Santa Clara University

Santa Clara, CA

August 5-7, 1999

The Education, Training, and Training Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (EOT-PACI, www.eot.org) is a joint venture of the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance) and the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The Leading-Edge Sites, or headquarters, for these two partnerships are at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (for the Alliance) and the University of California, San Diego (for NPACI). Both have had high-performance computing centers since the mid-1980’s, and both organizations are very concerned about the participation of women in science, engineering, and mathematics. Both have long had outreach programs for women and girls, but only in the past two years has there been a concentrated effort to bring together these programs through EOT-PACI.

A critical part of EOT-PACI, in addition to the programs for women and girls, is evaluation. The importance of evaluating programs cannot be emphasized enough, and EOT-PACI plans to evaluate all of its programs. Programs are evaluated by the LEAD Center (Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation, and Dissemination) at the University of Wisconsin; this provides feedback that allows improvements before scaling programs to a national level. An excellent example is the evaluation of the GirlTECH program at Rice University, which is an EOT-PACI partner.

The GirlTECH/Mathematical and Computational Sciences Awareness (MCSA) summer program at Rice University brings 35-40 teachers per summer to Rice to receive hands-on HPC training and information about best practices to encourage girls and minorities in academia. GirlTECH/MCSA was evaluated by the LEAD Center, and the feedback contributed to the replication of this program (it will be introduced at four other universities in the coming year). GirlTECH also inspired the Girls’ Education in Network Engineering and Systems program in Maui, which will begin in June 1999 with 20 teenage participants.

Evaluative Processes

The goal of the workshop, "Improving and Assessing the Impact of Programs to Encourage High School Girls to Pursue Science, Engineering, and Mathematics" to develop an assessment plan that can be reasonably applied nationwide is admirable. Inviting evaluators to the workshop will certainly add to this effort. Our own efforts in evaluation have been a tremendous benefit to our programs, and have provided insights we would not have considered on our own. Furthermore, the evaluative process provides data critical to promoting successful programs, which helps with replication and visibility.

In addition to evaluation, another powerful contributor to continued success is communication. Again, this workshop will make a significant contribution here. Bringing together leaders of programs that provide outreach to women in science, engineering, and math will greatly enhance the effectiveness of these programs, and allow the leaders the opportunity to leverage their projects.

Communication is Critical

Another important aspect of communication is the need for the participants of outreach programs to stay in touch with one another. Even after the strongest encouragement, graduating women can find themselves isolated as they begin their careers. Staying in touch with the people who mentored them, with others in similar situations, and with students they themselves could mentor are all ways to keep successful women in touch with one another and to encourage younger women to succeed. If after the workshop an effort can be made to further connect the people and the data involved with outreach programs for women, a significant number of additional people will benefit.

The next level of communication is how to better connect the programs that have seen successful. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of successful, well-meaning programs for girls. How do we help one another, and avoid re-inventing the wheel? What practices can we put in place that will help future developers of such programs, so they can quickly have the greatest impact without wasting time with unnecessary and ineffective approaches? And through this connectivity, what power can we have in making changes that will have a positive impact on a greater number of girls?

EOT-PACI Programs

EOT-PACI is at the core of several programs that encourage young women to succeed in science, engineering, and math. In fact, two of those programs (GirlTECH and the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s Girl Scouts Science Interest Group) have also submitted position papers to this workshop. EOT-PACI is also involved with the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), a Caltech computational sciences summer program, Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, and several others. Because the isolation and lack of resources or opportunities that women experience is in some ways similar to what minorities experience, many of the outreach programs are designed for women and minorities (and it is particularly important that we assist minority women).

What Works

When considering what programs have been successful in encouraging high school girls in SEM, we have found that one-on-one mentoring programs provide extremely high success rates. For that reason, mentoring programs that cover significant time spans are pursued for EOT-PACI support. However, an opportunity exists that has not been adequately dealt with, and that is the tremendous connectivity and resources that would result in the establishment of methods to keep participants from mentoring programs in touch with one another. This workshop is a start, but there are several other methods that should be explored. Websites abound with opportunities for girls and women, but for a young individual searching for a way to become inspired, how would they begin? Again, it comes back to personal contact—through your Girl Scout leader, your teacher, your parents.

What would it take to develop a powerful resource for interested girls in this country to access? An extremely well publicized Website, supported by a national agency such as the National Science Foundation, that could serve as a repository for all programs for girls in SEM? What other methods would be effective? We would like to see this workshop address this issue.

Another topic, which is a pitfall to avoid, is the occasional pressure to play a "numbers game," in which hundreds or thousands of girls are reached through a minimal effort. From our experience, the commitment to an individual over a significant amount of time shows the most substantial results. Time spent over several years with the girls in the SDSC Girl Scout Science Interest Group contributed to their acceptance at MIT, Stanford, U Wisconsin, and UC Davis; these girls now come back to serve as mentors for younger girls in the programs that initially inspired them.

Coming Together

EOT-PACI would greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate in this workshop. The representation of two of our programs, as mentioned above, would be a great addition to the workshop. In addition, the participation of EOT-PACI as an organization would add the perspective of a program that is working to weave together the activities of several outreach programs for girls. That is, we now look for opportunities for girls from, for example, our CRA-W Distributed Mentor Program to mentor younger girls who are participating in other programs in which we’re involved. These interactions strengthen not only the programs, but also the experiences of the individual participants. EOT-PACI’s perspective on this would contribute to the workshop, but we have much to learn from the other participants on the topic of how they intertwine their programs, how they perceive the need to develop what we call "pyramids of mentoring," in which girls are mentored by someone just a few years ahead of them (we’ve found this is more successful than being mentored by someone who is far ahead of you in your career), and how we can all work together to strengthen our programs.

