Thank.

You.

Vice President for instance

diapers.

So you sure you have everything please.

No Never gunman I know it's.

Good afternoon again.

Thank you thank you.

You know I have a really really great.

I get a chance to work with
some of the most outstanding

I think they're excellent country.

To kill like.

It was for me to.

Directors of the simple study of the
science of technology is a fabulous one

because I I learned all the time in
every interaction that I have with them

I come with a very humble.

For knowing realizing how
little I really do but

I'm a student of life and
I appreciate the opportunity.

Co-directors of previously introduced.

I'm not here to give a speech so

I'm going to say about half
of the leadership of Georgia.

But Peterson and
Carnegie across the way we're very pleased

to be supporters of this event because we
think it's important to keep these kinds

of conversations vibrant and going.

To really depends on us so I'm looking
forward to the words that we will

hear this afternoon I had the privilege
of picking our speakers brain a little

bit this earlier today and
I came up with a much richer for

the experience and I know that you will
feel as this lectures present day so

again you have the U.S.
Institute and the Center for

the Study of one Science and Technology
thank you all for coming today and

I know you will enjoy
the words of Martin thank you.

Just.

To do it because.

I.

Can only count.

Celebration of twenty
five years to the college

of.

Computer science and.

Computer scientists.

My student.

You know.

The Matrix you remember.

Me because.

Of the celebration and the.

Stories that stuck with me and.

She was.

She was.

She's.

More.

She's a fantastic person then and
I just thought.

Of the university

but.

Even.

OK.

Stories the following.

So the court was born in ninety nine so

what else happened in ninety nine.

Months ago I was in for a conference and
I met Park Well you know

it was the chairman of the National
University computer science and so

on to say to my former student.

He just hosted.

December twenty fifth.

And offer a conference.

Call it was a very.

High.

School.

OK.

There was this conference and.

There was a conference in Japan.

As a result of it was a twenty
friends the Japanese guy came to

represent the pictures
from the first flight.

We share with you OK so I was there.

To see who was invited.

Secondly by the top secret you know
question mark who is an equipment.

Yes right thank you Miranda.

OK Mike you keep telling because
there will be more questions OK but.

My paper is only one page because

I usually give talks under
the condition that I was right.

So or.

Else was there not for this is me
this is Nicky twenty five years ago.

Yeah I guess so.

By the way I knew five years
before Marie was a friend and

me because of a computer scientist was.

My inspiration to my best paper and in
fact seventy nine of the say your memory.

I didn't want to go from Tel Aviv
to Puerto Rico my mistake and

I asked him if he presented it to me
probably did a much better job probably.

Knows I'm serious.

Conference.

Now since needs.

Met.

And separable and inseparable and.

Today we didn't join today.

OK.

Here's a.

Question I would like a.

Very prominent computer scientist but

also because he's a founder of
thirteen billion dollar company.

He might be a billionaire.

Maybe I did come.

Question three who was a co-founder.

The first person to get here.

But I want with.

This is the picture I want to share with
you from that conference question number.

Four and
what was the song I don't remember.

So that's the first story.

You frankly.

For ninety percent of
the conflicts I've been in but

this one I didn't forget
not because Maria only.

Because I came.

To J.F.K. Friday evening Saturday ten.

In the morning I wake up from our.

Pain fighting my my wife and son and
it's always kind of a finish.

Because I was totally depleted you know
what if you're not going to be five

four or five miles more hours now then.

From book you've just gotten
out there was no you know.

So that brings me to the second
connection to Maria is one.

And in fact you once.

In a few months you know you have
two months later months later

my REAL came to me and.

Then your mother.

It was very heart of the seventy degrees.

But I have an excuse so I write about.

You know you are a few
marks on both of us and

I still want to know I'm still writing but
not much so

this is a second so
that's why I wanted to tell you about.

The lecture and I really forgot which is.

Getting more into the North Dakota.

And why America and
its President of how much.

George your getting to yourselves.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you.

You know I'll close it off in your.

So let's test my mike's.

First of all can you guys hear me and
secondly you guys are OK with a video

recording wonderful So first of all it's
a great pleasure to be at Trisha tech.

And it's always a pleasure to see

speedy home I've only known since
one nine hundred seventy nine.

And I came by to be one of the people
who really persuaded me that being

a university administrator was not such
a bad thing because he was so having so

much fun when he was dean of
engineering at Columbia and

we even were deans of engineering
together for a very short period of time.

But it's also frankly
a delight to be here and

be talking about getting more
women into tech careers and

to be here as a guest of with sed and

I want to thank Mary Frank Fox for she has
been the most incredible host I have had

in my experience that she has literally
either driven me or walked me for

every appointment I've had so far and
it's been absolutely wonderful OK So

are you ready to have fun.

And we're definitely going to have fun but
we're going to be talking about something

that matters so.

I guess I could take your clicker.

Or you put it away OK never

mind.

So I don't think you
got back the part that.

Never mind.

