Emeritus professor receives highest award from accrediting body
December 7, 2011
CLEMSON, SC – December 6, 2011 – Joseph Turner Jr., an emeritus professor of computer science atClemson University, has received the highest award bestowed by theaccrediting body for university science and engineering programs.
Turner received the Linton E. Grinter Distinguished Service Award at the 2011 annual meeting of ABET,a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that accredits college anduniversity programs in the disciplines of applied science, computing,engineering and engineering technology.
Turner, a creator andfounding chairman of the Seoul Accord for worldwide computingaccreditation, was cited for outstanding leadership in computingaccreditation worldwide… and for being a catalyst behind the growth ofcomputing accreditation in the United States over the last 25 years.
Amultilateral agreement among agencies from eight nations, the SeoulAccord established mutual recognition for accreditation of undergraduatecomputing and IT-related programs.
Turner has taken leadershippositions in the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board (CSAB) since1986 and in ABET since the two organizations integrated in 2000. He wason ABET’s Computing Accreditation Commission and a member-at-large onthe commission’s Executive Committee. He was named a Fellow of ABET in2007.
Turner joined Clemson in 1975 as an assistant professor ofmathematical sciences; he retired as a professor of computer science in2000. He was head of the Clemson computer science department from 1978to 1992.
After retiring from Clemson, he was a dean and professor at Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, until 2004.
He became a member of ABET’s Accreditation Council Training Committeein 2008 and chaired the committee from 2009 to 2011. He also was arepresentative to the International Federation for InformationProcessing and a member of its council, and was on the editorial boardsof three academic journals.
He was vice president of theAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM), president of the ComputingSciences Accreditation Board, chairman of the ACM Education Board and amember of the boards of directors of the Computing Research Association,the National Educational Computing Association and the Association ofSpecialized and Professional Accreditors.
Turner receivedbachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from Georgia Tech and adoctorate in computer science from the University of Maryland.