The following information reflects some of the successes of programs supported through EOT-PACI and our thoughts on the importance of such programs. There is a section on undergraduate programs, as K-12 graduates do move on, and we have undergraduate participants who work with K-12 teachers and students.

Thank you for considering EOT-PACI as a participant in your very valuable and much needed workshop.

Contact: Ann Redelfs

NPACI/SDSC

University of California, San Diego

9500 Gilman Dr., MC 0505

La Jolla, CA 92093-0505

619.534.5032

619.534.5113 fax

EOT-PACI outreach programs for A&I groups (women, minorities, and persons with disabilities) include mentoring opportunities, research experiences, support for organizations with direct links to A&I groups, and informal science education. The accomplishments are organized to reflect the pipeline--that is, K-12, undergraduate, and graduate programs. There is no question that the pipeline issue is critical to increasing the participation of A&I groups in SMET.

The work of EOT-PACI is divided between five teams, including Education (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and informal education); Access and Inclusion (outreach to women, minorities, and persons with disabilities); Government and New Communities (including users in the social sciences and humanities); Learning Technologies; and Evaluation.

Each team is composed of partners and projects representative of some of the most innovative work being done nationwide to: integrate technology and computational science into educational settings at all levels; improve the representation of women and minorities in computing; ensure that emerging technologies are accessible to all users; expose non-traditional users to high-performance computing technologies; help government make productive use of technology; prepare computational tools for the classroom; and assess the efficacy of various education and outreach programs at reaching their target audiences and bringing about measurably desirable participant outcomes.

The goal of CRA-W is to take positive action to increase the number of women participating in computing research and education at all levels, as well as to provide activities and programs that help women who are already in the field address issues that are of particular relevance to them. With a broad mandate to effect change in computing, CRA-W has established numerous programs for women in all stages of their careers and education. These programs are divided into four categories:

COMMUNITY BUILDING: to foster professional networking, collaboration, and recognition of women in computing with:

- Systers-Academia: Electronic network of more than 500 women that provides a forum on topics pertinent to academia and a venue for mentoring women faculty and graduate students.

- Undergraduate Awards: Recognizes exceptional female and male undergraduates in computer science and engineering.

- Faculty Awards: Encourages the nomination of deserving senior women for prestigious awards.

- Leaders Summit

RESEARCH MENTORING: to provide hands-on research experiences and mentoring programs that guide, support, and encourage women in computing with:

EFFECTING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: to educate and influence organizations on issues, policies and procedures to promote full participation of women in computing with:

- Leadership Development Seminar

- Government Affairs

- How-to-go-to Congress

- Tri-fold brochure on CRA-W activities

INFORMATION SHARING: to collect, analyze, and disseminate information about and for women in computing with:

- Graduate Information Booklet

- Women's Database Project: Database of more than 700 PhD-level women in CSE working in North America.

- Statistics

Several of these activities are supported by EOT-PACI and are described below. Through CRA-W’s participation in EOT-PACI, they are initiating pilots of new projects and increasing the scale and impact of existing programs. EOT-PACI has enabled CRA-W to increase their visibility and thus our ability to attract funding and to impact a larger community. Furthermore, CRA-W leaders are part of a team of people advising EOT-PACI on issues effecting women in SMET and PACI.

The CDC focuses its efforts on programs that increase the visibility of minorities, and on providing networking opportunities for minority researchers, faculty, and students. The CDC, founded in 1996, is a program of the Computer Research Association (CRA), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the Association of Computing Machinery, and EOT-PACI. Projects include:

- CDC Website: Focal point for CDC activities that allows the sharing of relevant ideas and resources.

- Faces of Computer Science Brochure: This brochure will feature the successes of 12-20 minority students and scientists who have insightful, interesting personal histories --- histories that serve to inspire high school students as they are considering their future careers. This brochure will be available in print and on the Internet. To be completed in summer of 1999.

- CDC Database: CDC is developing a database of contacts who have an interest in helping minorities pursue careers in computing, in addition to information on minorities themselves, will help build an information infrastructure to be used by CDC to initiate projects, will inform people about CDC activities, and will build a network of individuals with common goals.

- Snowbird Special Session on Minorities: Support was provided in FY99 for two minority students and five department heads, assistant department heads, graduate officers, or other representatives from minority institutions to attend the annual Snowbird conference. The two students participated in a special session on "best practices" procedures for the retention of minority students at research institutions.

- The Association of Departments of Computer/Information Sciences and Engineering at Minority Institutions (ADMI) Conference: Ten minority students are supported annually for participation in the annual professional ADMI meeting. These students are selected based on their achievements, and are encouraged to take full advantage of the conference, including making contacts, learning about research and funding opportunities, and presenting the results of their work. 10 in FY98; 20 in FY99.

- As with CRA-W, CDC leaders are advising EOT-PACI on programs that will impact the involvement of minorities within SMET and PACI.