Never will it's working OK so

this is this one yeah I just want to
have the fun of walking round OK So

here's what in the new talk about
actually the first point probably most

of you realize that tech careers in
trying to roll the easiest route into

a tech career it's not the only
one is through computer science.

Probably the most important part is why
does it matter that we get more women into

these careers going to
talk a little bit about.

Why fewer females take computer
science courses majoring C.S.

go into tech careers stay in tech careers.

But really important to the part about
this this is not a hard problem to solve.

It's not expensive.

It doesn't require a great deal of
talent it does require hard work and

persistence and every choir's
lots of people to do hard work so

it's probably the hardest part it's not
something that any individual can change

by themself.

Because in general it requires changing
a culture and you know changing culture.

As one of my friends tells me all
the time culture its strategy for

lunch every day I don't know who
actually said that but somebody famous.

But it's a really good point.

And if you want to change culture and
we're all actually part of a culture that

is in transformation when I think about
I'm sixty three years old are you old or.

He's older good.

Hundred Yeah.

I think that was in.

Binary again.

If I think about what my life
would have been like if I was born

even just thirty years before I was born I
was born in one nine hundred fifty one so

thirty years have been one
nine hundred twenty one.

If you look at the opportunities for
women to get Ph D.'s in engineering and

science if I'd been born then it
would have been really tough and

yet I was born of the time when
I was one of the first people.

To be in my job I was the first
female to be in my job for

the last twenty six years so I feel
like I got born just at the time when I

could actually have access
to a number of career path.

Civilities that wouldn't be in there and
so if I think about

you know like how culture shifting
is actually changing quite fast and

as I was talking with Mary earlier today
I was saying I think that in terms of.

Changing culture with respect to women and
other groups that are under-represented

in science and engineering we're at
the best time at least in my lifetime but

we're not there yet and so.

The spirit what can we do about it every
single person in this room can make

a difference many people in this
room have been working on this

making a difference for
a significant period of time already but

I'm convinced that the momentum is
with us and if we keep doing what

we're doing with another five years will
actually see some significant shifts so

let's talk about why it matters.

So I'm going to give three reasons why I
think it's important to get more women and

in fact more under-represented
groups in general into tech careers.

And the last one is going to be the most
important I'm not sure about the order

of the first two so just as an easy order
one of them is these are great career

opportunities that pay well
they have a lot of flexibility

in them if you're like I was interested
in combining having an ambitious

career with having children these tend
to be because they pay well because

there's flexibility it's a good way to be
able to do that course is not nearly as

as important as choosing the right or with
whom you want to have children I was very

lucky Nick printer he's known
as Saint Nick in my family

initially it was because have to
be a saint to live with Maria.

Eventually it was because he really
is a saint his incredibly supportive.

But you know these really
are great career our part.

And why wouldn't we want women

African-Americans Native
Americans Latino Latinas But

would we want all of those groups to
actually have access to these careers just

as a matter of sort of social justice and
equity so that's one reason.

Second reason is.

If you look at the economic
future of this country and

probably most other developed countries
and developing countries around the world

their their future their economic
future is going to be employ inst by

their population that has
good computer science.

Knowledge and skills and not just because
you want those people all to go into

the tech industry it's because whether
you're in finance or an entertainment or

an education or health care or
you just think about any part

are very common me they need to hire
more computer science people and

so and you know if you look at
what's happening in the U.S.

there's a phenomenal interest
in the tech industry supporting

diversity in computer science and
you know much as I would like to believe

that it's because they have seen
the light and they see it so

important which is certainly part of the
reason I think a lot of it is because they

simply cannot meet the current
demand with the supply and they have

their constraints on how many people
they can bring in on H. one B. visas and

so they're realizing that if we had
a same the same percentage of white and

Asian males the same percentage of women
and students of color as of white and

Asian males who are going into computer
science we would meet the supply would

meet the demand so that's a second
reason encouraging more people.

Two if not major in computer science have
a significant amount of computer science

knowledge is incredibly important to the
economic future of this country emote many

countries but here is the reason
that I believe in the most.

We know that.

The more diverse the teams who
have working on a problem are more

diverse a set of perspectives and
experiences they bring to their team

the better the solutions so
if you have a whole bunch of people

who've had pretty much
the same experience in life.

Working on a problem it's not going to be
nearly as good as having a bunch of people

who've had many different experiences and
what I can tell you is if you have a whole

bunch of white males who not
only are white males but

they are you know sort of conform
to the traditional nerdy white

male characteristic they're just
not going find as good solutions

as people that have white dirty males and
a wide variety of other kinds of people on

their team including women and people of
color so I want to say something about

white minority males I'm married to
one I adore him we've been married for

almost thirty five years
as my daughter says.

I myself I'm not male but
I am point and nerdy.

And our oldest child our son is a white
nerdy male so I am I'm very and

you know like when one of best friends
speak a little is one of those two so

it's not I don't in any
way want to imply that.

People who make up the traditional.

