Plane recognized with foundation, lounge in her name at UMD

Associate Professor of Computer Science Jan Plane has been recognized with the recent establishment of the Dr. Jan Plane Endowed Program Support Fund in Computer Science at the University of Maryland (UMD). The fund, along with a student lounge named in her honor, is supported by a $2.85 million donation from UMD alumnus Brendan Iribe.

“I worked for so many years on broadening participation in computing so that everyone would feel both welcomed into the field and sufficiently prepared to enter the field,” Plane said. “Having this foundation and lounge named for me sends the message that this work is both valued and will continue even though I needed to move on.”

Plane is an emerita lecturer in computer science at UMD and served as the founding director of the university’s computer science student support and K-12 outreach initiatives in computing, including the Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing (I4C) and the Maryland Center for Women in Computing (MCWIC). Both programs focus on promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in outreach education, current student support and research.

In the early 1990s, she advised UMD’s inaugural affinity group in computing, the Association of Women in Computing, whose members worked to inspire elementary and middle school girls through outreach activities. They began with after-school programs in local elementary schools and Girl Scout troops. These efforts grew to become programs within MCWIC and I4C, such as CompSciConnect, a three-year summer camp that introduces middle schoolers to computing.

“These (centers) were created to bring all of the different programs that were running at that time under one umbrella, both to support current students and to do outreach to younger students,” Plane said. “These two centers have now been merged into a center called the Maryland Computing Catalyst.”

The fund established in her name at UMD will assist current UMD students as well as local middle and high school students through hands-on learning experiences, scholarships and professional development opportunities.

Thanks to Iribe’s gift, the student lounge that Plane established in the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering will be named after her as well.

“At UMD, there are more than 4,000 majors and minors in the various computing fields, but there was still a large discrepancy in the representation for several groups,” Plane said. “Therefore, this lounge was created as a way to both bring the students who felt marginalized together for social events and to provide mentoring and tutoring for any students who needed those services.”

After moving back to Wisconsin to be closer to family, Plane’s 33 years of work at UMD has expanded to Ripon College, where the curriculum she developed for camps and other special programs is being expanded to the curriculum in Ripon’s computer science major. One particular class on physical computing has students engaging with microcontrollers, resistors, wires, conductive threads and lights to create and program different circuits.

“Working with so many students from various backgrounds has helped me understand that each student is coming from a different place — everyone can learn this material, it really just matters how it is expressed and how they hear it,” Plane said.

She is also highly active in teacher preparation for computer science education, participating in initiatives at the state level with the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and the State Department of Public Instruction (DPI).

“I love the type of teaching I get to do (at Ripon),” Plane said. “I am teaching individuals and am able to adjust things to their needs. In contrast, at UMD, I was able to influence large groups of students, but it was more group teaching rather than the individualized teaching I can do here. I would like to see some of the programs I had in Maryland come to Ripon College, but on a smaller scale.”