Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon and author of The Last Lecture, died of complications from pancreatic cancer at the age of 47. I didn’t know Randy, but like many, I was inspired by his story. If you would like to listen to his last lecture, it’s available on YouTube. If you want to read his book, it’s available at Amazon.com

The Last Lecture

July 9, 2008 Wally Boston

At the Chronicle’s Executive Leadership Forum, Jeffrey Zaslow spoke about Randy Pausch the Carnegie Mellon professor who was the subject of a Wall Street Journal column last fall. Zaslow, a Carnegie Mellon alum and reporter for the WSJ, heard about Pausch’s lecture and received permission from his editor to cover it. At the last minute, he decided to video some of the lecture and post it on the Journal’s website before the article was published.

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