Group of people who would major in
computer science or math or physics or

engineering that there's anything wrong
with them I have to love those people

it's just that having
more diversity would.

Better for everyone.

So so let's talk about why there are so
few women.

Who.

Are interested in computer science and

you know it's really very
straightforward their research that.

My team did in the mid one
nine hundred ninety S. And and

then you know has been done several times
since then including in the mid two

thousand and the answers
are pretty straightforward if you

ask let's say thirteen to
eighteen year old young woman.

What they think about computer science
they think it's boring they think they

will be good at it and they think that
the kinds of people who tend to major

in computer science aren't the kind of
people that they would identify with.

And on top of that.

What happens in most of our high schools
even today is that guidance counselors

will say and
teachers will say you know if if.

If they're talking to girls they would
never recommend that they go into computer

science even if they were interested
in it it's just not what they say and

you know so it's not surprising that
we see a relatively relatively small

percentage of young women choosing to
major in computer science if you look.

Over the last decade well let's say
over the last five years a Ph D.

granting departments of computer science
the percentage of women receiving baffler

still percentage of bachelor's degrees in
computer science going to women has ranged

between eleven percent and
fifteen one five percent OK that's is low

that's floor than engineering and general
so an intern you're right if you look at

all areas of engineering it's
about eighteen and a half percent.

Now across series of engineering
this huge differences so.

Bioengineering chemical engineering.

High percentages of women between forty
and fifty percent female civil engineering

a little bit less than that want to see
the lowest numbers computer engineering

electrical engineering mechanical
engineering aerospace engineering

OK Now Computer Science
however has has the unique.

Achievement of being
the only area of science and

engineering participation by
women has declined over the last

thirty five years in every other
area it has significantly increased

effort computer science it's gone from
about some poor in the mid thirty percent

to the Baxters degrees going to can
females down to between eleven and

fifteen percent in every other
area it's started quite low and

it's significantly increased
though in most areas for

instance in engineering has
plateaued as of the last decade or

so OK so we know why they don't do it.

And we also research that
this is something that

starts pretty early that
if we look at children.

So I know the research that
I was quoting here was for

children aged seven to ten but if you
were doing research in kindergarten or

in pre-kindergarten you would see similar
things today so we see differences in

how boys and girls use computers what
they want to do on the computers and

we also from very early ages if we
asked them how good do you think

you are at doing stuff with the computer
the boys will rank themselves higher

than the girls weight themselves and.

It's exactly what I was going to
say next so I mean you do have to

take into account the fact that
there's lots of research and now.

That's what might be for boys but
certainly for adults if you have

a group of men and women who have
been selected to be at the same level

of achievement whether it's a very
high levels of mid-levels and

if you ask them to rate how well they
are doing the men will overestimate how

well they're doing and then won't women
will underestimate how well they're doing.

So you're absolutely
right about that OK so.

So the issues that we're dealing with
are in our cut we tell our young

people do what you love do it you're
good at and you will be successful.

If that's what you're If that's
how our young people choose

their careers which is largely true.

It is not surprising that very few women
are going to enter college expecting

to major in computer science because they
don't think they're going to be good at it

and they think it's less interesting so
I mean why would anyone be surprised

but on top of that there's
another factor that

is going to influence not just how you
choose which career you're going into or

which discipline you're going to study but
the likelihood that you're going to

persist in it and one of the things
that again we know from research is that

young woman a much more likely end
let's say old woman like myself and

everything in between are much more likely
to suffer from the posture syndrome so

raise your hand if you know what
the imposter syndrome is OK

just about everybody knows but there's a
few people who didn't raise their hand so

I'm going to talk about it briefly so
imposter syndrome is.

You most people perceive cvs that you
are successful it with your career and

yet you yourself don't really feel six.

Well you feel to a large extent
that you're a failure and.

That you really feel like the fact that so
people many people think you're a success

it just makes it worse that you
feel like you're a failure so

first of all it's really common for
males and

females it seems to be more of
an issue for women particularly

women who are in areas of in careers for
women around to read print.

Under represented and.

I first started talking about the imposter
syndrome about twenty years ago and

the first time I gave a talk
about it I was astonished

when I talked about the fact that
this is something that happens.

Almost every day I wake up with this
voice on the side of my head saying

Marie you're such a failure I can't
believe you're such a failure.

And then on the other side by head
there's a voice that goes Maria

you can change the world and
I don't think it's actually unusual

to have those two voices together and
so I just pay a lot more attention to

the one that says like change the world
I first was like that voice better but

it doesn't stop that other voice
to be there in my head and

one of the things I discovered by
starting to talk about it is how many

people had the same experience and
thought they were the only one.

And so one of the things I've decided so

this couple things about the imposter
syndrome one of the things after having

spent a lot of time talking about
it talking to other people or

about it and looking at research I decided
Well first of all let me ask you how many

people have this feeling from time to
time or a lot yeah it's really common

OK so I've decided the following things
there is a reason why having the imposter

syndrome is correlated with success.

