On April 30 and May 1, 1999, a workshop was held at the Federated Computer Research Conference (FCRC) by the Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computer Science and Engineering. (CRA-W). The goal of the workshop, entitled "Research Careers for Women in Computer Science and Engineering" was to provide mentoring activities targeting women in professional research careers. The CRA-W workshop was structured to provide researchers at all levels critical information about the culture of and content required for professional research, and contacts with successful role models and mentors. Mentoring activities are especially important for women researchers in Computer Science and Engineering as they typically have few female colleagues and role models, and may be concerned about their potential for success. Successful mentoring activities not only benefit their recipients but the community at large by improving the professional research climate for all its constituents, and by increasing the number of successful female role models for the next generation of students making pivotal career decisions.

Previous mentoring workshops focused primarily on academic careers for beginning female researchers, and our goal with the FCRC ’99 workshop was to expand the mentoring workshop format to provide critical mentoring information for women at all levels of professional research. The workshop was chaired by Professor Francine Berman (U. C. San Diego) with program vice-chairs Professor Nancy Leveson (M.I.T.), Professor Anne Condon (University of Wisconsin) and Dr. Joann Ordille (Lucent Technologies).

The target audience of the workshop was women in professional research positions in Computer Science and Engineering, as well as graduate students. To serve this audience, the program was developed to target 3 groups: graduate students and pre-tenure faculty, post-tenure (senior) faculty, and women researchers in industry and at research laboratories (as represented by the national laboratories). The workshop was structured as a set of whole group panel sessions, parallel panel sessions, and group activities. Meals underscored the workshop focus: participants at lunch the first day were grouped by research area so that they could begin making professional connections within their own disciplines, dinner the first day was coupled with a networking practicum which enabled the participants to use the skills discussed during the first day’s "Networking and Professional Social Interactions" panel, lunch the second day featured a Keynote speech by Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy, Assistant Director of the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at NSF. During the workshop, panels that were of general interest were directed to the whole group and panels of specialized interest to one or two of the groups were scheduled in parallel. A listing of the agenda and the speakers is given in Appendix A.

The workshop was attended by 154 participants including 49 panelists. Panelists represented research academic institutions from both inside and outside the United States, the national research laboratories (Lawrence Livermore, Argonne, Sandia), the NSF Supercomputer Centers (NPACI), the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, as well as AT&T Research, Bell Labs, Xerox Parc, InterTrust Technologies, Lucent Technologies, IBM, etc..

All participants were given evaluations and 100 evaluations were returned (3 from undergraduates, 66 from graduate students, postdocs and pre-tenure faculty, 14 from post-tenure faculty, 2 from national lab researchers, and 15 from industrial researchers) . The evaluations (the format is listed in Appendix B) provide important information on how the workshop was experienced by the participants as well as how to improve future workshops. Participants were asked to "score" the success of the workshop on a scale from 1 to 10. The workshop was ranked 10 by 30% of the participants, 9 by 15% of the participants, 8 by 36% of the participants, 7 by 10% of the participants, and below 7 by 8% of the participants. Informally, the participants felt that the workshop made an important contribution to their career and provided both mentoring for and ideas about how to deal with the challenges of achieving success in Computer Science and Engineering research.

We were very fortunate to be able to fund most of the attendees to come and participate in the workshop through generous support from the National Science Foundation and the SIG Govening Board. Without this support, many of the participants would not have been able to attend. At the end of the workshop, both participants and panelists felt that they had been a part of something important that contributed to both their own and others’ professional lives. It was a gratifying experience for all who were involved, and the workshop serves as an example of the very best use of support for mentoring and professional development activities.

