Is Computer Science a Relevant Academic Discipline for the 21st Century?

At least in the US, the answer to the question posed in the title seems to be no.

Far from being seen as a discipline—an area of research and study with a distinctive body of knowledge and methods of inquiry—computing in general is now regarded as body of technology (both hardware and software) to be applied in other areas. This view is coming to define what is meant by “computing,” sweeping up students, educators, and industry leaders on its way.

What this view of computing as technology overlooks, however, are computing’s theoretical and scientific foundations in computer science--an area of study or research that is concerned with computing in general, but particularly addresses its theoretical foundations, and thereby is distinguished from more applied computing fields. The longer we neglect these foundations and the deeper we subordinate them to other interests, the weaker the entire computing enterprise becomes.

Real full text in pdf