Because it causes you to be more
successful So let's think of.

About that for a moment and
I called this this theory the embracer in

inner imposter concept.

So why would that be the case
well the first thing is.

If you have the imposter syndrome you
often perceive something you've done you

see where you did not achieve
the expectations you had for

that whatever that was so
that means you had high expectations.

And just having high expectations for
yourself is highly correlated with success

but the second thing is when you feel
that you have not achieved when you feel

like you failed at something.

You're much more likely to analyze it I
mean to go over it in your mind over and

over again if I'd only done this thing or
that thing it would have been so

much better well guess what that's
a great learning experience.

We learn so much more from failure and
so if you're going to go through life

perceiving many of your things as not
living up to your expectations you're

going to go through a lot of thinking
about to think about how you might

actually be more be more successful
more effective at a particular thing so

I actually think that having the impostor
syndrome is not a bad thing except for

one thing why when would have
an imposter syndrome be a bad thing.

Yes.

Well they're perfect right on

when you don't choose when you
either give up too early or

you don't even take a risk to reach for
something because you don't think you're

qualified for do you don't think you
would succeed so I mean the reason

I'm spending a fair amount of time
talking about the posture syndrome is

one of the things we can all do is if
we have if you have to be somebody who.

Like me deals with this on
a regular basis we cannot let us

let that from stop us from persisting and
for reaching out trying things but

even more importantly we can encourage the
others around us we can be mentors to our

peers to people who are more senior than
us people who are more to New than us and

we can encourage them we can see that
they're going to hold themselves back OK.

So.

So if you want to get more women
into computer science and and

tech careers are really into
anything all you have to do

is increased increase their interest.

You have to increase your confidence and
have to provide encouragement.

And you know I happen to be
giving this talk about women but

I actually think that in general with
their we're talking about women or

African-Americans Native Americans Latino
Latino as any of the groups Lesbians and

Gays are just football players any of
the groups that we tend to see under

represented in science and tech careers.

If you increase interest for them if you

increase their confidence that they'll be
successful and if you provide support and

encouragement in fact it will work
as at least in my experience for

pretty much everyone now I want to say
there are some things that were not in

making these claims there are some
things I'm not accounting for

that I have to put in a Kaviak just for
a moment so I mean it's all very

well to say I'll take a well
prepared student of any kind who's

had good high school preparation who's
had you know support throughout middle.

An elementary school in say will do
all these things that it will work but

it doesn't work for
is if you have students and

this is the majority of students who are
in come from low income families in this

country who have gone through crummy
elementary school crummy middle school and

crummy High School in terms of
preparation in math and science.

It there's a lot more that needs to
be done to cope with that problem

than than just working at
the college level but for

people who are arriving at college which
certainly is you know in general young

women graduate from high school with
better grades than young men so

our inability to graduate many
of them in computer science and

engineering is not because they're
not prepared for it or capable.

OK so now I'm going to switch and
I'm going to talk about Harvey Mudd So

I'm wearing I pretty much I'm one
of these lucky people there's

very proof you presidents of colleges and
universities who can wear T.

shirt most days of their life.

Harvey Mudd is one of the few places that
you could be president of aware teacher

most days of your life so there's a couple
of reasons one is a lot of people wear T.

shirts at Mudd and I'm a computer
scientist and computer scientist where T.

shirts where is your T. shirt.

Most days of their life he got dressed up
for me I actually had this dream where I

got dressed up for
this talk and I was wearing.

Yeah you know I looked at that skirt and
I couldn't even recognize it so

I didn't even know I had skirts.

In fact a war skirt once at U.B.C. and

the provost didn't recognize me
because I was going to a skirt.

I mean there have been people
who've walked up to me and

literally have said I've never seen
you in a skirt for my life but now.

To see me in a square
at least three times.

So that's one of the reasons I can wear a
T. shirt but the other reason is we're in

a really big campaign to raise
awareness of Harvey Mudd College and so

whenever I give a talk or institution or

writer in an airplane I try to
always wear Harvey my T. shirt so

that I figure I can raise awareness
of at least a few more people and.

Her husband Dan were picking me up at the
airport yesterday they had no difficulty

recognizing me because I had a argument T.
shirt on.

If you couldn't you can probably read
this it says the most amazing college

you've never heard of and never has
been crossed out and it's now ever

because we are finally getting to be
a little bit better known we felt that

saying never was not quite accurate so
this is the latest version OK so

I'm going to talk about one of the most
interesting transformations in terms of

gender in computer science and I will say
I've had an enormous amount of credit for

this it happened in my first four years
at Harvey Mudd and we went from being ten

percent female in our C.S. major to forty
percent female in your C.S. major and

I'm really grateful for all the credit but
I deserve like this much amount of

the credit in this mode of amount of
the credit goes actually to everybody else

who was involved which was primarily the
computer science faculty at Harvey Mudd So

you know if anyone talks to you about
this you know it was really the C.S.

faculty and
one of the ways I can prove that is

they started working on it the year
before I arrived as president and

that was before I'd even been
contacted about being candid for

the president of Harvey Mudd so
I'm going to start by just giving you

some background about women at
Harvey Mudd more generally.