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APPENDIX A: WORSKSHOP ORGANIZATION AND AGENDA

General Chair: Francine Berman, U. C. San Diego
Vice Chair for Pre-tenure Program: Anne Condon, University of Wisconsin
Vice Chair for Industry and National Lab Program: Joann Ordille, Lucent Technologies
Vice Chair for Post-tenure Program: Nancy Leveson, M.I.T.
Workshop Coordinator: Kimberly Peaks, CRA
Publicity: Ann Redelfs, NPACI
Workshop Advisory Committee: Bill Aspray, CRA
Jan Cuny, University of Oregon
Leah Jamieson, Purdue University

WORKSHOP AGENDA


FRIDAY, April 30, 1999

Whole Group Panel: "Research as a Career"

Panelists: Anne Condon, University of Wisconsin
Jeanne Ferrante, U. C. San Diego
Barbara Simons, ACM

Parallel Session:

Pre-tenure track: "Getting a Job" Panel

Panelists: Toni Pitassi, University of Arizona
Faith Fich, University of Toronto
Jennifer Schopf, Northwestern University

Post-tenure track: "From Associate to Full – Going up the Ladder After You’ve
Reached the First Rung" Panel

Panelists: Francine Berman, UCSD
Susan Davidson, University of Pennsylvania
Barbara Ryder, Rutgers University

Industry/National Lab track: "Models of Industrial and National Lab Research" Panel

Panelists: Margaret Simmons, NPACI
Julia Hirschberg, AT&T Research
Milena Mihail, Georgia Institute of Technology
Mary Zosel, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lunch (Participants grouped by research area)

Parallel Session:

Post-tenure Track: "Career Options Beyond Research" Panel

Panelists: Mary Lou Soffa, University of Pittsburgh
Jeanne Ferrante, UCSD
Teresa Lunt, Xerox PARC

Industry/National Lab track: "Industry and National Lab Career Options"

Panelists: Margaret Wright, Bell Labs
Lori Freitag, Argonne National Laboratory
Karin Petersen, Xerox Parc

Whole Group Panel: "Networking and Professional Social Interactions"

Panelists: Susan Eggers, University of Washington
Kathryn McKinley, University of Massachusetts
Susan Owicki, InterTrust Technologies Corporation

Networking Practicum and Dinner

SATURDAY, May 1, 1999

Whole Group Panel: "Getting Funding"

Panelists: Caroline Wardle, NSF
Frederica Darema, NSF
James Cassatt, NIH

Parallel Session:

Pre-tenure track: "The Tenure Process" Panel

Panelists: Mary Jane Irwin, Penn State University
Sheila Castaneda, Clarke College

Post-tenure track: "Reinventing Your Research Career" Panel

Panelists: Leah Jamieson, Purdue University
Maria Klawe, University of British Columbia

Industry/National Lab track: "Strategies for Success in Industry and the National
Labs" Panel

Panelists: Joann Ordille, Lucent Technologies
Rosemary Chang, SGI
Dona Crawford, Sandia National Laboratory
Laura Haas, IBM Almaden

Lunch Keynote: Ruzena Bajcsy, Assistant Director, NSF CISE Directorate

Whole Group Panel: "Time Mangagement, Family and Quality of Life Issues"

Panelists: Jan Cuny, University of Oregon
Carla Brodley, Purdue University
Judith Klavans, Columbia University




APPENDIX B: EVALUATION FORM PROVIDED TO THE PARTICIPANTS

A compendium of all workshop evaluations is available upon request. Below is the evaluation form provided to the participants for evaluation.

1999 FCRC CRA-W Workshop on Research Careers for Women in Computer Science and Engineering

We would like your help in assessing the effectiveness of this workshop, and your guidance in planning similar events in the future. Please take a few minutes to give us your opinions. Thanks very much.

1. Please let us know which group you are in (circle one):
Graduate student/ Pre-tenure Faculty
Post-tenure Faculty
Industry
National Laboratory

2. What is your overall rating of the workshop? (1-10 with 10 excellent)

3. What topics or presentation(s) did you find the most helpful?

4. Do you have suggestions for improving the presentations of any topic? Are there other topics that you would have liked to see?

5. Would you have come to this workshop if it were not associated with a technical conference?

6. How did you find out about the workshop?

7. This year we expanded the scope of the workshop and had parallel tracks. Did you primarily attend panels targeted to the same audience (Grad/Pre-tenure, Post-tenure, Industry/Lab) or to different audiences? Which track(s) did you attend?

8. Were there two or more panels which ran at the same time that you would have liked to attend? Which ones? Which did you attend?

9. What suggestions do you have for improving the workshop?