Keith Slaughter, LAS ’75 Individual Plans of Study, walked into a bar on Green Street on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign one fall evening in 1973. When he walked out, the course of his life had changed.

All because of a conversation he had inside the bar with Bonnie Anderson Seiler.

PLATO Colleagues

Anderson Seiler and Slaughter were colleagues in the PLATO Computer-based Education Research Laboratory at what is now the Grainger College of Engineering. Well before this conversation took place, Anderson Seiler had hired Slaughter as a student programmer.

“I had been looking to hire some student programmers for the elementary math project I was working on,” says Anderson Seiler, who had just earned her master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the College of Education. “My brother Erik, a classmate of Keith’s, told me that Keith was the smartest student in their computer science class. He was my first hire.”

“Bonnie taught me good computer-based education lesson design principles, along with how to work as a member of a professional team,” Slaughter says. “My job was to take Bonnie’s initial design and implement it as a programmer.”

They worked together on numerous PLATO programs, with Slaughter developing and programming games for elementary students to learn math—and have fun while doing so.

The Defining Moment

But let’s get back to the bar.

Over a few beers with Anderson Seiler and other PLATO colleagues, Slaughter admitted that he had been thinking of leaving school but was really enjoying working with everyone at the lab and designing educational programs for students.

“Well, Keith,” Anderson Seiler said, “you know you could do this for a living, right?”

The bar became brighter at that moment because of the lightbulb that came on over Slaughter’s head.

“That was the first time I’d actually thought that I could do computer programming for a career and have a social impact, and I was very interested in doing that,” Slaughter recalls. “At that point, I really had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do professionally. Then I started doing this work and I thought, ‘Oh this is pretty cool.’ She had that conversation with me and that’s when I really started thinking in that way that yes, I could do this.”Fast forward to the present.

Slaughter did make a career out of computer programming. He worked as a computer programmer and manager at the University of Illinois, at Control Data Corporation in Minneapolis, at the University of Delaware (with Anderson Seiler), and at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. He was also an independent computer consultant in various locales across the country. His work has had a lot of impact on countless numbers of people.

Endowment for Students in CS + Education Program

And that impact will continue, as he has established the Bonnie Anderson Seiler Scholarship Endowment in honor of his colleague—and to recognize the influence she had on his life.

“The endowment is intended to support the Department of Curriculum and Instruction within the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,” says Jana Zollinger, director of advancement for the Grainger College of Engineering. “Its primary purpose is to provide undergraduate scholarships for students in the CS + Education program with an emphasis on learning sciences, with a preference for Illinois residents. The most notable aspect of the scholarship is its connection to CS + Education, as the collaboration between the two colleges is unique and meaningful.”

“CS + Education didn’t exist at the university in the early 1970s,” Slaughter says. “I believe this program is helpful for undergraduate students interested in a career involving computer technology in education to learn fundamental teaching and educational design principles alongside computer-related implementation skills to get a head start.”

The gift, Zollinger adds, is from a qualified charitable distribution from Slaughter’s IRA. “This allows him to contribute directly to the endowment while enjoying the tax advantages associated with this type of charitable giving,” she notes.

Leaving a Legacy

Slaughter is quick to mention that so many other people could be honored for their contributions to computer-based instruction, but he picked Anderson Seiler because he worked closely with her and because of the influence she had on him at a crucial point in his life.

“She basically kept me in school,” Slaughter laughs. “When I started working with her, I began to see purpose in completing my degree, and that’s why I have a particular focus on honoring her.”

In creating the endowment, Slaughter says he wanted to leave a legacy that would benefit others beyond his lifespan.

“Bonnie was largely responsible for inspiring my early professional career, so it seems appropriate to honor her pioneering contributions to the field,” he says.

The two have stayed in touch over the years. When Slaughter called Anderson Seiler to get her approval to have the endowment named for her, she at first was aghast.

“I laughed a lot and emphatically said ‘no’ many times,” she recalls. “But I realized he wanted to give back to his alma mater, and he’s a humble guy and didn’t want to call it the ‘Keith Slaughter Endowment,’ so he picked me! I feel very honored.”