So I arrived in summer of two thousand and
six.

Before that about a third of our students
were female about a third of our faculty

were female and about ten percent of our
computer science majors were female.

And today.

About forty seven or forty eight
percent of our students are female.

Forty eight percent of our first year
students this year a female that's been

true we're fully for
the last several years and

about forty percent of our
faculty are female now.

Does anyone what percentage
of Georgia Tech are female.

OK so that's actually pretty good so
about twenty one twenty two percent of

the faculty at Georgia Tech are you.

Know unless it was exactly going to be
my point is that Georgia Tech just like

Harvey Mudd is I basically a science
an intern earing institution so

MIT I think is a little bit more
than fifteen percent female.

Cal Tech hovers around the double digits
so the nine percent or ten percent or

eleven percent or eight percent
depending on the particular year so but

to be you know forty percent female
is really pretty incredible for

a school that is a science and
engineering school.

And today forty percent of her C.S.

majors are female that has been true
since about two thousand and ten.

OK So how did this happen what I'm
going to start with a little bit

more background of what it says on the
slide so what really happened was there

was a young woman named
Christina Alvarado who arrived as

an assistant professor in computer
science in two thousand and five and.

Christine is no longer a family
member at Mudd she moved to U.C.S.D..

Four years ago maybe something like that.

Was set.

So we can blame Alex for
all this yes we do actually so

when did he go to he did this at his
speech to MIT the rate is under OK.

So.

This is one of these things
where they arrived in California

they thought it's about one hundred
twenty miles between U.C.S.D.

and Harvey Mudd That's a lot no matter
where you put your house in between

could be long commutes they
had their first child.

They were still separated Christine
got pregnant a second time and

she ended up going to see a city.

Yes or what a verse as far as traffic goes
I mean it's just an incredibly bad but

anyway Christine arrived and Christina
had had an interesting experience

as an undergrad at Dartmouth she had
a great experience being a female C.S.

major and
then she went to do her Ph D. at MIT.

And she ran into some graduate
students and even some faculty who for

the first time in her experience said.

You don't really belong here you're female
you only got in because you're a girl.

Now.

She really didn't like that and.

When she got to Harvey Mudd and
found that only ten percent of our C.S.

majors were female she sort of went the
Skokie something we could do about this

and so she and a number of the faculty

started reading all of the research
that had been done on how to increase

the number of women majoring in
computer science and the first.

Places that really started working on
this in the one nine hundred ninety S.

were Carnegie Mellon many of you probably
know the book unlocking the clubhouse and

the University of British Columbia which
you probably don't know as much about

since it's in Canada and

as far as I can tell Canada is invisible
to the United States for the most part.

And.

You know I lived in Edmonton from
the age of twelve to when I got my Ph D.

So twenty five and.

I remember literally meeting the first few
times when U.S. beef would say to live in

an igloo sinfully.

Well you know Canada.

So it was the work of the most of
the work that had been done and

I want to say torture tech was
also one of the relatively early

particularly some of the work
done by Mark who's still

who's apparently someplace else which
I'm fully right now the send me e-mail

I think there might be some place for
snow like Chicago maybe.

At any rate Mark was also one of
the people who did some of the early work

looking at the impact of the intro
course in terms of interest in computer

science so so anyway they read
all of the literature on this and

they started working on it so
the basic things they did were to change

the introductory computer science course
to increase interest in confidence now

one of the advantages Harvey Mudd has is
that every one of her students has to take

a C.S. course in their first semester
they also have to take math physics

chemistry biology engineering.

But with that humanities
social sciences the arts.

Within the first three semesters and
they take a ton of them but.

You know the fact that you have as a.

Captive audience every student is
a great advantage they also and

this was Christine's idea was
say started offering our first

female students so much you don't pick
your major you don't have to pick your

major until your end of your sophomore
year and independent of what they

thought they might major in we offered
all of our incoming first year students

the opportunity to go to the Grace Hopper
Celebration of women in computing So

raise your hand if you've been to Hopper
OK relatively small number of people

founded in one thousand nine hundred four
by need a Borg and tele Whitney the idea

was let's provide a conference
that really celebrates that we

have women being successful in
computer science careers and

it used to be every three years then every
two years and it's been annual since two

thousand and
six had eight thousand attendees.

Last year up from four
thousand year before up from

about three thousand year before that.

The vast majority of the attendees
are female but for males it's amazing

experience because you get to go and
have the experience that every female

computer scientist has day in day out in
their life about being a minority and

it is really a great experience but
it's also it's a celebration it's fun

it's it's enthusiastic it shows you
women who are dressed like me and

then it shows to women who are dressed
with heels like this and makeup and

fancy hair and
everything else in between it's awesome.