Girl Scout Science Interest Group 3908, sponsored by SDSC, is a program started in 1989 for 7th to 12th grade girls in San Diego County who have an interest in science. The program consists of girl-planned science activities (including computer science), trips, and speakers in addition to normal Girl Scout activities. Mentoring by a scientist is available to interested girls. Activities include Girl Scout Computer Badge Day, hands-on experiments, extra experience with computers, tours, field trips, camp-outs, and visits to colleges. The group meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month, and has a new topic each month (astronomy, zoology, microscope lab, botany, and marine biology). Led by Rozeanne Steckler and Mike Bailey, SDSC scientists and long-time EOT activists.

The SDSC Science Enrichment Program is an informal education project at SDSC sponsored by NSF. The main goal of this program is to encourage children of all socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue a career in math or science. Part of the program focuses on Web-based curriculum development for science and engineering enrichment programs, primarily targeted for grades 4-10. These programs are being delivered through the San Diego Girl Scout Council and the San Diego Unified School District. Lessons are available in chemistry, Earth sciences, life sciences, and physics, and feature student handouts, experiments, and teachers’ notes. The Science Scholars program, which was the beginning of the Science Enrichment Program, was highly successful. Science Scholars was created to foster the scientific interests of young women in grades seven through 12 in San Diego County and to help them achieve academic and professional success in the sciences. It provided computer instruction, mentoring, and science enrichment activities. The participation of members of minority groups underrepresented in science and engineering fields was supported by a grant from the NSF. Science Scholars helped Girl Scouts earn computer badges, visited Washington DC, and gave poster presentations on their research projects.

Thirty-eight Houston-area K-12 mathematics, science, and computer science teachers attended "summer school" at Rice University, July 6 - 17, 1998, receiving intensive computer technology training and exploring diversity issues in the computational sciences. After successfully participation and completion of the GirlTECH/Mathematical and Computational Sciences Awareness (MCSA) Workshop at Rice, the teachers enjoyed year-long Rice University Internet accounts. As part of the program, the workshop teachers learned to use online resources as tools for research, teaching, and collaboration, as well as how to create personal and school homepages and design and publish Web-based math and science curricula. The group maintains contact and communicates almost continually throughout the year on issues regarding the use of technology and networking in the classroom. Workshop participants committed to establishing student technology projects at their campuses to ensure a transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, to participate in advanced training (three Saturday sessions), and to integrate technology into their teaching practices. Through in-service training sessions after the workshop, the 38 teachers are leveraging their expertise in their school districts and beyond, training hundreds of teachers who are expected to ultimately impact more than 30,000 Texas K-12 students.

The Rice University GirlTECH program, has a goal of creating more technically capable K-12 science, mathematics, and technology teachers and to make them be more aware of issues that discourage women from pursuing careers and study in computing. GirlTECH teachers attend workshops at Rice to learn computing skills and ways to integrate computing into their curricula. Workshop discussions also focus on social issues partially responsible for the underrepresentation of women and minorities. The program hopes these discussions will heighten teacher awareness and change the classroom environment, creating one that is supportive of females and minorities interested in computing. The LEAD Center's (University of Wisconsin) formal evaluation determined that GirlTECH considerably increased the Internet expertise and computational science awareness of almost all participants. The workshop also had a significant impact for the majority on their teaching and later commitment to the use of technology. Panels on gender issues resulted in varied feedback that was given to the workshop coordinators to help modify the program in future years. The FY99 GirlTECH program will take place July 13-15, 1999 at Rice; EOT representatives from SDSC and Kris Stewart, director of the EdCenter at SDSU, will participate.

On June 14, 1999, the La Pietra-Hawaii School for Girls and the Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC) will launch its new science enrichment program. Called the Girls' Education in Network Engineering and Systems (GENES), it will offer teenage girls the unique opportunity to learn the design, implementation, and management of a computer network, making the program the first of its kind in Hawaii. The inspiration for GENES came from a GirlTECH education seminar that Novine Schlapfer, the program's founder and technology coordinator at La Pietra, attended at SC98 in Orlando, Florida. Cynthia Lanius, GirlTECH program manager and the Associate Director for EOT at CRPC, and Molly Silha, Aldine Independant School District in Houston, Texas, discussed the program's intense technology training and how the program helps teachers encourage young women to pursue careers in science and math. "Attending Cynthia's GirlTECH seminar made me aware of the concerns and issues facing girls and technology. It inspired me to do my part and develop a program in Hawaii that would encourage young women to learn more than just word processing and data entry skills" says Schlapfer. The six-week course will also give one high school credit to each of the 20 participants.

The Caltech Center for Research in Parallel Computation (CRPC), held their 7th annual computation sciences outreach program for minority youth on March 22-23, 1999. The goal of the conference is to encourage minority students to explore careers in math or science and to assist them with educational preparation. The program drew more than 100 high school students from magnet science and technology programs at more than 20 high schools throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Each student was assigned to a Caltech professor, graduate student, or visiting presenter to learn about the "cutting edge" work they are doing in their field. Participants also attended work seminars, lab visits and lectures. SDSC's Graphic Artist, Rosemarie McKeon, presented, "Computational Map-Art: Integrating History and Culture with Existing Spatial Data Collections," which was co-authored by Larry Cruse, UCSD's Map Librarian, and SDSC Research Scientist Richard Marciano. The conference also featured talks from two NPACI partners. James Bower, of the Beckman Institute, lectured on behavioral biology, and Roy Williams, of CRPC, presented "Meaningful Access to Scientific Data from High Performance Computers."

