Premise #1 -- In today's world of computing, every undergraduate in computer science or computer engineering should receive some basic education related to computation with/about images.
Premise #2 -- In most/many undergraduate programs in computer science or computer engineering, there is no plan to assure that students are exposed to any image-related computation.
Conclusion -- Those of us who specialize in image-related compuation should take the lead and develop new and interesting ways of educating students with/abou image related computation.
2. Two Approaches
Two different approaches spring to mind for increasing students' exposure to image-related computation. One approach is to introduce whole courses devoted to various topics in image-related computation. Another approach is to integrate image-related computation into the traditional "core" courses. These approaches are not mutually exclusive.
2.1. Elective Courses
Many programs probably already have one upper-level undergraduate elective in Computer Vision, or in Image Processing. But possibilities also exist to have courses in Scientific Visualization, Multimedia, Medical Imaging Applications, Robotic Vision, and other topics.
2.2. Integration Into "Core" courses
Opportunities exist to introduce image-related computation in courses such as data structures, computer networks, computer architecture, operating systems, and formal languages. Consider the Data Structures course as an example. Tree data structures are a large part of the course -- why not touch on quadtrees? Recursion and arrays are a part of the course -- why not use a simple boundary following algorithm as an example?
3. What is Needed?
Two major things are needed. One is some informed consensus on some core concepts of image-related computation. Academics should not do this in isolation! Our colleagues in industry who hire our students should educate us about what they think is important and why. The second thing that is needed is development of good instructional resources (textbooks, workbooks, lab exercises, ...).
4. How to Get There?
It is likely that there are many faculty who have some chunk of relevant successful experience that they could share with the community. One way that this panel discussion can faciliate the improvement of undergraduate education is to initiate the creation of an evolving web resource. We encourage people to send us examples of course syllabi, example assignments, book reviews and other commentary.