Adjunct Professor of Computer Science David Bostain, who worked at Mercer for the past 30 years, passed away unexpectedly in his home on April 7 according to an email sent to the college community the following week.
Teaching professionally since 1970, Professor Bostain was known for encouraging his students to go beyond what they thought they could accomplish. According to his niece, “teaching was his most favorite thing in life.”
The notification sent out to the college employees said “Dave was known for raising the bar in his classroom, pushing students to reach their fullest potential in challenging Computer Science courses.” It also noted that his niece said, “teaching was his most favorite thing in life.”
According to Professor of Information Systems at Rider University Jia Shen, “David was well respected by our students, and was well known for his expertise on a variety of IS/IT topics, hands-on approach in teaching technology and willingness to go extra miles in helping students.”
In an email, MCCC Student Government President Christian Perez, who had Prof. Bostain as a professor said he was “greatly inspired by” and “appreciative” of him. Perez says he plans to push for “a banner to be created for [Professor Bostain’s] former and current students to sign if they wish” to honor his memory.
In addition to teaching, Professor Bostain was a partner in Systems Consulting Company, CB Thinkx LLC and worked for IBM where he provided technical sales support for the MQSeries product line.
He also worked for the Educational Testing Service for 20 years where he led the Systems Programming team. It was during his time at ETS in 1988 that he was involved in patenting a new image processing system, designed to process data from paper forms and store them digitally for future use.
Professor Bostain was also a certified flight instructor, acrobatic pilot and professional musician.
