at the University of
Waterloo
September 2000
James Wesley (Wes) Graham
was a major figure in the history of Mathematics and Computer Science at the
University of Waterloo. His talent and initiative were directly responsible for
making computer technology accessible to students, and he played a significant
role in establishing the University’s international reputation for teaching and
research in information technology. His many contributions to the development
of software and hardware have had a major impact on the computing industry, and
in particular, on several of UW’s most successful spin-off companies. A group of Wes Graham’s former colleagues
and students together with the University, is now seeking to establish a named
Trust to honor Wes Graham’s leadership and innovation in education, the
promotion of computer accessibility, and his success in linking the academic
and business world. This endowed Trust will
strongly encourage cross-faculty initiatives related to information technology
in order to continue the leadership so well exemplified by Wes Graham.
A Computing Pioneer
Wes
Graham came from IBM to the newly established University of Waterloo in 1959 as
Assistant Professor of Mathematics. His
love of teaching and his talent for problem-solving soon lead him to take a
leadership role in computing education at the University.
When
Waterloo established its computer centre in 1962, Wes was named its
director. Professor Graham was
convinced that Waterloo students needed efficient access to computing
technology (a principle which permeates the campus to this day). Upon discovering that computer software in
the early 1960’s was not well suited for teaching purposes, he set out to find
a solution.
The
result was WATFOR (the Waterloo Fortran Compiler), developed in only three
months by Wes with a team of four students (Gus German, Jim Mitchell, Richard
Shirley and Bob Zarnke) and a junior faculty member (Peter Shantz). Almost overnight, WATFOR made UW's computers
much easier to use. This breakthrough
attracted worldwide attention from many other universities facing the same
problems in teaching computer programming, and provided the foundation of UW’s
international reputation for innovative software development.
Recognition
that the FORTRAN language could be improved from an educational perspective
lead to the implementation of WATFIV (Waterloo FORTRAN IV), and WATFIV-S to
support structured programming. Many of these enhancements to the FORTRAN
programming language were incorporated into the international FORTRAN language
standard. Wes Graham and two of his colleagues realized that a textbook was
needed to accompany this novel approach to teaching computer programming. This
team wrote two texts, “FORTRAN IV with WATFOR” and “FORTRAN IV with WATFOR and
WATFIV,” which quickly became the model for texts in introductory computer
programming. To this day these two texts rank with the best selling texts in
Computer Science, having sold almost a million copies. Business, industry and government quickly
adopted WATFOR and WATFIV for their own purposes when they realized that the
techniques used in teaching computer programming could lead to dramatic
productivity improvements in software development and problem solving.
Many
of the software systems subsequently developed at Waterloo were created under
Professor Graham’s guidance. These included language compilers for C, COBOL,
Pascal, Basic, APL, and local area networks such as Waterloo MicroNET and
Waterloo JANET. His research in the early days of microcomputers also created
early versions of such productivity tools as word processors, spreadsheets and
database systems. The user-friendly software produced under his direction has
been used in over 40 countries, and has influenced the teaching of countless
thousands of students around the world.
Linking the Academic and Business World
By
the late 70’s, the University of Waterloo was educating many talented students
who were going on to advanced education, or entering Canadian business and
government. Many of these students wanted to become entrepreneurs and start
businesses in the exciting field of computing. Wes Graham recognized this
phenomenon, and sought a solution in which the University and the students could
jointly benefit. An early opportunity presented itself in 1981/82 when three of
his former students started WATCOM to develop and market educational software.
Wes
worked actively with these students and the University to establish a
productive model for relationships between these “spin-off” companies and the
University. The approach devised by Wes Graham has been applied many times
since the early 80s to create many of the innovative companies that are now
identified with the University of Waterloo. WATCOM has become a highly
successful division of Sybase, one of the world’s largest software companies.
Many other companies, which were based on this model, such as Waterloo Maple
and Open Text, have also enjoyed substantial success.
The J. W. Graham Information Technology
Trust
The
Trust will motivate research and development that supports innovative applications of technology in education. The University
with the assistance of the Management Board will seek matching funds for
this activity that may achieve two to four times the initial award.
The
initiative to establish the Trust began with a number of Wes Graham’s former
colleagues and students who wished to pay tribute to him in a very special way.
This Trust is their way of continuing Wes Graham's efforts in strengthening the
University of Waterloo's leadership position in information technology.
The
Trust has already received advance pledges of $5 million and has a goal of $10
million. These funds are intended to create an endowment for projects related
to information technology at the University of Waterloo with a specific focus
on education. Information technology is
still a very dynamic field and it is difficult to predict what the key issues
will be even 5 years into the future. The Trust will typically make commitments
for periods up to 5 years at a time, thus providing regular opportunities for a
review and consideration of a change in focus/direction.
During
its initial 5 years the Trust will support the J. W. Graham University
Professorships and Chair in Information Technology in the University of
Waterloo and the J.W. Graham Fellowships/Scholarships in Information Technology
directed toward outstanding undergraduate students,
graduate students, faculty and teachers. Support may also be directed to
research, bursaries, or other University needs as identified by the Management
Board in the future.
