We are pleased to announce that the 2021 Susan Dean CCSC Distinguished Service Award recipient is John Wright. For all his years with CCSC, Dr. John Wright of Juniata College has demonstrated a high level of professionalism, patience and a high degree of academic integrity. His colleagues report that working with him is a delight. At every occasion, whether it was a planning meeting or during a conference, John’s approach has been to be inclusive, thoughtful, and listen to and value everyone’s contribution.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 CCSC Annual General Business meeting was held virtually. Dr. Wright will be receiving this award during the next CCSC:Eastern Conference.John Wright
John Wright first hosted the CCSC:Eastern conference with his colleague Dr. Gerald Kruse at Juniata College in 2010. It was a fantastic conference with many innovative organizational ideas that were accepted and used by subsequent CCSC:Eastern conferences.
Following that conference in 2010, John was invited to join the CCSC:Eastern Steering Committee. In this capacity, his hard work and innovative ideas were invaluable. One of the first things John did upon joining the committee was to propose that Eastern have a website. He created the website and has maintained it ever since. The most unique and outstanding feature of the website is that not only does it contain the information relevant to each year’s conference as it occurs, but it contains a wealth of historical information about past conferences.
As an Eastern Steering Committee member, John worked closely with numerous colleagues who uniformly laud him as a wonderful collaborator, innovator, and organizer. He has been instrumental in keeping the CCSC Eastern region running smoothly year after year – and there have been some notable obstacles to overcome in that time, including the 2012 conference that had to be re‐scheduled due to Hurricane Sandy. Overall, the successes of the CCSC:Eastern conferences and the growth of the community can be attributed to his unwavering commitment, help and support. There has been no organizational or logistical task that he has not supported either by providing sage advice or actually taking on and carrying out the task.
His interaction with Dr. Liz Adams, who served as Eastern Region’s Regional Representative to the CCSC Board, led him to run for the position of Eastern Regional Representative to the CCSC Board in 2014. He was elected and served in that position until 2020. Here too, John made important contributions. Of note was his leadership in the creation of bylaws for the Eastern Region.
Further, the Eastern regional representative has had the responsibility, since the region became part of the Consortium in 2001, not only of heading the Steering Committee, but of finding institutions to host the Eastern Regional Conference. This is a significant task, one which John has fulfilled admirably.
In 2020, John took the initiative to update CCSC’s logos and branding. The work was completed by four Juniata College students as part of their Integrated Media Arts Practicum. They did a fantastic job under John’s direction, while John did an important service in initiating the work of this group and in facilitating communication with the National Board.
CCSC is indebted to John for his many years of dedication to the organization and to Computer Science education in general. It is with great pleasure that we present the 2021 CCSC Distinguished Service Award to Dr. John Wright.