Prof. Bergmann and Robinson's Past

Change is one of Rowan’s core values. The university is always changing—South Jersey’s collegiate darling—and with growth comes change. Take the new student center expansion, valued at over 31 million, or Campbell Library’s renovations. Rowan’s growing out of its normal school roots, notably since its push towards R1—a designation given to universities with the highest levels of research activity. It’s hard to imagine that there were once farms, once swamps, once anything but the bustling campus we see today–but our humble beginnings aren’t fiction. There’s someone within the little slice of campus called Robinson Hall who lived through a simpler era of Rowan. 

“On the side of 322,” begins Professor Seth Bergmann, “[Back then] we had Wilson Hall, we had Westby Hall, and in place of the science building was the old science building–which has been knocked down since then. At the time, Savitz Hall was the library, as the existing [Campbell] library didn’t exist,” he continues. 

Bergmann is the computer science department’s longest-running professor. He taught at Rowan when it was still Glassboro State College. Bergmann began his career here before there even was a computer science department, his employment predating its existence by nearly seven years. 

Bergmann started teaching computer science in 1980. At the time, Glassboro itself was much smaller—the east side of Delsea Drive (Where the Shoprite currently sits) was all farmland, with none of the neighborhoods and shopping centers you see today. When Bergmann started at Glassboro State, the university was starting to grow. “Robinson Hall, Wilson Hall, and the Chamberlain Student Center were just built. They have similar architectural features because they were the three new buildings constructed when NJ pumped money into state colleges,” Bergmann says. “Of course,” he continues, “322 was there, and you took your life into your hands cruising 322. No traffic stops or anything,” he jokes. The intramural fields were yet to be built, and the track—with no football stadium in sight—was merely a cinder track. 

When Bergmann started, computer science was merely a part of the math department, the shiny new Bachelor in Computer Science sitting alongside the existing Bachelor of Mathematics. The math department staff had a heavy influence on the CS major, working with the computer science staff. And at the time, there wasn’t a ton of funding for Glassboro State’s computer scientists. “When I first came here, all we had was timesharing on a New Jersey mainframe that all the state colleges shared,” Bergmann begins. “We had remote terminals that hooked in over the phone line to remote computers. When personal computers came out in the 1980s, the admin then didn't want to buy any for us. Some of the professors bought their own PCs at the CollegeTown shopping center,” he continues.

Eventually, the major grew enough to necessitate its own department (and more funding.)  “The extra space was badly needed,” Bergmann says. “...previously some of the math people weren’t as attuned to what we were doing. Once we became our own department, we had more control over the curriculum,” he continues. The newly formed department claimed space at the north end of Robinson, where Dr. Wiegard’s office sits now. 

The new computer science curriculum focused on algorithms and data structures. The study of computer science was rapidly changing—not unlike Glassboro State itself—so the department focused on areas they believed wouldn’t change as quickly. “My feeling was that rather than giving students skills for today’s jobs, we should give them skills to adapt to new things–educating them on things that were not going to change,” Bergmann says. Today, the CS curriculum is bigger than it’s ever been before, hosting multiple majors (including added courses within the computer science major), concentrations, as well as the CS minor, C&I major, CST major, and other graduate programs. (If you’d like to learn more about the department’s programs, click here.)  

The college’s students themselves have also changed since Bergmann began. At the time of the department’s founding, there were barely fifteen or twenty CS majors—a far cry from the thousands of students that walk Robinson Hall today. CS clubs have grown in tandem with the student population. “We had a computer science club back then, and occasionally students would participate in programming contests,” Bergmann says. That’s nothing compared to the four CS clubs working in the department today, and the host of weekly activities happening on the third floor. “One big difference in student life back then is that campus would be evacuated on weekends,” he continues. “Now you see all this activity on weekends. I think it’s a good thing, keeping students here. They benefit more from the college experience if they’re here at college.” 

Moreover, Rowan’s CS Faculty has expanded. From the handful of staff that was there when Bergmann was hired, a team of nearly 130 extremely talented academics. Today, research is a huge part of life at Rowan, especially with the march to R1. “Faculty are now doing a lot more research, and I’m amazed how things have changed in that regard,” Bergmann says.

Today, a day in the life of Professor Bergmann is much different than it was nearly fifty years ago. He retired this past July and comes to Rowan as a Professor Emeritus—an honorary title that allows him to retain access to the network and email. He’ll bike or swim in the morning, and have breakfast in his office before diving into his independent projects. “Call it open-source textbooks,” Bergmann says. Bergmann creates open-source textbooks for use not just at Rowan, but for anywhere in the world. He’s worked on multiple books over fifteen years—books on computer organization, IOOP, compiler design, and a cryptography book along the way. His work has been downloaded over seventy thousand times, hosted in online libraries and organizations in every nook and cranny on the globe. “I call them open-source because the source code is available, so people can make changes to it. They can provide their own contributions, come up with a better version of my books,” Bergmann continues.

Bergmann has been a part of Robinson’s past and present in a way no one else has, which perhaps makes him suited to predicting what the future has in store for the CS department. “I think the [future] is bright. We’ve hired a number of very bright young faculty, and many faculty are doing outstanding research. We're gaining national and international recognition for the work we’re doing, putting in graduate programs–we’re expanding quite a bit. The department is growing at a faster rate than the rest of the university as far as I know,” Bergmann says. “The department needs to maintain a focus on education for undergraduate students and focus on teaching because that’s really where we came from.”

Glassboro State started as a teacher’s school. It was a place for instructing future educators. Now it’s trying to be South Jersey’s research powerhouse. The humble teacher’s college of yesteryear seems to balk in the shadow of what Rowan is today—but we haven’t left Glassboro State behind, nor should we. The era of Glassboro State is no less influential than the Rowan era of now and remains an important part of Robinson’s history. 

Written by Kiley Parker | Posted 3.27.25