And our goal by taking those young women
well no matter what they were going to

major in was to show them that this is
an area of science and engineering like

other areas of science and engineering
where women can be successful and

have an enthusiastic experience and
then finally for four years.

Because a grant to offer eight
to twelve female students

an opportunity to do some research
in the summer after their first year

because we know from research that getting
engaged in research as an undergraduate

increases retention and
increases your sense of community and

interest in the discipline and so our idea
was even if it's a relatively relatively

small number of young women we can get
engaged in research they'll talk and

you know the fact that they're working
on say epidemiology or on robotics or

whatever the fact that they can see that
what they're working on actually makes

a difference is going to have impact so
I'm going to spend a little bit of

time talking about what the changes
were in our intercourse because

in terms of what can be replicated
elsewhere I think the single thing that

institutions can do that will have the
most impact to start with is to train or

intro courses now it's definitely not
enough because if you change your intro

course but then the second course in your
sequence is still intimidating and boring.

Well they want something but they're
not going to become C.S. majors and

you know Similarly if you're third course
if you make your first two courses

interesting accessible supportive exciting
and then your third courses for you just

a weed out course OK this is the one where
you find out if you're really a C.S.

major Again that sounds good so
you know you're

in all cases what you're trying to
do is create a culture that says.

This is something lots of different
people are good at some things that lots

of different people will love some things
that we expect all of our students

to thrive in and
to have a great experience and you know.

Certainly looking at the caliber of
the kind of students that come to

Georgia Tech I mean it's just like
Harvey Mudd any student who is admitted to

Georgia Tech ought to be able to thrive
in pretty much any major here because

they're good students they're
hardworking students etc OK so

our intro class was pretty standard.

Class taught a bunch of you know
the basic concepts in computer science it

was contempt troll ised as
learning to program and job.

OK so I want to.

Distinguish between what Qatada in
the course and how the students saw

the course because what gets taught in the
course today is the same as what it taught

got top before we didn't dumb it down
which didn't reduce any of the rigor.

But it's frame to differently and
that's incredibly important so

it used to be a learning to program in
Java course and now it is framed as

a team based creative problem solving
in science Well we're science and

engineering schools are looking for
problems in science makes sense.

Using competition approaches we had to
get the computer in there somewhere.

In Python OK So let me go through this so

the team base means
it's a social endeavor.

That's really important to young women
it's important to lots of people as well

creative there are very few young
people in our society who do

not want to be seen as
creative problem solving again

really attractive to most of our young
people today because most of them want to

make a difference in the world and
that involves problem solving.

I mean you could use media like
computational media like Mark

pioneered but we happen to use science
competition approaches I saw on.

The choice of language is
important the reason is

it's both a practical language that gets
used in industry that's important so

that you can actually get summer jobs.

And it's a much more forgiving
language than travel.

We grouped our interest C.S. sections by
prior experience initially into gold and

black so gold you can see my gold
shoes and wearing black black and

gold are our colors so
it's white actually.

So if you were just thinking about
which color you'd rather be in black or

gold which would you prefer.

Gold I want to be in gold OK
that's the one with little or

no prior experience.

Black is for students with some
prior experience greenness or

one that is motivated by biology and

then we have some students that just
have way too much experience for

an intro course and so we put them
into a special sucks and cover so

first two courses now one of
the things that's really important is.

We're taking students and
putting them into different sections

there's a fair amount of difference about
the prior experience you know a P.C.'s

probably puts you into black.

So but we make sure that when they
get to the end of one semester

they're both at the same place and
you know I never asked

the question how do you do that and then
somebody asked to from actually U.B.C.

who wanted to implement this and he says
How do you take those students and they're

starting with a big different difference
in terms of how much they know and

get them to the same place
at the end of one semester.

Was the answer.

OK so about half of the Course is not
stuff that you would have taken in

high school it's basically
theoretical computer.

It's a functional programming which
you get very little of in high school

to matter what you do OK so for that part
they're going roughly the same speed

the other half the kids in black will have
will know really very well so you're just

going to be severely summarizing it and
speeding through that so

you've got let's say forty percent
of the time you've got to fill.

You just fill was random interesting
things about computer science that

are not apply until they're
say in their junior year.

And so you just pick things that
won't have anything to do with

the next couple of courses in the sequence
because you want to make sure that when

those students start the next course in
the sequence they're at the same level so

you're not intimidating
the ones who came to gold so

you give them good material you
give them interesting stuff

you just pick it to be completely
irrelevant to the next two courses.

It's amazing it works like a charm.

Now also very important
OK Speak Money up here so

spheres in my class and
I love the student you know like he's his.

Let's say I'm teaching C S five gold and
you know he's just he's of skimpier

science and whenever there's a question
he raises his hand and he is so

enthusiastic That's what I was like as a
student I want to answer when I answer and

then sometimes you know he raises
his hand because he wants to tell me

something he knows that nobody
else in the room has a clue about.

OK.

OK how do the other
students feel about this.

