Computer Science Faculty Flashback: Martha Kosa, 1993
Part 5 of a 40th anniversary series celebrating Tennessee Tech computer science alumni, faculty and the advancement of the Department of Computer Science, established in 1986.
It’s 1993 at Tennessee Tech… enter Professor Martha Kosa.
Kosa “logged in” to the Department of Computer Science as one of the first three tenure-track faculty members, along with Panos Linos and Jonathan Blake, with a Ph.D. in computer science. Up until then—going back to the 1970s, when the discipline emerged as a major—computer science courses were taught by professors with advanced degrees in mathematics.
“Class sizes were small in the 1990s,” Kosa, who retired in 2021, recalled. “It was rare for a class to have more than 30 students, and only one section was available for most courses in a semester. In my first semester, I taught a senior-level course with only five students.”
The decade saw significant academic development. Computer Science began teaching its own discrete mathematics course and expanded its theory curriculum with courses such as Design of Algorithms and Foundations of Computer Science—changes that helped Tech students consistently score above the national average on the theory portion of the Major Field Achievement Test.
As for student life, the department supported two student organizations: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) student chapter and Tennessee Tech Microcomputer Association (TTMA), a student-driven group with its own workspace on the top floor of Bruner Hall, where members experimented with computer systems and networking.
Alumni also returned to share experiences. One memorable ACM event featured Stephen Shaw [’91] speaking about his work in the California video game industry.
Programming competitions were another point of pride. In 1990, a team from Tennessee Tech that included Shaw placed first in the Southeast Regional for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest and went on to the national finals.
“Often, at least one team placed in the top four locally and in the top 20-30 percent in the region, and several times, a team placed in the top 10 teams in the region,” said Kosa, who advised the teams from 1993 to 2020.
In 1997, the university began hosting a local site for the Mid-Central Regional contest—a tradition that has continued almost every year since.
The 1990s also brought rapid technological change. As personal computers became more common, the department updated its curriculum and infrastructure. C replaced Pascal
in the introductory programming sequence, Intel replaced VAX as the target architecture for the assembly language course, and the department established an advanced core of upper-level courses.
In 1994, Eric Brown [’93, ’06, ’26] returned to his alma mater as the department’s first full-time systems administrator, replacing VAX terminals with PCs and supervising the creation of a networked computer lab.
The department joined the World Wide Web with its first web server in 1995.
“Graphical web browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer were new,” Kosa recalled. She and three other computer science faculty members were among the first to put course materials online.
The department introduced its first Java course in 1997 as a special topics class, in which students experimented with building early web tools.
“By the end of the 1990s, it was clear that the combination of PCs, networking and the World Wide Web was fundamentally changing our everyday lives,” Kosa said. “With search engines and email, the famous adage ‘It’s a small world after all’ became reality.”
Professional Highlights
Martha Kosa, Ph.D., served as a full-time professor in Tennessee Tech’s Department of Computer Science from 1993 until her retirement in 2021, along with her husband, Mark Boshart, Ph.D. She was one of the first three tenure-track faculty members hired by the university with a Ph.D. in computer science. She advised programming teams from 1993 to 2020. In 2002, she taught Tech’s first master’s course in computer science.
Computer Science in the 1990s
- 1990 – Frank Hadlock serves as the first advisor to ACM ICPC programming teams.
- 1994 – Eric Brown [’93, ’06, ‘26] is hired as the first full-time systems administrator.
- 1995 – Department of Computer Science joins the World Wide Web with first web server.
- 1997 – First Java course is offered as a special topics class.
- 1998 – Tech launches B.S. in computer Engineering, requiring 25 credit hours of computer science coursework, significantly impacting the computer science program.