The
J. W. Graham University Professorships and Chair in Information Technology in
the University of Waterloo will play a central role in furthering the
University’s achievements in information technology and software development to
support education.
One
key focus of the Professorships and Chair will be the exploitation of new
technologies to improve the teaching of information technology, not only at UW
but also in the many Canadian high schools and elementary schools with which UW
has developed strong and productive links. This relationship, which has
stimulated interest and encouraged excellence among students for many years,
began when Wes Graham initiated Computer Science Days, bringing hundreds of high
school students to campus to experience the excitement of working with
computers.
The appointment of the
J.W. Graham University Professor will normally be for a period of 4 months (1
term) to two years. The Professorships will be used to recognize distinguished
contributions to education from within the University; to bring distinguished
educators to Waterloo for a short period; and to provide an opportunity for
distinguished individuals from technology-based businesses, particularly those
with an association with the UW, to teach and interact with students and
academic staff at the University.
The appointment of the
Chair would normally be for the period in which the occupant chooses to remain
at the University of Waterloo. The
individual might be selected from outside the University as a new professorial
appointment, or could come from within UW.
In either case, the Chair will be an internationally recognized figure
in computing education and research. In
the case of an internal appointment, the University would be able to appoint
one or more new professors to fulfill many of the normal duties of the Chair
holder, thus assisting in the important process of faculty renewal.
Identifying and selecting an outstanding candidate
for the Chair may take some time. Thus, the Trust management group will focus
initially on the University Professorships in order to create immediate impact.
These Professorships will be one way in which the Trust can identify potential
candidates for the Chair.
III: The
J.W. Graham Fellowships/Scholarships in Information Technology
The J. W. Graham Information Technology Trust will
operate with a Management Board of 7 to 9 individuals who will meet regularly.
The Board will be chaired by the University President or his designate and will
include appropriate members of the academic and business communities who have a
vested interest in sustaining and growing the Trust. Board members will be
chosen taking into consideration input from the donor group, and will serve for
two-year terms. A Board Member may serve for repeated terms.
Ongoing
responsibilities of the Management Board will include:
q
setting
direction and focus
q
determining
activities to be funded
q
promoting
and expanding the activities and value of the Trust; seeking leveraging opportunities
q
reviewing
and evaluating Trust activities and
impact/effectiveness
q
providing
input and guiding principles concerning the selection of University Professors,
Chairholders, Fellows, Scholarship recipients
q
reviewing
input from the wider donor group into the programs of the Trust
q
succession
planning for future composition of the Management Board
The University Professors, Chairholders, and Fellows
will be selected in accordance with University policies. The selection of the
J. W. Graham Scholarship recipients will be in keeping with the scholarship
selection procedures of the particular Faculty and the Undergraduate Awards
Office, taking into consideration input and guiding principles from the
Management Board.
Activities and Benefits
Reproduced here is a copy of
the citation which was submitted when Wes Graham was nominated for the Order of
Canada, since it captures so many of his achievements. Wes passed away on
August 23, 1999, just three days after he was invested as an Officer of the
Order of Canada in a private ceremony at his home by Ontario Lt. Gov. Hilary
Weston. He received the Order of Canada in recognition of his contributions to
computer science in Canada and throughout the world. His boundless energy and
talents had a significant impact on the lives of countless people.
Citation
Professor
J. Wesley Graham provided the leadership in software development for
education that has given Canada and the University of Waterloo an international
reputation in this important field. The software produced under his direction
has been used in over 40 countries, and has influenced the teaching of
countless thousands of students.
Career - James Wesley
Graham was born in Copper Cliff, Ontario on January 17th, 1932. He completed his primary and secondary
education in this area. From 1950 to
1955 he attended the University of Toronto where he received a BA in
Mathematics and Physics in 1954, and an MA in Mathematics in 1955. Wes Graham then joined IBM Canada to work in
the emerging electronic computing industry.
He worked primarily as a systems engineer on a number of projects
involving large Canadian corporations.
In
1959, Wes Graham joined the University of Waterloo as an Assistant Professor of
Mathematics with the intention of teaching Statistics. However, he soon was attracted to the
notion, then prevalent at Waterloo, that computers were important, and every
scientist and engineer should know how to use them. Professor Graham’s love of
teaching placed him in a leadership role in computing education at the
University.
Contributions
to Computer-based Education - Wes Graham soon recognized that the software available on computers
was not designed for teaching purposes.
Typical language processors required a minimum of 30 seconds for each
program, and an error produced an incomprehensible pile of paper commonly known
as a “memory dump.” As students learn,
they make mistakes. They need to make many attempts at a solution; thus, teaching
large groups of students with the software just described would not work. Others recognized these difficult
pedagogical problems, but Wes Graham did something about them.
In
1965, he worked with a team of four students and a junior faculty member to
build a software system for the IBM 7040 computer that would solve both the
speed and error problems. This
software, called WATFOR (Waterloo Fortran Compiler), was
completed in about 3 months of intense effort, and attracted worldwide
attention from many other universities facing the same problems. The software certainly solved the problems
at Waterloo, enabling the University to become the leading Canadian educational
institution in teaching undergraduate students how to use computers.
