When Father Thomas Lockary C.S.C.  left Notre Dame  in 1955, he was somewhat skeptical about his new assignment at the fledgling Stonehill College.  "I never thought the place would amount to anything," he'd often remark. Yet, ironically,  Lockary's presence at the college was one of the very reasons that Stonehill  has matured to a highly regarded academic institution.

Not content with being the entire math and physics department, "Lock" took an interest in computers and computer programming. In the 1960s, he introduced  programming  into Stonehill's curriculum.   It was Lockary who established Stonehill's first "computer center" in a small classroom equipped with one Teletype 33 terminal which was  connected to some far away mainframe.  Here,  Father Lockary taught Stonehill's first course in BASIC programming.   Students stored their programs not on a disk but on punched paper tape.

During the 80's, Father Lockary served as System Administrator for Stonehill's Academic Computing Department  and also taught in the Computer Science Program.  The Lockary Computer Center at Stonehill College was named in his honor.

Teletype 33 terminal