Editing Dartmouth BASIC (section)

===Computing in liberal arts===
Kemeny and Kurtz agreed on the need for programming literacy among students outside the traditional [[Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics|STEM fields]]; only 25% of the students at Dartmouth took STEM-related courses, but some level of mathematics was used in almost every field. Moreover, as computers became more important in society, they wondered "How can sensible decisions about computing and its use be made by persons essentially ignorant of it?"{{sfn|Kurtz|1981|p=518}}

Kemeny later noted that "Our vision was that every student on campus should have access to a computer, and any faculty member should be able to use a computer in the classroom whenever appropriate. It was as simple as that."{{sfn|Time|2014}} But doing so would be largely impossible given what they had to work with; the turnaround on a typical SCALP run was about 15 minutes, and the languages were far too difficult for non-STEM users to use for basic tasks.{{sfn|Kurtz|1981|p=518}}

It was not simply the complexity that was a problem, it was the entire concept of the [[batch processing]]. Students would prepare their programs on punch cards or paper tape, submit them to the computer operators, and then at some future point receive their output. This would often reveal an error that required the entire process to be repeated. As they later put it, "If it takes on the order of 1 day for one try, the student will either lose interest or forget what the problems were. At best, he will waste time standing around waiting for the day's results to appear."{{sfn|Kemeny|Kurtz|1968|p=3}}{{efn|Note the use of the term "his", which in this case was the only possibility as Dartmouth did not admit women until some time later.}}

In 1959, due largely to Kemeny's reputation as an innovator in math teaching, the department won an [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]] award for $500,000 to build a new department building.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,825616,00.html |title= High Math at Hanover |date=23 February 1959 |magazine=Time}}</ref>