With
the advent of the IBM 360, re-design and re-implementation of the WATFOR
software was necessary. WATFOR/360 was
an instant hit, since the IBM 360 was becoming the machine of choice for many
universities and colleges. The
WATFOR/360 compiler had an incredible impact on the teaching of computer
programming, and Wes Graham provided the leadership that gave Canada and the
University of Waterloo an international reputation in this form of innovative
software development.
Recognition
that the FORTRAN language could be improved from an educational perspective
lead to the implementation of WATFIV (Waterloo FORTRAN IV),
and the introduction of structured programming lead to WATFIV-S. Many of these enhancements to the FORTRAN
programming language were incorporated into the international FORTRAN language
standard.
Wes
Graham and two of his colleagues perceived that a textbook was needed to
accompany this novel approach to teaching computer programming. This team wrote two texts, “FORTRAN IV with
WATFOR” and “FORTRAN IV with WATFOR and WATFIV”, which quickly became the model
for texts in introductory computer programming. To this day these two texts rank with the best selling texts in
Computer Science, having sold in the neighbourhood of a million copies.
Realizing
that the techniques used in teaching computer programming could make dramatic
improvements in software development lead to the adoption of WATFOR and WATFIV
by business, industry and government, as well as education. Waterloo’s reputation spread beyond the
halls of academe, as WATFOR and its successors set an international standard
for language software.
Wes
Graham is a pioneer in the creation of software to support education,
particularly in the area of programming and access to computers. Many of the software systems that further
enhanced Waterloo’s international reputation were created under his
leadership. These included language
compilers for COBOL, Pascal, Basic, APL, and local area networks, such as
Waterloo MicroNET and Waterloo JANET. His research in the early days of microcomputers created early
versions of such productivity tools as word processors, spreadsheets and
database systems.
Of
course the University of Waterloo had to have the computer equipment to support
the software development activities. In
the early 60’s Wes Graham convinced the University administration to invest in
an IBM 7040 computer. This computer was
the initial springboard that was used to start Waterloo on the way to its
worldwide reputation in software development.
With the creation of the Faculty of Mathematics at Waterloo, Wes Graham
again provided leadership by working to obtain the funds to support the
acquisition of an IBM 360/75, at the time the largest computer installed in
Canada.
Because of the widespread use of Waterloo software,
Wes was able to attract funding from many of the major computer companies such
as IBM, Digital Equipment and Hewlett Packard.
These “gifts” to the University to support continued software
development totaled over $35,000,000.
Wes
Graham’s influence on computer-based education did not stop at the
post-secondary level. He had
substantial influence in the 70’s and 80’s on the growing discipline of
computer studies in the secondary schools of Ontario. He was one of the architects of the first secondary school
curriculum in computer studies. Based
on his experience at the University of Waterloo, he also lead the development
of much of the software that made it possible to teach computer science to
large numbers of students in the secondary schools. To this end, he designed one of the first “portable” computers
and its accompanying software. This affordable computer could be moved from
room to room in a school, and allowed students to experiment extensively with
computer programming, whereas in the past they often had to wait for days while
their programs were sent to neighboring universities for testing.
Developing
Waterloo Spin-off Companies - By the late 70’s, the University of Waterloo was educating many
talented students who were going on to advanced education, or entering Canadian
business and government. Many of these
students wanted to become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses in the
exciting field of computing. Wes Graham
recognized this phenomenon, and sought a solution in which the University and
the students could jointly benefit. The
first opportunity presented itself in 1981/82 when three of his former students
started WATCOM to develop and market educational software.
Wes
worked actively with these students and the University to establish a model for
relationships between these “spin-off” companies and the University that would
work to both parties’ mutual benefit.
The approach devised by Wes Graham has been applied many times in the
intervening decade and a half to create many of the companies that are now
identified with the University of Waterloo.
WATCOM has become one of the most successful divisions of Sybase, the
world’s sixth largest software company, and many other companies such as
Waterloo Maple and Open Text, which employed the model pioneered by Wes Graham,
have enjoyed substantial success.
Other
Honours -
In recognition of his contributions to education in computer science and his
many innovative contributions to the University of Waterloo, the University
created the J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation. The medal is awarded each year at
convocation to a graduate of the University of Waterloo that most closely
exemplifies the qualities shown by Professor Graham during his career. Wes Graham has also received the
Distinguished Teacher Award of the University of Waterloo.
Wes
Graham has made many contributions to professional organizations. He was President of the Canadian Information
Processing Society (CIPS) for two successive terms, and his work in this office
gave CIPS the start it needed to be the true representative of the computing
profession in Canada. In recognition of
his contributions to CIPS, Wes Graham was made an Honorary Lifetime Member.
As
President of the Canadian Water Ski Association, Wes pioneered the use of the
computer in automating the process of scoring water ski tournaments. His approach was first used in 1979 at the
World Water Ski Championships in Toronto.
In recognition of his contributions to water skiing, Wes Graham received
a Builder Award from Water Ski Canada.