Shirley M. Malcom is well known as a scientist and an advocate for better science education and diversity in science and engineering. As head of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), she leads programs aimed at improving science education, increasing public understanding of science and technology, and increasing participation by underrepresented groups in all areas of science. She holds a PhD in ecology and served on the National Science Board from 1994 to 1998 and on the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology from 1994 to 2001. Last fall, she addressed attendees at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference in Chicago. NCSA's Karen Green caught up with her just after her talk.

Q: In your talk today, you said "There are some issues we can be patient about, and there are others that we need to be impatient about." What are the issues about which scientists and engineers should be impatient?

A: I think we should be impatient about enforcement. We have laws on the books, and yet people are still able to do job searches without really looking. They do sorts, not searches. They sort through the applications they receive. They don't actually search out the good people. I think we need to be impatient with regards to nontraditional women and minorities and the opportunities they have. For example, there are many people, often people who already have degrees, who move into the field or want to move into the field. We need to find more routes that allow them to do this. We need to see that there are opportunities to engage their skills. These are often highly motivated people with a lot to offer to our fields. That's what I mean by being impatient. I can wait to grow a new generation of children, to grow them in the right way. I have to wait. I have no choice. But sometimes you have a choice. There are already a lot of women in computer science and engineering. What are their opportunities to take on leadership roles? We have to be impatient about that.

Q: Women are well represented and have been able to excel in some scientific fields, such as biology and some of the medical fields. Why have these communities been so successful in attracting women and not computer science and engineering?

A: In some fields it's a lot more clear what the relevance is to the things people care about. I think women have been able to connect the biological sciences, for example, to the things that are important to them. In computer science and IT, the marketing has not been done in such a way that people are able to look at the field and the work being done and connect it back to the things they care about. That is the issue for IT and engineering. I don't think it has really been dealt with yet.

Q: It's been said that when women are well represented in a field, salaries on the average tend to be lower. Why?

A: In many cases we are just happy to be there and in many cases we will accept somewhat less than what men would demand. That allows people to devalue what it is that we're bringing to the table. We're willing to be complicit when people are offering us less because we feel that the work is valuable, even if we ourselves are valued less than a colleague.

Q: None of the top universities in engineering and computer science are among those that grant the most degrees to women and minorities. Why do you think that is?

A: They can change that, they really can. But do they want to make the effort? If you can fill up your classes and fill up your program without putting forth the effort to reach out to women and minority students, why bother? If you don't think there is some additional value that diversity brings to your program, why bother? Maybe when it's hard to get foreign students to this country, there will be a lot more attention paid to the people who are already here. But it hasn't happened yet. I remember one instance where a faculty member asked for money to make a recruitment trip to China. He didn't request money for a swing through the southeastern United States. A question that needs to be asked is what are [the top schools] looking for in the students they recruit? Maybe they are asking students to have a record of achievement in an area that hasn't even been made available to them. To be very candid, there are some departments that make me wonder what would have happened if they had looked at my record and judged me only on my record. If that were the case, I wouldn't be here today. They would have to bring me in on my potential. So it's a question of potential and capacity, not necessarily just test scores.

Q: Data shows that the American work force will be primarily nonwhite and include more women than men by 2020. What are the implications of these demographics to the IT field?

A: Shirley Ann Jackson, who is the president of AAAS, calls this the underrepresented majority. When you look at women, who are about half workforce, and you add to that African American, Hispanic, and Native American males, that's a majority of the people. If you ignore the majority, how can you expect to be successful? For one thing, I think that the products that the IT industry makes could very well be out of phase with their markets. That's where we are. There hasn't been a real understanding of that or an acknowledgement of that.

Q: The IT culture is known for demanding long hours. Is that culture changing at all to accommodate the needs people who may want more balance in their lives?

A: I honestly don't know if that culture is changing or not. If you want to talk long hours, I can put my own life up against anybody's long hours. I'm on the road a lot, I have a lot of demands, and I spend the time I need to spend to get things done. And I have children. They're adults now, but that was part of it too. So it's not so much a question of long hours but a question of whether that culture allows variation in the way that you manage to get those work hours in. For example, I worked a regular work day when I could, then I went home, I spent time with my children, I supervised homework, cooked dinner, and after that I'd start again with what needed to be done for work. Does that startup company, that IT company, require that they see your face all the time or will they be satisfied that the work is getting done even if it is getting done remotely? One of the things about technology is that because it allows you to access things remotely and work remotely. Your presence or absence in a space doesn't mean much, except in the context of having to demonstrate to an administrator that you are working. One of the things I tell my staff is that showing up is not what I require, it's getting the work done. People have different styles of work, and I think there has to be room for different styles of work.

Q: Considering how rare women, particularly African American women, are in computer science and engineering, do you think they can truly be themselves in the work place? Or do they have to change in order to thrive?

A: I think they can be themselves. I think that you have to hold on to who you are with both hands because there often is this pressure to homogenize. But that's not why you were hired. That's not what you bring to the table, that's not your value to the organization. Your value is that you are different and you don't just blend in with the scenery. One of the things to look out for and to avoid is the expectation that you will bring only that different perspective and nothing else. When I was a member of the National Science Board, I was not going to let anybody tag me as just "the diversity person." I was there to deal with the issues, whether they were high-performance computing, long-term ecological resources, or whatever. If the question was about engineering research centers, I was there to ask about engineering research centers. I might also ask about diversity, but it certainly wasn't the only thing.

Access Online | posted 4-19-05