Between February 19 and 22, 1999, a group of K-12 teachers--led by Richard Alo, Director of the Center for Computational Sciences and Advanced Distributed Simulation (CCSDS) and EOT-PACI partner, and Sangeeta Gad, Director of Houston PREP program--visited San Diego. The Houston Pre-Freshman Enrichment Program Houston (PREP) is a summer enrichment, pre-college program for socially and economically disadvantaged students in middle and high school. Students with an interest in computer science, mathematics, or engineering participate and receive educational enrichment opportunities to prepare them for advanced study and careers in these areas. The PREP teachers visited the EdCenter at SDSU and met with two SDSC STEP teachers: Robert North at Hoover High (who presented information on technology integration), which reflects the inner-city population of San Diego, one that greatly resembles the students who participate in Houston PREP; and Steve Bartram, who gave a presentation on his daily use of technology in his marine science class at Rancho Buena Vista High School.

On May 13, 1999, 117 students from six middle schools in economically disadvantaged communities that are involved in SDSC's Science Enrichment Program held a "Celebration of Science" open house to show off their projects and learning experiences. Led by SDSC research scientists Rozeanne Steckler and Mike Bailey, the program provides equipment, curriculum development, and support to teachers from middle schools that run after-school science enrichment programs in San Diego County. The participating schools are Keiller, Memorial, Montgomery, Mountain Empire, Taft, and Wilson. "This event is being called the "Celebration of Science" because it concludes a school year's worth of activities, seeing science and engineering come alive in ways most of these students have never seen before, " says Bailey. Students demonstrated various science activities including bridge-building, electronics, solar power, and robotics. Families, friends, and SDSC staff were among more than 250 people who showed up for the event. In a letter to SDSC, the Einstein Society at Woodrow Wilson Middle School expressed their gratitude, "We would like to thank you, the entire members of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, for your great effort in providing us with the equipment we need. We would also like to thank Rozeanne Steckler and Mike Bailey for contacting us and giving us a chance to express our curiosity in the world around us."

On October 30, 1998 and February 5, 1999, more than 300 elementary school-aged girls and their families were treated to an evening of science activities at SDSC's Family Science Night. An auxiliary part of the SDSC-sponsored Science Enrichment program, the event reaches out to minority girls and gives parents a unique opportunity to become more aware of their daughters' talents and interest in science. The elementary school years are a particularly important time for encouraging girls to embrace an interest in science, regardless of any negative messages they may get from their peers. This type of encouragement should come from a variety of sources--from role models, from teachers, and from parents. To help ensure that parents are fully aware of their daughters' talents and interest in science and able to give them their full support, parents are actively encouraged to participate in Family Science Nights.

Sponsored by SDSC's Science Interest Group Program, the March 13, 1999 event provided Girl Scouts with the opportunity to explore computers and understand their profound effects on science. "It was really cool," said Anna Toth of her first hands-on experience with computers. "I never thought that computers were so much fun!" This was the feeling she and 77 other 4^th – 6^th grade Girl Scouts shared when they came to SDSC for Computer Badge Day. The badge is based on the original Girl Scout award called the Computer Fun Badge. The assignments for this, however, are too difficult to complete because they require daily access to computers. So in 1990, Rozeanne Steckler and Mike Bailey designed a program that would provide both recognition and the opportunity for beginners to work on computers in a more guided and cultivating environment. Fifteen members of the Science Interest Group taught the Girl Scouts and provided assistance with various assignments. Computer Badge Day is held twice each year.

A partnership between SDSC and the San Diego Imperial Girl Scout Council finished another successful year in June 1999. More than 3,000 socioeconomically disadvantaged minority girls have now participated in the program. The girls met weekly with Girl Scout staff members to participate in activities involving computers, solar energy, engineering, electricity, and Earth sciences. The program was awarded an Exemplary Practice Award by the National Girl Scout office for its successful outreach to underserved girls.

Two high school students, Jimmy Quintana and Ariana Rodriguez, participated in summer internships at SDSC in 1998. Quintana and Rodriguez, both of the Los Angeles area, were interns through an Upward Bound project sponsored by Harvey Mudd College. For the past seven summers, SDSC has joined with UCSD and Harvey Mudd College in sponsoring such internships for high school students. The UCSD summer program--called the La Jolla Biology Project--introduces minority students to science in the classroom and through an internship. Quintana, 16, is interested in a future career in computer graphics and design. At SDSC, he designed a web page for himself and assisted fellow interns in building personal home pages. Ariana worked in SDSC’s operations under the guidance of Portia Allen and Laurie Hiatt, terminating twisted pairs and pulling cables through floors.

CREATE has five major areas of focus, and NPACI/SDSC is involved in all of them in some way. The primary target for students are underrepresented minorities.

1. Partnerships with public schools in San Diego. Includes all schools and districts, and all levels within K-12. Teacher education; encouragement of underrepresented students; working on systematic programs to improve school clusters (elementary, middle and high schools). SDSC will help with teacher training and with direct contacts with the schools.

2. Educational research, grants on campus for ed. research; determination that UCSD lacks a critical mass of faculty with this commitment. Opportunities for research will increase with enhanced partnerships (#1) and the development of the model school (#3). NPACI will explore possibilities of collaboration with the LEAD center at Wisconsin.

