Nearly 150 undergraduates from SJTU Zhiyuan College (SJTU College) packed Classroom 1-300 in the East Middle Building (Dong ZhongYuan) on December 26. They were excited about the first class of the "Mathematics in Computer Science" course to be given by Prof. John Hopcroft, a world-renowned grandmaster of algorithm.

Prof. Hopcroft is professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in Computer Science at Cornell University and he was honored with the A. M. Turing Award, ACM's most prestigious technical award, for his achievements in algorithm and data structure design and analysis in 1986. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

Right before Prof. Hopcroft arrived at SJTU at Christmas Eve to give this three-credit course to SJTU College students, he just finished his courses at Cornell University. The Course here will last from December 26, 2011 to January 13, 2012. It is the first SJTU-Cornell cooperation move to co-culture the top-notch talents in computer science. It is said that another three-credit course will be opened by Prof. Hopcroft at SJTU in late May, 2012.

Before the class beginning, President Zhang Jie introduced Prof. Hopcroft to students. On behalf of SJTU and the College, he felt thankful to Prof. Hopcroft for his giving up the Christmas holiday and giving lectures at SJTU. It is the first time for SJTU to have a Turing award-winner to give lectures, which is a fortune for SJTU students. President Zhang encouraged students to cherish this great chance with a conscientious attitude to get a real comprehension of computer science from a mathematical point of view.

When the class began, Prof. Hopcroft stepped up to the podium with thick lecture notes in hand. He encouraged students to feel free to interrupt him at any time if they have any questions and hoped the class would be active. After the attentive lecture-giving and attending, students surrounded Prof. Hopcroft and raised much more questions which all got patiently answered.

The opening of the course could hardly do without a lot of preparation made by the SJTU College and Department of Computer Science & Engineering. They have arranged two assistant instructors for Prof. Hopcroft and 10 TAs. And there is also a special English homepage for the course in order to achieve the best teaching results.