Category Archives: Silent Glen Speaks

Many tenure track jobs available at Oregon State University!

Our department is hiring:

The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science invites applications for several tenure-track professorial positions in Computer Science. We are building research and teaching strengths in the areas of programming languages, databases, software engineering, computer systems, computer security and privacy, and algorithms.

There are also several openings in ECE and across the university (in case you have a two-body problem).  OSU’s enrollment has been growing, and so the faculty is growing with it.  A large, disproportionate portion of the growth has happened among incoming ECE and CS freshman, making our program (which has a fixed number of spots for juniors and seniors) more competitive.

Please spread the word and have your students and colleagues who want to live in paradise apply now.

Smoke-free campus

As of September 1, our campus is now smoke-free. OSU is joining over 700 campuses across the US with the same policy: no smoking on campus, inside or out.  It is definitely welcome to me, for both public and personal health reasons.  I’ve never understood why people still adopt smoking, knowing full well how many negatives it comes with.  And I’ve never appreciated the clouds of smoke at the doors of buildings.  I wonder what the border of campus will be like though.  Are there enough smokers on campus to make a qualitative change along the commercial roads nearby?

Grant writing style questions

This isn’t the most serious question, but when writing a grant (without a co-PI) do you use the royal editorial “we”?  Or do your refer to yourself in the first person?  When citing your own work, do you use your surname or do you say “the PI”?  When writing a grant with more than one person, do you refer to “the PI” and “the co-PI”?

In the grants I’ve read, I’ve seen both.  The ones that use “the PI” and “I” generally sound more confident and strong.  But there is some discomfort to me in doing so.  A little too cocky.

Or tell me to stop quibbling, Cora, and get back to writing.

Women in Theory

I’m on my way back from the 3rd Women in Theory biennial conference. I was invited to the first one, as a participant, but was unable to go due to a combination of teaching my first course, recovering from mono and generally travelling too much in the early months of my post doc. While I’m sorry to have missed that, I am very happy to have been invited this time as a speaker.

The speakers were a cross section of career stages from junior faculty through well-established researchers and covered an array of topics in TCS from algorithms through security. And though the conference was targeted at the 40 or so grad students (only three of which were near graduation), I appreciated the chance to hear survey-ish talks and advice from the panelists (on which all the speakers sat) and meet the next generation of TCS leaders. Well, at least a targeted selection thereof.

Now, I know that such gender-targeted events garner criticism. Is it discrimination to not have male speakers and participants? You probably already know my opinion, but I’ll repeat it here. The gender balance is bad. It’s gotten worse at the undergraduate level since the 80s and 90s and is only very slowly heading toward balance at the graduate and faculty level. Any proponents of the “an unbalanced ratio is possibly the ‘natural’ ratio” can look at any number of fields, (chemistry, medicine, biology) to see that what once was an unbalanced ratio is now balanced. The unbalanced ratio results in discrimination, either explicit or subtle, which causes the numbers to grow ever slowly. Targeted programs and efforts help to overcome this discrimination. The imbalance hurts our field and any field that suffers this problem*. We are missing out on an untapped resource of talent. The Eva Tardoses and Jennifer Chaves and Cynthia Dworks of our world are not anomalies.

I digress. On Monday afternoon, I spoke to a room of 50 women. I have never spoken in front of 50 women before, despite having taught classes upwards of 200 students. In my classes, when I’m feeling lazy and don’t target students to answer questions but just draw from the hands that go up, I don’t get questions or answers from female students. But in this room, many answers. Many questions. Many volunteers. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so at ease giving a lecture before.

I decided, rather than give a talk delving into the details of my own research, or giving an overview of an area, I would give a tutorial. So, I picked up some chalk and taught planar graphs, their properties and how they can be used to design algorithms, for 90 minutes. It went well! I got many blush-inducing thanks after and that made me feel really, really good. I hope others can experience that at some point.

So finally, thank you to Shubhangi Saraf, Tal Rabin, Lisa Zhang and (local organizer) Moses Charikar for making this happen. I do hope it continues to, and I wouldn’t mind at all if it was expanded to have all levels included as participants, because I’d love to go back.

* I have to say that I am very curious as to how a field, such as English, where the gender balance is essentially inverted from our own, handles any discrimination that may arise toward men.

The $17,500 computer science degree

Update: the tuition for this program has been changed and now amounts to about $30,000.  Sadly.

Our department has announced a new, entirely online, bachelor’s degree in computer science which can be completed in one year.  Given that we are a public university, this translates to a $17,500 degree*.

I will admit, when I first heard the idea I did not have very good thoughts about it.  My negative thoughts included

  • one year? yeah right!
  • what about programming languages, theory of computation, AI, etc.?
  • are we designing ourselves out of jobs? (courses will be administered by non-tenure-track instructors)
  • how will standards be maintained?

But then, I got to hear the details.  First, it is a post-baccalaureate degree.  So, students will already have a bachelor’s degree, and will have need to meet OSU’s post-baccalaureate admissions standards.  They will likely be more mature and perhaps working as they study.  I’m also glad to see that they are cautioning that completing the degree in one year would be a very intensive, full-time schedule and include two and three-year plans of study.  The degree is intended as a second degree, so all optional classes in CS are not mandatory.  Of course, this must ruffle some feathers as many courses that are required for graduation in our regular 4-year, first-degree program are not required by this post-bacc degree.  (I’m glad algorithms made the cut.)  As a post-bacc degree, we will still  have the usual cohort of students seeking a CS degree straight out of high-school.  Finally, it seems there is a consensus to require 2 proctored exams per course and, at least for the first few years, the assignments and exams will be the same as in the on-site classes.