3. Press School (model school). Will aid underrepresented students; provide research opportunities; provide after school and professional development for teachers and students; be highly visible in the community; and will be a beacon for educational achievement. SDSC will help with teacher training, and will provide mentors for students. The Preuss School will open in fall 1999 in temporary quarters with a charter class of 100 students. The school's permanent facility, scheduled to be finished by the fall of 2000, will house 700 students in grades six through 12 when enrollment reaches steady state in 2003. Students will participate in SDSC’s after-school program.

4. Teacher education and professional development programs. We have been involved with UCSD programs of this nature for some time.

5. Outreach and recruitment--50 programs for outreach, recruitment, and retention, including teacher development, dissemination of information, tutoring programs for students, mentoring, counseling, and motivational programs. We are available for assistance.

World Wide Wireless Web Corp. (W4), which provides Internet connectivity for remote sites throughout the world, will use a satellite dish to link SDSC's networks with W4's Internet Satellite Access Program, to help test and enhance its offerings to the education community. As an initial test, W4 is supporting an SDSC experimental outreach program for Mountain Empire Unified School District, an underrepresented minority school district in San Diego County. The experiment will offer Internet-based enhancements to the high school curriculum for a district with a large number of Native American and Hispanic students. "We are in the planning stages to train teachers and set up the lab for the classes," said Roger Wynn, a science teacher at Mountain Empire High School and former SDSC STEP teacher. "Classes will be taught to a group of high school students via the Web to see if we can demonstrate increased reading and math skills by use of the computers." EOT-PACI is participating in a proposal to bring the Internet to several Minority Serving Institutions, where there may be additional uses for resources such W4’s links.

SDSC serves as an educational facility for thousands of K-12 students and teachers who tour SDSC annually; strong ties have been developed with several of the teachers, who serve as advisors on K-12 projects and will be approached to serve as EOT liaisons and/or participants in summer projects on K-12 curriculum development from NPACI AT/ET thrusts. The interactions with the teachers and students are valuable to SDSC EOT staff as they develop outreach programs.

SDSC supports and contributes to the San Diego Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) ABILITIES Web Site, which is a state-of-the-art technical resource specializing in local community issues, needs, and current events, with appropriate links to state and national Deaf and Hard of Hearing resources. The purpose of the site is to provide information and resources, encourage communication, and strengthen advocacy for the San Diego County D/HH educational community. The site includes information on support services, San Diego County community profile education: San Diego County family support, career awareness, and deaf history and culture. SDSC associate staff scientist Rich Charles has been leading this effort.

Hundreds of reports exist on the experiences of underrepresented populations in academia. Discrimination, whether deliberate or accidental, obvious or subtle, can eliminate the brightest students from the SMET pool, or even the academic experience. As Anita Borg, founder and President of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT) and a research scientist in the Office of the Chief Technologist at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center has often said, "We have plenty of reports. It’s time to take action." The programs below are designed to take action. Over time, we’ve learned is that research programs that facilitate interactions between underrepresented students and faculty mentors work, and for that reason, such mentoring programs have the strong support of EOT-PACI. Not only do those who were mentored have a proven record of success in completing academic degrees, but they also have a very high probability of serving as role models and mentors themselves. As mentorships continue, more and more people are affected, and the base of participation of underrepresented populations increases. In some cases, such as the Spend a Summer with a Scientist program at Rice University, these changes initially took place in on a single campus. But Rice graduates are now pursuing their careers on other campuses, where they are helping others succeed. EOT-PACI is committed to capturing information on participants in these outreach programs, to continue to build a pyramid--and in fact a community--of mentors from the K-12 level through senior faculty positions.

Rice University received one of eight Minority Graduate Education (MGE) program grants awarded in November 1998 by the NSF. The nearly $2.5 million grant is to help Rice significantly increase the number of African America, Hispanic, and Native American students receiving doctoral degrees in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering (SME). "EOT-PACI provided two critical components in our obtaining this MGE award", said Richard Tapia, Rice University Computational and Applied Mathematics Department and EOT-PACI co-chair "namely, the LEAD Center's evaluation of our minority retention program and infrastructural support to develop the proposal. I view this as early evidence that EOT-PACI approach to outreach will make significant impact on the nation's educational agenda." The award focuses on changes in institutional, departmental, and organizational culture, and on practices that will result in significant increases in recruitment, retention, degree conferral, and career (especially academic) entry. The objectives are to: (1) develop and implement innovative models for recruiting, mentoring and retaining minority students in SME doctoral programs and (2) develop effective strategies for identifying and supporting under-represented minorities who want to pursue academic careers. The MGE grant will allow Rice to expand the Spend a Summer with a Scientist project -- currently open to minority students and women enrolled in computational science, mathematics, and engineering studies -- to embrace minority students in other academic disciplines.

With the goal of encouraging minorities to pursue science and mathematics coursework and careers, the Center for Research on Parallel Computation at Rice University--an EOT PACI partner--hosted hundreds of minority students, faculty members and researchers during two separate June 1998 conferences.

