"Like so many people who passed through SCS during Mark's long tenure, I owe him more than I could ever hope to pay back in one lifetime. I think it's only fitting to honor his impact, to pay forward his endless support for others, by building a fund that will provide ongoing support for his vision of a CS education program accessible to anyone, anywhere."
Jonathan Betz (SCS 1999)
Stehlik Leaves His Mark
An SCS Constant
CMU launched its undergraduate computer science degree program in 1989, graduating its first cohort of 75 undergrads in 1992. Mark Stehlik advised them all.
While countless things have changed since then, one factor has remained constant: Mark.
For 35 years, he’s advised students, helping them navigate the occasionally rough waters between high school and college graduation. Close to 4,000 advisees (in Pittsburgh and in Doha, Qatar) have benefited from his dedicated guidance and support. And by next May, he'll celebrate the graduation of his fourth advisee whose parent(s) called Mark a mentor, advisor and friend.
Mark has also taught thousands of students in a variety of 100- and 200-level computer science courses since he became faculty in 1982.
More Than an Adviser
Mark's dedication to students extends beyond advising and teaching, though. In the 1980s and 1990s, Mark trained close to a thousand AP Computer Science high school teachers. In the late 1990s, he and Corey Kosak led C++ summer workshops for almost 250 high school teachers as part of Allan Fisher and Jane Margolis’s NSF-sponsored 6APT program that helped equalize the gender balance in computer science at CMU.
In 2018, he co-founded CMU CS Academy, which provides free online computer science curricula for high school and middle school classrooms that has been consumed by more than 400,000 students to date. Mark also became the first teaching-track faculty member at CMU to be elevated to University Professor in 2023.
Mark's SCS legacy is indelible, but his retirement is imminent.
To celebrate his career and his impact on students at CMU and beyond, SCS has created the Mark Stehlik Endowment for CMU CS Academy. Donations to the fund will support the initiative to ensure that CMU CS Academy exists in perpetuity.
We will honor Mark at Spring Carnival in 2025. But you can start the celebration now by making a donation.
Leave a Comment for Mark
Have a favorite Mark story or memory? Or maybe you'd simply like to offer a note of congratulations? Leave your comment below to add to our tribute wall.