Before retiring after next fall semester, Dr. Parson reminisces on decades of research and industry experience.

By Julia Moran

Dr. Dale Parson huffs as he enters his office, out of breath from rushing back from the vet. His wife’s favorite cat’s paw pads are inflamed, but he assures that the cat will be okay. Opposite a bookshelf filled with books detailing the ins and outs of programming is a picture of that cat above his desk. Parson wears an orange sweater and blue jeans, and he rests his hands behind his head as he leans back in his chair. His white hair continues down his face into a medium-length beard, and above that rests his thick-rimmed black glasses.

This will be his last spring semester at Kutztown, as Parson will be retiring at the age of 70 at the end of the fall 2024 semester after teaching for sixteen years. In a class with him, students often hear anecdotes relating to his experience as a software engineer at Bell Labs. However, his transition from industry to academia came from not his complete volition but a forceful removal from Bell Labs. Though, he certainly made the most of his time at Kutztown through his research projects in data mining and computer graphics.

Before coming to Kutztown, Parson originally was a pre-law major hoping to become a lobbyist, then a sociology major, then a college drop-out. He trudged onward though, teaching himself electronics, landing a technician job, and returning to school to get a doctorate in computer science. Parson is nonchalant as he describes moving from one major to another, and the reason behind his final decision to pursue software engineering is casual as well. “I found out I was good at it,” he explains with a laugh. “[It was] stuff that I was good at and then I liked so I could make a living on.”

Good at it he was, as he soon earned an engineering position at Bell Labs, which, at the time, was at the forefront of research and development in technology. Just a few of its accomplishments include the invention of the transistor, the laser, and its discovery of the cosmic microwave background, the most compelling evidence of the Big Bang Theory. Parson joined their ranks and was later promoted to a consulting member of the technical staff, a position only held by the top 1% of the engineers. It seemed that Parson was on track to a prosperous career at Bell Labs, but he had his own reservations about how long that success would last. After a dinner with the big bosses of the company, his wife exclaimed, “I really think they liked your work!” To that, Parson replied, “That could all change tomorrow.”

Sure enough, five years later, Parson was laid off after 20 years of service to the company. Bell Labs itself deteriorated, eventually getting acquired by Nokia, its glory days becoming a ghost story as technology moved on.

Parson had to move on as well, falling back on the connections with Kutztown professors he had since the 1980s. “I always figured I’m doing academia as my last stage in my career anyhow,” he says, but lunches with Dr. Daniel Spiegel and Dr. Harry Gordan (two Kutztown computer science and information technology department professors) secured his spot at Kutztown, with Gordan personally writing a letter encouraging him to apply once he finished his doctorate. Parson even met current President of University Senate and Departmental Chairperson Dr. Lisa Frye during the teaching he did while completing his doctorate. “It was really good because he had a lot of industry experience,” she says of her time as a student of Parson’s. “He would take so much time to discuss with me to make sure I knew what I was doing.”

When Parson finally did become a professor at Kutztown, he combined his industry experience with a dedication to education to develop a unique curriculum. He decided, “I’m gonna treat students just like junior engineers.” Rather than grade students on quizzes and projects created from scratch, Parson gave students existing architecture and code for have students to work on. This not only gave students an experience closer to what they would encounter in the industry but also allowed them to work with and learn from more complex code.

Outside classroom hours, Parson has also worked with students on various projects over the years, such as the decreasing count in raptors at Hawk Mountain. Though raptors used to visit the mountain frequently, their lessened numbers have caused environmental scientists to ring the alarm. “Changes in the health of raptor populations can indicate changes in the environment, and by monitoring such shifts we hope to proactively protect the birds as well as other wildlife and the habitats humans share with them,” the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association’s webpage states. Parson and his students have worked to study over 50 years of data to discover the reason for this disturbance, but for now, it remains a mystery with three main suspects: climate change, disease in the population, and change in wind speeds. A student will be continuing the work this summer to try and reach closer to an answer, though Parson suspects wind speeds are the greatest factor. 

Parson could have focused solely on projects similar to this, but, as Frye states, “[Parson] doesn’t stay in his lane.” Over his desk are framed printouts displaying a rainbow of shapes and lines, the colorful patterns cut across a black background a visual representation of music generated by software. He glances at them as he reminisces on the shows in the planetarium that displayed these and other graphical visualizations of computer music. He also speaks proudly of projects he completed that directly impacted his students, such as one that tracked student work habits to help develop curriculum and another the creation of a diagram description language made to assist a blind student in reading diagrams. “Sometimes he makes me tired when I hear everything he’s done,” Frye admits.

Perhaps he will finally get some rest then with his retirement following the fall semester. After seventy years of living in Berks County, Parson and his family will be moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico once his time at Kutztown has completed. He makes an offhand remark that he had his processed visual artwork displayed in various exhibitions, galleries, and conferences, one being in Seoul, so he hopes to create more art, aiming to submit for an exhibition in Seattle. “It’s going to be sad when he retires,” says Frye. “We’re losing a lot of star faculty members.”

However, despite spending much of his life intertwined with technology, Parson can’t wait to walk away from the computer, his biggest advice for students being to “get off the machine for a couple hours a day.” After all, he has cross-country skiing and hiking trips with his granddaughter to look forward to. He stresses the importance of turning off devices and enjoying the offline world, even during something as mundane as a trip to the vet.