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Recruiting Workshop for Women Proves Successful
The Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computer Science and Engineering (CRA-W) recently held two graduate student recruitment workshops in conjunction with the project's Distinguished Lecture Series. The Lucent-funded workshops were designed to encourage undergraduate women to consider graduate school in computer science and engineering.
Held at Duke University, the first workshop's distinguished speaker was Lori Pollock, an associate professor of computer and information sciences at the University of Delaware. Kathy Yelick, a computer science professor at UC-Berkeley, spoke at the second workshop, which was held at the University of Washington.
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| Kathy Yelick UC-Berkeley |
Lori Pollock University of Delaware |
| Kathy Yelick (UC-Berkeley) presented "System Support for Data-Intensive Applications" at the May 22 CRA-W Distinguished Lecture, held at the University of Washington. In April, Lori Pollock (University of Delaware) spoke at Duke University. Pollock's talk was entitled "Program-based Testing of Object-oriented Systems". |
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In addition to lectures by the distinguished speakers, each workshop featured a panel of two current graduate students (one senior and one first year) and a female Ph.D. researcher from industry. The panelists discussed why they chose to attend graduate school and briefly explained their research before inviting the audience to ask questions. Most undergraduates' questions centered on the challenges of graduate school, ranging from the application process and funding issues to the various research opportunities now available in the field of computer science and engineering.
"One of our essential messages is that grad school is not just more of the undergraduate experience of sitting in classes," said Carla Ellis, a Computer Science Professor at Duke University. "Our aim is to express the excitement of research, and it seems to be working, as the panels were well-received by the undergraduate students in attendance."
Ellis serves as chair for the committee responsible for the workshops. Margaret Wright of Bell Laboratories, who originated the project, serves on the organizing committee along with Ann Redelfs (UC, San Diego/San Diego Supercomputer Center), Ann Condon (University of British Columbia), and Mary Lou Soffa (University of Pittsburgh).
Workshops for Fall 2000 are currently being planned, and interested department chairs are encouraged to contact Ellis at carla@cs.duke.edu for additional information. An official "Call for Participation" will go out soon to CRA academic institutions.
CRA-W's mission is to take positive action to increase the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering research and education at all levels. In addition to workshops and networking opportunities, CRA-W activities include mentoring programs and collaborative research projects. More information about CRA-W can be found at http://www.cra.org/Activities/craw/. -KMB
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