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The goal of the BOFs is to provide an informal discussion in
a specific topic area. While
we are interested in a wide range of topics, we particularly
encourage those which will bring together participants with
a common interest in technical areas. For example, if you
want to meet other conference participants interested in the ubiquitous computing
research area, propose a BOF that will
achieve this goal. A BOF proposal should include an abstract
on the topic of the BOF, the expected audience for the BOF
session, and a brief summary on the qualifications of the
organizer who will lead the BOF session.
Dr. Jeffrey R. N. Forbes, BOF Commitee Chair
Duke University,
forbes@cs.duke.edu
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BIRDS-OF-A-FEATHER (BOF)
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Developing Outreach Programs through Student-Run Presentations:
Carnegie Mellon's Women@SCS "Outreach Roadshow"
Lenore Blum, Carnegie Mellon University
Carol Frieze, Carnegie Mellon University
We have organized a BoF discussion session based on our
Women@SCS Roadshow which is an Outreach presentation run by a
group of women faculty, graduates and undergraduates from
Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. We will
demonstrate how the Outreach Roadshow can be used with students
and school children to challenge some of the stereotypes that
still exist in the field. In particular we will look at
changing images of computer scientists and the changing image
of the field.
We will encourage discussion on how this type of outreach
program can be adapted to different age ranges, venues, and how
it can become a tool for both computer science students (in
particular women and other underrepresented groups) and
classroom teachers. The discussion will focus on what works and
what doesn't work; adapting the presentation to meet the needs
of teachers; adapting the program for online use; and on how
such a presentation can provide opportunities for computer
science students to act as role models and leaders thus
increasing the visibility of women (and other underrepresented
groups) in the field. The discussion will also ask how/can such
programs can be evaluated for their value and effectiveness.
This BoF should be fun and interactive for all participants!!
The discussion will serve a variety of interests but will be
especially attractive to those looking for ideas on computer
science outreach, mentoring and role modeling. Students,
teachers and parents should find this discussion useful and
members of student organizations looking to produce outreach
programs of their own would also make great
participants.
Women@SCS: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~women
Outreach Roadshow: http://wascs.sp.cs.cmu.edu/What/Outreach/Roadshow/
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| About the Organizers: |
Lenore Blum
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Lenore Blum is Distinguished Career Professor of Computer
Science at Carnegie Mellon University where she is co-Director
of the NSF-ITR funded ALADDIN Center (for ALgorithm ADaptation,
Dissemination and IntegratioN) and faculty advisor to the
student organization, Women@SCS. She received her Ph.D. from
M.I.T. in 1968 (the same year Princeton first allowed women to
enter their graduate program). For over 30 years, she has
created programs to increase the participation of girls and
women in scientific and technical fields and co-founded many
pro-active organizations such as the Math/Science Network and
its Expanding Your Horizons conferences.
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Carol Frieze
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Carol Frieze (MA in Literary and Cultural Studies, CMU) has been
Associate Director for Women@SCS for the past 3 years. She
helped design and implement the Women@SCS Roadshow. She taught
Cultural Studies in the CMU English department for 4 years while
she was enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate, and worked as a student
academic advisor in the College of Humanities and Social
Sciences. Frieze has a background in inner-city high school
teaching and in hospital teaching. Frieze also maintains the
School of Computer Science web site at Carnegie Mellon
University.
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Allison Clark, National Center for Supercomputer Applications
Phoebe Lenear, National Center for Supercomputer Applications
Coalition to Diversify Computing: Distributed Rap Session
Strong support systems are critical to the success of any
rigorous graduate program; especially graduate programs in
computer engineering, computer science and computational
science. Such programs are very demanding, due to the
significance of research projects. It is well known that a
community of peers can provide this needed support system. It
is important, however, that this community consists of peers
with common backgrounds, both ethnically and intellectually.
This can be a problem for minority graduate students in the
area of computing, for which the numbers are very small.
The goal of this project was three-fold:
- Continue the project that began in 2001 by Valerie Taylor and Bryant York
that focused on building a virtual community of minority
undergraduate and graduate students.
- Expose minority undergraduate computer science and engineering students to
research.
- Hold short research meetings with undergraduate
students to discuss research progress, problems encountered,
and goals achieved.
The Access Grid (AG) is an ensemble of resources that can be
used to support human interaction across distributed sites,
called Access Nodes. The resources include multimedia
displays, presentations and interaction environments as well as
the interfaces to visualization technology. Access Grid nodes
are "designed spaces" that explicitly contain the high-end
audio and video technology needed to provide high-quality
compelling user experiences.
During summer 2003, the AG was used to create a virtual
community of underrepresented minority undergraduate students
from Clark Atlanta University (CAU) and the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and to discuss graduate
school opportunities and research projects. In addition to
exploring the virtual community concept, the project
investigated the use of the AG to support distant mentoring.
Can the AG support the research process between remote students
and faculty?
In the BoF, students will present their research and share
their experiences-pros and cons in participating in virtual
communities and distance mentoring relationships.
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| About the Organizers: |
Allison Clark
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Allison Clark is the Assistant Director of Digital Equity
Initiatives at the National Center for Supercomputing
Application (NCSA). NCSA is the leading edge site of the
National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance), one of the
two partnerships funded by the National Science Foundation.s
(NSF) Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure
(PACI) program. Dr. Clark develops programs to create strategic
relationships between the Alliance and members of
underrepresented groups in the area of high performance
computing. Her Digital Equity Initiatives program and Minority
Serving Institutions. (MSIs) program are comprehensive efforts
to involve African American, Hispanic, Native American, and
female scientists and engineers in Alliance and NCSA research
efforts. Dr. Clark earned her Ph.D. in mass media from Michigan
State University. Her research interests are comprised of
investigating culturally specific approaches to bridging the
digital divide.specifically the combination of information
technology with Hip Hop Culture. Recently, in an effort to
utilize high performance computing in the social sciences and
humanities, she has begun to explore the feasibility of creating
self-sustaining, interdisciplinary communities of collaboration
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Phoebe Lenear
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Phoebe E. Lenear received her B. S. and M.S. degrees in general
engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC) with specializations in mathematics and human-computer
interaction. In January 2004, she will be receiving her PhD in
Human Resource Education, with an emphasis in technology
education and training, instructional design, and program
evaluation. Her dissertation topic is entitled, 'The Effect
of an Internet-based Mentoring Program on the Transactional
Distance, Interaction, and Dialogue between Mentors and
Proteges'. Her aspirations are to continue research in
online mentoring and work with inner city schools to assist
them with integrating technology into the classroom.
She currently works as a Program Manager at the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Champaign, IL and
serves as the chairperson of the NCSA Diversity Committee.
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Barbara Simons,
Rebecaa Mercuri
Alice Allen,
Special Video Showing: Counting on Democracy
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