I’ve been thinking more generally about online classes and online degrees and their social implications.  One commenter, pointed out some very valid points of the benefits of online education, that I have to agree with.  This degree provides an opportunity for the un- or under-employed to retrain for less than the cost of a new car.  The flexible schedule and location of the online classes will allow non-traditional students to study when they can, at the pace that they can.  I’m excited to see who will complete this program and from where they study.  I’d like to see a concerted effort to recruit women to complete this degree to perhaps counter the gender imbalance in our on-site program.

So, this coming fall, I will be converting my undergraduate algorithms class into an online class in time for a Winter 2013 release.  I’m excited to do this** and I’m sure I will have plenty to say about it in the fall.

* ~$15,000 for tuition (in- or out-of-state) plus additional expenses, such as textbooks (~$50 per course), a compatible laptop or computer (~$600), graduation fee ($300) and 2 proctored exams per course (~$30 each).

** And very glad that my department treats this course development as one class-worth of teaching assignment.

*** If you have questions about the program, please contact the program director directly at PostBacCS-online@oregonstate.edu.

crash course in TCS

I recently gave a pair of talks in the Math Department’s Applied Math Seminar on basics of TCS.  It was intended for a mathematically mature audience with no background in TCS.  The slides for the talk are available here; they are far from perfect — but I will happily take suggestions on things that should be dropped or added.  Interest in the talk was pleasantly high.  High enough that I plan on doing this again and advertising more broadly — to graduate students in physics, engineering, etc.  I also think it acts as a list of topics about which students should be able to answer questions during a comprehensive exam.

Hint.  Hint.

The is-my-comment-appropriate? test

Take your comment and change any gendered words from male to female and ask yourself “Would I say this to or about a man in the same situation?”

For example:

  • “This office is a lot prettier than when I was here” [to a male graduate student, while thumbing the female grad student hard at work] doesn’t change, and your answer would likely be no.
  • “Little girl, you will have to work a lot harder to keep up with the men!” [to a student in the first tutorial of first year physics] becomes “Little boy, you will have to work a lot harder to keep up with the women!”, and your answer would likely be no.
  • “Be careful, you wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a secretary.” [to a female postdoc as she consults a dictionary to settle a disagreement] doesn’t change and your answer would likely be no.
  • “You should be at home, raising children. That is what women are good at.” [to a female professor in her own office] becomes “You should be at home, raising children. That is what men are good at.”, and your answer would likely be no.

Student depression, large classes and online classes

Last quarter, three students I was teaching spoke with me about their depression.  Three of the 160 or so students I was teaching. This was the first time a student had spoken with me about their mental health.  I was happy that these students felt that they could approach me.  I was uncertain of what to say, beyond what I would say to a friend in the same situation.  I was happy that these students assured me they had people (professional or not) to speak with. I was worried about the 157 other students.  How many of them were struggling with depression and distress?  These students who approached me were probably more likely to be seeking counselling – if they were comfortable speaking with me about their problems, they probably were alright with speaking to others.

However, most may not be.  As classes get bigger and move online, the sense of community at a university will degrade.  I won’t know my students.  They won’t know me.  They may not even know their fellow students.  Is this an advised model of education for our youth as they become adults?

Women in Theory workshop — applications due February 29

Applications for attendance at the Women in Theory workshop are due February 29.

The Women in Theory (WIT) Workshop is intended for graduate and undergraduate students in the area of theory of computer science. The workshop will feature technical talks and tutorials by senior and junior women in the field, as well as social events and activities. The motivation for the workshop is twofold. The first  goal is to deliver an invigorating educational program; the second is to bring together theory women students from different departments and foster a sense of kinship and camaraderie.

What I like about this Women in STEM event compared to others is the focus on technical content.  I have been to a number of Women in STEM events and it has, unfortunately, suffered from a “once you’ve been to one you’ve been to them all” feeling.  I wish this workshop had been around in my time.  You may not understand how important it has been to know my fellow female colleagues in theory.  It makes conferences feel much less … sausagey.

I’ll be at the workshop too!  I was invited to speak, and am very excited to be going.  Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave early as I’ll also be starting up the Math/CS REU program at OSU —  applications for that are due today!

Undergraduate-appropriate summer projects

(updated: now with links to projects)

A friend asked me, in reference to my post about the call for proposals for REU positions from CRA, “What kind of projects did you have them work on?”

Two years ago, I proposed two projects and used one.  (I was to have two students, but sadly the shuttle carrying one student to her local airport crashed and she ended up hospitalized with serious injuries.  Last I heard, many months after the accident, she was recovering very well and CRA had set up a last-minute local project for her to work on.)  I include here the two project descriptions I submitted to CRA:

This summer was spent mostly on experimental work rather than theoretical and I was glad for the experimental plan.

For the OSU Math REU program — now accepting applications! — last summer, I proposed a rough area and at the start of the summer changed my mind (while keeping with the spirit of the original area) so that my two summer students could work with my graduate student on what she had already started.  The summer was very successful, resulting in the completion of a paper in which the undergraduate students proved two main theorems.  I had given a thorough outline for one theorem and very little guidance for the second theorem.  They also experimented with generating examples which I think aided in a feeling of productivity and surely helped them understand the problem at hand better. Their summer project report is available here.

Based on this very limited experience, I have the following advice for theoretical-based REUs:

  • If possible, have two undergraduate students working together.
  • Involve a graduate student.  Even a junior graduate student can help fill-in course-level knowledge and can help advise if you need to travel during the summer.
  • Have an experimental (back-up) component.  If they get stuck, the experimental component can help with a sense of productivity and accomplishment.
  • Seek out math, computer-science double majors.

I’d love to hear what other advice/ideas people have.

Did I mention:  the Oregon State University Math REU Program is now accepting applications!  Math/CS double majors are welcome and highly desired!