From the Archives

The First Computers at Cate

There is no doubting that technology has revolutionized the way in which we learn. The computer revolution, at least on the Mesa, can be traced back to the early 1980s.

The following excerpt is from a Cate School newsletter in January 1983, shortly after the arrival of 70 new microcomputers to campus.

There’s an Apple II in the arts department and one on the Newsletter editor’s desk. There’s one in the librarian’s office and another in the archives. Three English classrooms have them, and so do the college counselors.

In fact, there are 70 new microcomputers on the Mesa, being used by students, faculty, and administrative staff. Until this December, computers were used only in the math lab, the business office, and the alumni and development offices. Now, you’ll find them in the headmaster’s, deans’ and admissions offices, as well as in the offices of all department chairmen.

There are seven in math classrooms, four in the math department foyer, one in each math teacher’s office, and 18 in the former math lab classroom. In January, ten specially selected students will have microcomputers in their dorm rooms.

It’s all part of an unusual approach to computer education…

Another snippet of interest from that same article:

A director of an educational research laboratory goes so far as to state that “unless you are going into engineering, I don’t think they (computers) have much promise for instruction.”

A 1986 Cate Bulletin article titled “Computer Development at Cate” by Alexandra S. Halsey chronicles the rise of computers on the Mesa and credits former Math Department Chair Sanderson Smith for being the first person to bring computers to campus –after first hearing about them as a teaching tool in 1969.

Today, the School not only owns 175 computers and 40 iPads, but there are approximately 300 student computers and 300 student iPads as each student is required to have one for their Problem-based Learning (PBL) Math classes not to mention over 500 cell phones and hundred of other devices like smart watches, smart TV’s, e-readers, and personal assistant devices that are controlled by computer chips on the Cate network.

How times have changed.

NOTE FROM THE ARCHIVES:

Calling all alumni from 1950-1990 to donate any old Bulletins and copies of El Batidor to the Cate Archives. Especially copies of El Batidor from the 1960s and 1970s. Please donate any other items, programs, and memorabilia as you wish.