Category Archives: Silent Glen Speaks

Feminism is still needed

Many blogs have already piped up on the THE article on the deadly sins of academia (thanks to Gordon Wilfong for first directing me to it).  The article isn’t entirely at fault and meant to be in good fun.  The section on Lust, though, by Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham contains such gems that I am sure I need not editorialize:

Normal girls – more interested in abs than in labs, more interested in pecs than specs, more interested in triceps than tripos – will abjure their lecturers for the company of their peers, but nonetheless, most male lecturers know that, most years, there will be a girl in class who flashes her admiration and who asks for advice on her essays. What to do?

Enjoy her! She’s a perk.

I would like to point out, though, the language he uses in his rant:

[T]he universities are where the male scholars and the female acolytes are. […] The fault lies with the females. The myth is that an affair between a student and her academic lover represents an abuse of his power.

While I haven’t personally crossed paths with such overt comments as by Kealy (I have come very close though), the stereotype that men are thinkers and women are not still exists.  Feminism advocates equal rights and equal opportunities for women.  It is our responsibility to create an academic environment that is welcoming to all people, regardless of race, gender or economic means.

Department retreat

I had my first department retreat today.  I should have gone to the one at Brown when grad students were invited, but I skipped it – it was during one of my “I hate grad school and I just want to curl up and think about how I will never graduate” phases.  A topic for another day.

But this was a faculty-only retreat – and certainly my first opportunity to participate in one.  After all the complaining I’ve heard from faculty (not at OSU!  I swear!) about such retreats, I expected an 8 hour meeting with coffee breaks.  But it was fun!  I already feel at home with my colleagues.  Lively debates, interesting ideas.  An hour was devoted to “how to advise grad students” aimed at educating the new faculty.  It was particularly comforting to know that many not-so-junior faculty were asking the questions I expect I will ask.  (Assuming I attract a grad student.)

The numbers were a little daunting though.  10 Ph.D. students?  At once?  50 in career?  Really?

Three of my colleagues also admitted to being arrested.  Multiple times each.

I have so much catching up to do.

Why blog?

Bill Gasarch asked me to make a statement about my blog and in responding to him, I realized I might as well post it here.

This blog will likely be YATB (yet another theory blog) – hopefully I will have something new and interesting to say.  I’d been subscribing to the Theory of Computing Blog Aggregator for some time now (a tool I am very thankful for), but of the 20 or so blogs it contains, Sorelle Friedler’s is the only one by a woman.  If we want to balance the gender inequity in our field, we need to get more women into the system.  If we raise the profile of the women already in TCS (or CS or math or engineering), then perhaps it will seem more desirable to undecided female high school and undergraduate students.

I can’t remember the reference, but someone pointed out on a TCS blog that a particular program committee was rife with TCS bloggers, so yes, my motivation is also selfish.  I am hoping that this blog will gain me exposure, particularly in TCS, and garner me advice.  After all, I’m on my own out here.  Already it feels less lonely.

So I’m not sure what I will blog about.  It will likely be a mix of technical posts and posts about my professional life.  I will feed the TCS-related posts to the ToC blog aggregator.

Algorithms advertising for incoming grad students

One of my first professorial tasks will be a 4-minute talk to incoming grad students. I don’t expect any of the students in the audience will be explicitly interested in algorithms research.  After all, when they applied, there weren’t any algorithms profs here to advise them.  So, I’m not sure what the best use of this time is.

I could ignore the fact that they are likely interested in doing everything but proofs and give my 4 minute blurb as though there were potentially interested students in the audience.  I could appeal to the coadvising role of “whatever your research is, there is probably an algorithmic viewpoint”.  I could just say “this is what algorithms is” and leave it at that.  Besides, (and lucky for me) all the CS Ph.D. students have to take a grad algorithms class – and guess who is teaching that in the first quarter.

However, as far as I know, the EE and masters students don’t have to take the algorithms class.  Do you think I should be convincing them to?

Newly minted

I just started – a week before my official start date – as an assistant professor at Oregon State University in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  I feel very luck to be here, to have landed a job in a year when many of few job openings were rescinded because of the crumbling economy, let alone in an incredibly friendly department in a beautiful town near mountains and oceans.

I am alone as a TCS person in the department, and I’m sure I will feel some isolation as a result.  I am really hoping that I will be able to work on some interesting problems with non-TCS people.  My background, though, is in very traditional algorithmic work, so I am sure there will be growing pains. I’ll start with what will probably be the first of many requests for advice: any advice?