The 4th Annual Conference for African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences (CAARMS4), June 16-19, highlighted current works by African-American researchers and students in mathematics. The conference was intended to facilitate working relationships between participants, to help cultivate their careers. A graduate student poster session was held in addition to the talks. On June 25, Rice hosted "Steering Minority Education for the 21st Century," a conference implemented by the South-Central Computational Science in Minority Institutions Consortium (SC-COSMIC). The University of Houston-Downtown, Rice University, and Prairie View A&M University are founding members of this consortium, which promotes state-of-the art science and math education, enables distance learning, shares research, and provides access to online resources. A related conference, "ADMI 98-Assessment and Vision," followed on June 26-27. ADMI is the Association of Departments of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at Minority Institutions. At this conference, faculty discussed how to attract and retain minorities in the computer sciences and involve students in research. Discussions topics included: establishing facilities, culturally sensitive curricula, and models of education for minority students; improving the research and teaching environment; enhancing faculty opportunities; and developing partnerships with major research institutions. Approximately 300 people have attended these meetings.

CRA-W's Distributed Mentor Project (DMP), accepted applications through February 3, 1999, for participation from female undergraduate computer science and computer engineering students and female faculty members. The program is designed to increase the participation of women (U.S. citizens and permanent residents) in computer science by supporting female undergraduates in a summer of research under the guidance of a female professor at a research university. Evaluation of the program by the Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation, and Dissemination (LEAD) Center at the University of Wisconsin shows that the DMP program is having a profound impact on the career aspirations of the participating students. At least 20 student/professor matches will be made for the FY99 program. Following are some of the favorable responses of the FY98 participants to their experiences:

"DMP was one of the best experiences I have ever had . . . a tremendous growth experience for me, both personally and in relation to computer science . . . worked on designing a GUI in Java that was part of a doctoral student's project . . . gained self-confidence and faith in my own abilities."

"I'm being pulled right in to their . . . research project! Right at the heart of it, and I wasn't expecting that. It's been a confidence booster for me . . .''

"I guess it's really made me sure that I want to get my Master's. . . just meeting some of the master's students . . . they seemed like people I could see myself being in a couple of years or next year.''

"I think it was a very good thing . . . it gave me a chance to see that a female could get all the way to the top, sort of a tenure position, really well respected, very good researcher, and also still have a life. . .''

"I think it's good [that the mentors are female]. Yeah, it definitely helps. I mean I have other professors where I am that are interested in the same things that I'm interested in. But they are men and . . . I just can't talk to them the same way I can talk to my mentor.''

"She's like this shining model of success, you know? Not a success in terms of like you think of business school success, but success in terms of like, how one would want to live her life. . .''

"One of the most valuable experiences was attending the national conference . . . gave me a chance to talk to students from . . . other universities. They were able to give me a lot of advice about and insight into graduate life."

". . . one of the best experiences of my life . . . wonderful mentor. . .. taught me so much about the research experience--from the in-depth literature search on related research to the refocusing of our original project to the actual work that went into the project. The best part of my research experience was our regular project discussion meetings. . . became friends with her family. . . Because of my experience . . . made the decision to pursue my doctorate in computer science. . . huge help to me in establishing contacts at graduate schools and, in general, giving me advice about the application process."

". . . perfect mentor. . . guided me through my research . . . helped me with the design and implementation of my experiment . . . taught me how to analyze my results. . . an amazing experience . . . hope to apply for PhD. . . would have never had such a unique opportunity if it weren't for the DMP. . . a student from Berkeley, CA, in touch with a mentor from New York, NY.

Thus far, mentors have been from Brooklyn College, Brown Univ., Duke Univ., Georgia Institute of Technology, Rice Univ., Univ. of California San Diego, Univ. of Central Florida, Univ. of Massachusetts, Univ. of New York, Brooklyn College, Univ. of Tulsa, Univ. of Utah, Worchester Polytechnic Institute. Participants have been from Brown Univ., Bucknell Univ., Dartmouth College, Duke Univ., Harvey Mudd College, Mississippi State Univ., Northwestern Univ., Purdue Univ., Rice Univ., Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Trinity College, Univ. of Minnesota, Morris, Univ. of Missouri, Univ. of New York/Brooklyn College, Univ. of Oregon, Univ. of Southern California, Univ. of Tulsa, Williams College.

CRA-W announced the second year of an EOT-PACI-funded initiative to support women involved in undergraduate research. The program, Collaborative Research Experience for Women in Undergraduate Computer Science and Engineering (CREW), provides collaborative research experiences for groups of two to three undergraduate women during the 1999-2000 academic year. By increasing research opportunities and by decreasing the isolation that may be experienced in doing independent research, women scientists and engineers will be encouraged to pursue similar work in graduate school. Importantly, the emphasis in CREW has been on students from the smaller schools who would not otherwise have access to research experiences. Applications were due May 15, 1999; participants will be notified by June 30, 1999 (27 proposals were received, with 66 students requesting support). The FY98 program , supported 23 women on 8 joint research projects (at Brooklyn College at CUNY, Bryn Mawr College, Case Western Reserve Univ., Grinnell College, Mills College, North Carolina A&T State Univ., Sonoma State Univ., Texas Christian Univ., Univ. of Wisconsin/La Crosse); the FY99 program is currently underway. The FY00 project will require more elaborate Web presentations of the project results from the participants. These presentations will be used in putting together materials to seek outside funding for this project. In addition, CRA-W plans to put together a "Best Practices" compendium of advice for researchers interested in working with such teams. PI: Sheila Castaneda, Computer Science, Clarke College, Dubuque, IA.

