That was when computer science emerged as an academic discipline distinct from the design and implementation of computers themselves; up to that point, an electrical engineer probably had the confidence that they were at the forefront of technological change.

He's referring to the newly-created "computer science" degrees. The thought must be: why create a degree for a subfield of my field?

I think he's referencing the beginning of "Computer Science" degrees. Computers were researched by electrical engineers and mathematicians before.

Yes. My undergraduate diploma says "Electrical Engineering - Computer Science". Computer science wasn't a full department yet.

Mine says “Linguistics”. I took CS graduate courses, but there wasn't an undergraduate major yet.

My father-in-law had a math degree and was a math professor, and then an EE professor — the latter while he co-founded an AI lab, that hired physics major Richard Stallman and other non-CS-majors.