CRA Bulletin
June 5, 2001
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Last week President Bush signed an executive order extending the life of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) for two more years. The committee's executive authority was due to expire at the end of the month. The Committee was originally formed by President Clinton after such a body was charted by Congress in the High Performance Computing Act and the Next Generation Internet Research Act. The White House press Release can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010601-6.html
In an interview with Reuters, PITAC's co-chair Irving Wladawsky-Berger said that the committee will urge President Bush to increase funding for long-term information technology research, particularly for the National Science Foundation, departments of defense and energy, and NASA. The panel is likely to make its recommendations formally in September or October. (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010604/tc/technology_research_usa_dc_1.html)
Former ITT Chief to Lead Air Force R&D
Marvin Sambur has been chosen by President Bush to be the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Research and Development. Dr. Sambur currently is a consultant with ITT Industries and was its President and CEO from 1998 to 2001. His earlier positions at ITT included President and General Manager of the Aerospace and Communications Division and also of the Electron Technology Division. He received his bachelor's degree from City College of New York and a Master's degree and Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The White House Press release can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/text/20010515-4.html
Mehlman Confirmed to Lead the Office of Technology Policy
The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Bruce P. Mehlman to lead the Office of Technology Policy as Assistant Secretary for Technology at the Department of Commerce. Mehlman previously served as Telecommunications Policy Counsel for Cisco Systems, Inc. He worked with public policy leaders and technologists throughout the information technology community on issues of broadband deployment, wireless networking, e-commerce strategies and Internet policy.
Before joining Cisco, Mehlman served as Policy Director and General Counsel at the House Republican Conference, the House of Representatives' leadership office headed by Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr. He also served as General Counsel of the National Republican Congressional Committee under Chairmen Bill Paxon (NY) and John Linder (GA), before that working as an attorney in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
This information is available on the Office of Technology Policy website at http://www.ta.doc.gov/OTPolicy/AssisSec.htm
Science Committee Considering Education Legislation
House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) has introduced a bill to expand the K-12 education programs at the National Science Foundation. The bill is designed to encourage colleges and universities and businesses to get more involved in improving pre-college education. The bill, H.R. 1858, would authorize Mathematics and Science Partnerships along the lines outlined by in the President's education policy; create new scholarships to attract top college junior and senior math and science majors into teaching; and establish four new university centers on research into teaching and learning.
The Science Committee press release is available at http://www.house.gov/science/press/107pr/107-26.htm
NSF Funds Scholarships for Computer Security and Information Assurance
Citing the need for the most promising minds to focus on cyberthreats, National Science Foundation director Rita Colwell announced NSF's first Scholarship for Service program awards to six institutions as part of an interagency, public/private effort to meet the nationwide needs for computer security and information assurance professionals.
The new scholarships will be awarded through Carnegie Mellon, Iowa State, and Purdue Universities, the Universities of Idaho and Tulsa, and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and will provide more than $8.6 million in first-year funding to educate and develop these new professionals for careers in the government or private sector.
Under the scholarship program, students selected by universities will be prepared to receive bachelors' degrees in information assurance and computer security. The students will have internship opportunities with federal agencies, and then, upon graduation, work for the federal government on a basis of one year of service for each year of scholarship education received.
The NSF press release is available at http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0145.htm
CSTB Call for Papers on Fundamentals of Computer Science: June 20 Deadline
The National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board's Committee on the Fundamentals of Computer Science seeks one to three page abstracts from computer science researchers, scientists, and educators in academia and industry that characterize or illustrate the core intellectual activities of computer science. CSTB has convened an expert committee of leading computer scientists and engineers from academia and industry, chaired by Mary Shaw of Carnegie Mellon University, to explore and articulate fundamental questions and challenges that drive computer science research, examine the intellectual interplay between CS and other disciplines, characterize CS as an area of intellectual inquiry, and develop approaches for communicating these ideas to a broader audience. The committee is in the early stages of the study and seeks input from the community.
Selected contributors will be invited to participate in a symposium to be held in Washington, D.C., July 25-27, thereafter expanding upon their ideas in a full-length article. Elaborated papers may also be published as companions to the Committee's final report. All submitted abstracts will be made publicly available at the committee's Web site, and all authors invited to the July symposium will have an opportunity to extend their submissions following the July symposium. The submission deadline for abstracts is June 20, 2001.
The Call for Papers can be found on the project's website at http://www4.nationalacademies.org/cpsma/cstb.nsf/web/project_fcs?OpenDocument
High Salaries, Job Satisfaction among Computer Science Bachelor's Degree Recipients
The National Center for Education Statistics has released a report on the employment outcomes of the 1992-1993 college graduates who did not go on to graduate school. Among all fields, only in computer science did those working full time receive higher (31%) than average (25%) salary increases between 1994 and 1997. At the same time, the report notes an across-the-board disparity of salaries between men and women. Among computer science graduates, men's full-time salaries averaged $47,697 while women earned $38,881.
The study also examined other aspects of employment including job stability, job benefits, and job satisfaction. Taking into account all these aspects along with salary, engineering and computer science stood out as the fields with the most consistent favorable employment outcomes for bachelor's degree recipients. Computer Science was the only field in which majors reported high satisfaction with working conditions more often than all graduates.
The report, From Bachelor's Degree to Work, can be found on the NCES website at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001165
Continued Growth in Number of Undergraduate Computer Engineering Degrees
The number of undergraduate engineering degrees granted in 2000 increased to 63,635, according to the American Association for Engineering Societies' Engineering Workforce Commission survey, Engineering and Technology Degrees, 2000. This compares to 62,500 degrees granted in 1999.
Computer engineering now has the third most new undergraduates at 9,816 degrees awarded and is the only discipline within engineering with sustained growth over the preceding decade. Undergraduate degree totals in computer engineering have grown an average of 9.4% each year since 1991 (19.8% in 2000).
The report can be purchased through AAES EWC at http://www.aaes.org/content.cfm?L1=1&L2=4&L3=2&PID=1
CRA Testimony on Scientific Allocation of Scientific Resources
Dr. Andy van Dam presented testimony at the Symposium on Allocation of Federal Resources for Science and Technology on May 22, 2001. The Symposium focused on the NSB Committee on Strategic Science and Engineering Policy Issues' draft discussion document, The Scientific Allocation of Scientific Resources, which contains the preliminary recommendations from the committee's study on how priorities might best be set across fields and disciplines in the Federal budget for research. Dr. van Dam is the T. J. Watson Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science at Brown University, as well as a former Board member of the Computing Research Association.
Dr. van Dam's testimony and slides are available at http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/advocacy/vandam_test01.html
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2002
The Institute for Women and Technology's Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2002 is the fourth in a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. The conference will take place October 10-12, 2002 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the first international location for the series. Submissions are due October 1, 2001 for technical papers , panels, workshops, technical posters, birds-of-a-feather sessions, and Technology Innovation Forums.
For more information, contact Ann Redelfs, SDSC, redelfs@sdsc.edu, 858-534-5032 or visit http://www.gracehopper.org.