The issues, problems, and challenges that affect minority graduate education and minority representation in engineering and science were investigated at the Engineering and Science Underrepresented Minority PhD Recruitment and Retention Conference sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and held at Rice University on March 11-12, 1999. The conference goals coincide with those of the Access and Inclusion team that is part of EOT-PACI. The Access and Inclusion team works to integrate more women and minorities into the world of computational science. The conference is an opportunity for EOT-PACI participants to explore diversity issues related to engineering and science, especially how to retain more women and minorities in graduate programs. After the conference, a reflector was established to instigate discussion among the group members; a second conference is planned for the fall of 1999.

In a booth on the SC98 research floor with the theme of "Touch the Future," EOT-PACI presented the organization's activities and projects. As one of only two booths on the research floor dedicated solely to education and outreach issues, the EOT-PACI booth featured demonstrations by partners from both NPACI and the Alliance. Many EOT-PACI projects were demonstrated or discussed live in the booth, including: Visualization of Web-based Information; GirlTECH; Tango Interactive Network; The RiverWeb Toolsuite; ChemViz; The MASTER Tool Suite and Computational Science Education; Building the Infrastructure for Incorporating High-performance Computing into Undergraduate Instruction; Spend a Summer with a Scientist; the Biology Workbench: A Web-based Environment for Researching, Teaching, and Learning Molecular Biology; Minority Schools Program Web page; Teaching Distant Science Courses using Habanero; IATH Java Tools: INote and Iteach; the Chickscope Project; Computational Physics Tutorials Illuminating both Physics and Computations; the CoreModels Project at Maryland Virtual High School; the CDC Minority Graduate Student and Researcher Database; Measurement of Wall Stresses in Ischemic Ventricles; the LegoLogo Summer Camp for American Indian Students; and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. EOT-PACI was be represented throughout the Education Program of SC98, with partners involved in a significant number of the program's sessions and presentations, including a special panel of EOT-PACI REU students. In addition, several EOT-PACI partners were on the organizing committees of the conference Education Program.

CRA-W has sponsored a series of Mentoring Workshops for Women in Computing Research, targeted to women in all stages of their academic careers. To serve as a resource for a wider group than was able to attend the workshops, CRA-W will provide summary reports and transcripts of these workshops in one coherent Web document (this project is underway; preliminary information is on the Web). Workshops have focused on the following topics: tenure; time management; teaching; getting a job; building a research career; networking and professional social interaction; funding; and perspectives from the smaller schools. CRA-W workshops have been held in conjunction with the 1993, 1996, and 1999 Federated Computing Research Conferences, Supercomputing '94, 1994 Grace Murray Hopper Celebration of Women in Computer Science, 1996 Design Automation Conference, and 1995 ACM Computer Science Conference. They have been so successful that the Computing Research Association (CRA-W’s parent organization) is running its own version (open to both male and female students).

The EOT K-12 group is developing a proposal to host a workshop to understand how EOT-PACI can work with colleges of education and state departments of education to promote modeling and visualization in pre-service science teacher education. Feedback is now being sought from NSF and Colleges of Education around the country. Minority Serving Institutions will be included in the proposal.

http://www.sdsc.edu/Hopper/Hopper97/front.html

Receiving honors and awards is not only motivating, but the publicity surrounding accolades serves to inspire others. When someone who is seen as a peer has won an award, it makes that level of achievement all the more attainable. It also serves to make another critical difference –that is, making it clear that there is a level playing field, and that awards are given to those who deserve recognition, based on their accomplishments.

http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Briefs/990310.Tapia.html

Richard A. Tapia, EOT-PACI , earned the 1999 Giants in Science Award from the Quality Education for Minorities Mathematics, Science, and Engineering (QEM/MSE) Network. He received the award at an awards luncheon February 27, 1999 at the Eighth Annual National Conference of the QEM/MSE Network in Washington, DC. The award honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to research and teaching. Tapia has contributed significantly to the algorithmic development and theory of quasi-Newton methods for general nonlinear programming problems. Recently he has been extensively involved in the exciting and active area of interior-point methods for linear programming. Under his direction, the Rice group of researchers in this area has received international visibility for their contributions to this field. Tapia is widely recognized for his extensive work to mentor and encourage minority and female students in science and engineering. In 1996, Tapia became one of the first recipients of the NSF's Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. He was appointed by President Clinton to the National Science Board that year, and was named 1996 Hispanic Engineer of the Year by Hispanic Engineer Magazine. In 1998, he received the Lifetime Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Georgia Louviere, '96 GirlTECH participant, coached the top award-winning team in the 1999 national ThinkQuest Junior Contest. ThinkQuest Junior is a competition created by Advanced Network & Services, Inc. to encourage younger students to take a meaningful interest in computers and technology. It promotes the "Internet style" of learning; that is, an interactive, participatory style that encourages students to take advantage of the Internet as a constantly growing source of information and as a powerful collaborative tool. The team’s winning site, "Creases and Pieces" features information about the art of origami . Four fifth graders, two girls and two boys, comprised the team. Entering teams, under the guidance of their coaches (usually teachers), create educational Websites on a variety of subjects that make learning fun, exploratory, and contagious for other students of the same age.

