Back to the Future: Great Endings Enable Great Beginnings

It has been less than 60 years since the invention of the transistor and stored programs and only 35 years since the first nodes of the Arpanet were powered up. In many ways, computing and communications technologies are artifacts of higher education in general and U.S. colleges and universities in particular. Fifty years ago, visionary leaders in higher education organized CUMREC to provide a venue to generate and propagate ideas about computing, communications, and the use of information systems on behalf of higher education. In celebrating 50 years of CUMREC, this session reflects on lessons learned and speculates about the future of computing, communications, and community.