On October 8, 1998, SDSC intern Jose Otero received the best poster award at the 25th annual Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) conference on Capital Hill in Washington, D.C. Otero's presentation, "Dark Matter and Possible Lensing Events," discussed the computer simulations he created to characterize unseen or dark matter in the universe. His research has also been honored at other conferences such as Ronald E. McNair Research Conference and University of California at San Diego's Faculty Mentor Symposium. Otero, a senior physics student at UCSD, works under Dr. Andrew Gross at the Pacific Institute for Computer Security (PICS). Otero's research support comes from the California Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) and the McNair Scholar award under UCSD's Academic Enrichment Programs office. His advisor is Dr. Kim Griest, professor in the Department of Physics. Otero, who expects to graduate in June 2000, became interested in science at an very early age, "I've always been fascinated with physics ever since grade school," explains Otero, "I find it inspiring when a person sits down and tries to figure out answers to challenging problems." After Otero graduates he plans on attending graduate school, specializing in high-energy particles or computational astrophysics.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) honored outstanding educators at the 1999 NSTA Teachers Awards program on March 26, 1999. More than 25 educators received recognition, including Anna Wilder-O'Neil, an SDSC Science Scholars mentor and former Supercomputer Teacher Enhancement (STEP) participant. Wilder-O’Neil was one of three finalists for the NSTA Science Teacher of the Year; she is an Earth science and chemistry teacher at La Costa Canyon High School, and has long used her connections at SDSC to enhance her curriculum. (Note: STEP was funded by the National Science Foundation from 1993-1996, and provided in-depth hands-on computational science training to 40 San Diego science teachers, many of whom are still actively involved with SDSC and continue to pass along their experiences with STEP to other teachers. Furthermore, Wilder-O’Neil, Steve Bertram (also a former STEP teacher), Cheryl Converse-Rath, and Kris Stewart, all from NPACI EOT-PACI projects, will participate in Rice University’s 1999 GirlTECH program to make presentations and interact with the participants.

Former STEP Teacher and Science Scholars Mentor Receives Award at Environmental Systems Research Institute Conference

Anna Wilder-O'Neil, an SDSC Science Scholars mentor and former Supercomputer Teacher Enhancement Program (STEP) participant, received the "Most Educational About Geographic Information System (GIS)" award for her Phoenix Project poster at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) conference July 26th. An earth science and chemistry teacher at La Costa Canyon High School, O'Neil designed The Phoenix Project directly after the devastating Harmony Grove Fire of 1996. The longitudinal investigation teaches students effective methods of studying ecological succession after a major fire. Selected as a 1997 Toyota Tapestry Grant awardee, The Phoenix Project studied experimental design, soil science, and the ecology of coastal shrub and chaparral. O'Neil credits SDSC's Harry Ammons, Rozeanne Steckler, and Mike Bailey for their technological support. "The people at SDSC are really interested in K-12 education and the product I'm putting out is 100% better than anything I can produce alone." Drs. Steckler and Bailey provided general tech support and C programming when the GPS and ArcView programs did not interface well together. Ammons acquired media content for the web page and helped with the web page design.

SDSC Research Scientists Rozeanne Steckler and Mike Bailey were honored at the first-annual UCSD CONNECT Athena Awards held on April 20, 1999, at the La Jolla Hilton, CA. The Athena Pinnacle Awards recognize executives, local companies and educators who foster professional change and help women attain senior management positions. This award was the only education award given among the 250 member organizations of CONNECT, which is a UCSD outreach program to San Diego County.

Communication about the successes of EOT-PACI and other programs for A&I groups help get the message out about program results, initiatives, and opportunities. Listed here is a sampling of publications designed to communicate to a variety of audiences, but always with the same message: SMET fields are for everyone.

Inspired by the motto of Christa McAuliffe--a pioneering educator who said, "I touch the future, I teach" –EOT-PACI presents a compendium of its programs, organized by the five EOT-PACI teams: Education (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and informal education); Access and Inclusion (outreach to women, minorities, and persons with disabilities); Government and New Communities (including to users in the social sciences and humanities); Learning Technologies; and Evaluation. More than 40 EOT-PACI team projects are profiled in this publication, which has been widely distributed to educators nationwide.

A careers brochure, "Women in Computer Science," has been designed to motivate young women at the undergraduate and high school level to consider a career in the field of computer science. The brochure contains biographies of several successful women who have chosen interesting and rewarding computer-related careers. Women chosen for inclusion represent a variety of occupations, ethnic backgrounds, achievement levels and geographic locations. The biographies include family and/or outside activities of the women as well as employment responsibilities and interests. We believe the best way to distribute the booklet is for established women professionals to give a talk to high school girls about their own jobs and provide extra mentoring. The brochure was extremely well received, and is now only available online. .

This brochure, which will be finished in 1999, will feature the successes of 12-20 minority students and scientists who have insightful, interesting personal histories--histories that serve to inspire high school students as they are considering their future careers. This brochure will be available in print and on the CDC Website.

The women scientists profiled in this publication span several centuries and several nationalities. As historian of science Naomi Oreskes said recently, "The question is not why there haven't been more women in science; the question is rather why we have not heard more about them." Most of the women whose stories are told here, in fact, were active in recent times, when the sciences had already become professionalized endeavors. This publication stemmed from the addition of a new classroom at SDSC in 1997; to recognize the several educational programs that SDSC directs at girls and young women interested in careers in the sciences, SDSC named each of the classroom’s computers after a woman who had a career in or made a significant contribution to a scientific discipline. Brief biographies were written for each woman selected, and these were framed and hung on the classroom walls, in addition to appearing in this brochure, which has been nationally distributed.