It's terrifying for
you to let them say yeah yeah yeah so

here's what we do with
with the SMI in my class.

I have a no no no no no no I have a
conversation with Speedy outside of class.

One on one nobody else is there and
I speak you're one of my

favorite students ever you know I just
love how passionate you are about this and

I love how much you know and I love
talking with you about it you probably

didn't realize that some of the other
students don't knows what to shoot you and

they're a little intimidated because we
have our conversations one on one and

office hours with that be OK.

He's thinking about it
he's thinking very hard.

For exactly thank you thank you.

You know so you know often when I
have this cut he's leaving home

after those photographs you
showed me you can't be mad at me.

Besides you're good.

For me.

It works and

you know sometimes people will say well
you know that works when you have classes

Well I got to tell you our classes
have because this course has become so

popular in the climate colleges we have
classes with two hundred fifty students or

two hundred ninety nine students now so
you know it might not always

be the instructor it might be for us it's
not T A's It's something called groupers

stands for grader in tutor combined.

You know so but
somebody has that conversation just so

that that student.

Knows that they can have
those conversations.

They can have them a great length but
just not in class and

you know we refer to them
as match a bad behavior and

not that they're bad people in any sense.

OK So female students to hopper so
this Christine thought about it was

the person who initiated we took twelve
first year females of two thousand and

six thirty six and twenty ten and about.

Sixty this year now in fact they weren't
actually sixty first year females was

one year when we took maybe fifty first
year females and it completely disrupted

our lab schedules because that was more
than half of our first year freebie as we

have an incoming class of less than two
hundred and at roughly fifty fifty.

It really made things problematic so
now what we say is we offer

every student who comes to Harvey Mudd
every female student the opportunity

that they can visit Hopper at least
once while they were student there and

we allowed we take
twenty five first years.

Each year and we take the remainder
as upper class students and

that's turned out to actually
work really well for

us because in terms of the opportunities
that Hopper's for opera for hopper for

internships and things like that
it's actually better to have.

Many of the students be not first years.

You might say OK that's pretty expensive
it costs us between let's say seven

hundred thousand dollars per student
each year so sixty students or

so lets a sizeable chunk of change for
a small place a coffee mug but

I will tell you and you know president
spend a lot of time fundraising easiest

thing I've ever raise money for
in my life I mean it's like it's just.

Trivial So just to give you
an example which will be actually

will be this one OK so
I did a crazy thing last summer.

I was giving a talk to about between
two hundred and three hundred C.S.

department chairs and
it was on increasing diversity

in computing research and I was trying to
persuade a lot of these chairs that they

should do the same kinds of try
the same kinds of things we tried and

towards the end of my
talk I was hoping to.

Get ten to volunteer that they would do it
so I said for the first ten volunteer I

will try to get some money to help
you send your female students to

the hopper conference and fifteen signed
up before we finished the talk and I was

a little worried because I didn't actually
have anyone committed to give money for

this before I made this commitment
I had commitments from.

Facebook Google Microsoft within
three days fact I only knew about

ten eleven of the department chairs
because my junk mail find them for

a week and that I had to find more money
so I got more money out of Intel and so

right now we have fifteen
departments across the country that.

Have committed that they are going to work
on at least three of the four following

areas revise their intro courses
build confidence a community.

Outreach High School System teachers and
students and promote double majors and.

They sever thing from huge places like
Arizona State University to relatively

small places like the Missouri University
of Science and Technology

many of the chairs who volunteered
are early in their term as chair and they

saw this as something a signature sort of
thing they could do in their department

I believe two of the fifteen chairs
are female so that prime or.

Primarily male and

one of the things that we're doing
what we're doing this project is.

We have two researchers Well a researcher
plus or Ph D. student from U.C.L.A.

who are actually studying the chairs
to monitor what happens over

the period of this we're
in our first year.

I'm super excited about this because I
really believe that if we can demonstrate

that.

You know fifteen departments
can decide they're going to.

Work on it and let's say two thirds
of them actually make significant

progress hopefully all of them will
then it's going to be very hard for

the random average computer
science department to say

this is not something we can do
they are not receiving a lot

of money they're getting thirty
thousand a year that they can use for

sun in their students to Hopper or
for any of the other things on this so

quickly excited to see something that is.

Being undertaken by a whole bunch
of different kinds of institutions.

I believe only two of
the institutions are private so

they're mostly public institutions so
that means there are generally

institutions that have less funding for
students so we'll see what happens.

So what can we all do.

Encourage others I cannot tell you how
important it is to encourage others

we can each of us aim high and
embrace our inner imposture.

We can talk about the lack of women I
cannot tell you how many times I have seen

a list of proposed people for
something speakers for

a fancy conference.

Possible board members whatever and
there's hardly any women on that list so

it would be really nice of lots of people
would say why are there so few men few

women so just being me and then attending
it doesn't matter whether it's hopper but

attending a conference that is aimed
at increasing diversity is a wonderful

experience I just wish that Taffy
a last week which is the celebration

of computing among people students
of well people of color and

people with disabilities it's
it's just an amazing experience

to walk around and be in a minority as a
white person and be in a Computer Science

conference that is a wonderful
experience from my perspective so.

Happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

Yes.

If you.

Were hit.

So you move.

That because I was there because
we do many of these maybe not all

of which through high schools in this.

Market is deployed.

In extreme UK.

The program is not
inclusive problems before.

And that's the challenge.

Yes So I mean so
the first thing I would say is that.

A couple of stories yes but.

Also So the first thing I would say is
that if you're a twenty three percent

that's not something to be sorry
about that's something to celebrate

because you are more than you
were between you know one and

a half times and
twice the average across the country so

first of all that's great so I know you
want to be much better than that and

I applaud you for
wanting to be much better than that but.

I don't think we should diminish the fact
that that's a really good number and

I'll just say you know at
the University of British Columbia

which is where I was for
close to fifteen years

you know we went from when we started
were at about fifteen percent we managed

to get up to twenty seven percent then it
fell back to about twenty two percent and

now it's back up around twenty
seven percent so you know that.

I think that when you're
working in a public institution

when you don't have a required course or
when you're.

Admitting to a major There's
a lot more constraints so and

you're a lot more subdued.

You admit to a major.

Yeah yeah OK So so
let me talk about how poly slow which is.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo institution.

They managed to get from twelve percent
female near incoming class to twenty nine

percent over the five year period
that included the recession and

huge budget cuts and they did it and they
have all kinds of constraints they admit

to a major There are allowed to influence
admissions they're not allowed to try and

persuade people to switch majors that's
apparently against their culture so

what they did basically did was they took
the woman they already had and they made

them happy so they changed her into
a course they stored wish club women and

software and hardware the took
them to Hopper in large numbers.

Not in large enough numbers so.

Numbers.

That's not bad that's up there but true I
mean we're only eight hundred students how

many students was twenty one thousand is
that what I heard here come on you guys

can do better there are however i
mean forty's a great number I'm just

kidding.

A year yeah we're at eighty so
if we're doing sixty.

When we no no no we're eighty majors
a year you're three hundred a year

that says that you should be you
know basically four times us so

we're taking sixty you're
taking two hundred forty.

OK you can do better.

I'll help you fundraise.

But he doesn't want my help you saw that
he doesn't want my help OK but anyhow.

The what this so

I mean they took one hundred ten
students to help her couple the slow.

The sheer.

They're there and they're getting I mean
you could get money from industry big time

to do it yeah yeah exactly so
you can take as many as you want but

anyhow so the So
Cal Poly slow it made them happy and

then because super cool to
their major They simply.

Sent all of their female Susan's
back to their high schools and again

this works for you guys because a lot of
your students are coming from Georgia.

Back to their high school so most of
their students are coming from California

which is a whole high
schools over winter break.

And just to say wow this is the best
program ever it's absolutely

fantastic We love our courses
we get great summer internships

we get to cause a lot of course.

You guys are probably doing this already
but you know it's yeah I mean so.

I think twenty three percent is awesome.

And you know I think what I know
from my own experience at U.B.C. is.

Yeah exactly.

Get what extent can I say supported
encouragement it worth it anyway I feel

I do yes he's encouraged good that's
what we wanted more questions

yes.

Me.

What a question.

So one of the things so how many of you
heard about the interview I did an.

Operative that with such an Adela So

one of the things I'm really
proud of is that such unity.

Has decided that every single
person Microsoft is going to have

training an unconscious bias he
started by having the senior

leadership team go through because he
said if I can make that kind of mistake.

Probably few other people could make
it as well which I really loved so.

So I'm going to start by
saying the following.

One of the things I love about
working in an academic institution

is the fact that so
much of what happens at the institution

is done by the faculty I mean it's really.

You know.

It's not only done by the faculties
the staff and students are also really

important but the faculty play
a really major major low role so so

one of the things I would say about
particularly in terms of doing

unconscious bias training for faculty
is to really get a lot of input from

faculty about how you want to do
that training and you know there's

a there's online training there's
a lot of different possibilities but

I think it has to be you have to have
a bunch of faculty who really and and

in this particular case I particularly say
you have to have white males as well as.

Females and people of color who
really buy into it because you

need to have faculty leadership and really
demonstrating that this is something that

they believe is important so that's
the first thing I would say and I also

think that faculty are probably the most
important group to work with first because

I think a faculty really buy into.

How easy it is to have
unconscious bias and

I certainly want to say you know every
person in the universe I think suffers

from an unconscious bias because we were
all raised in a cultural environment the.

Promote certain stereotypes and

you know we can all work on
are unconscious bias and reduce

it even if we might not entirely get rid
of it so the reason I think faculty are so

important is because of faculty
really understand and believe in it

they can introduce it in their classes
in ways that will be incredibly and for

their graduate students as
well that will be incredibly.

Influential on those students in
a way that if a non faculty member

introduced it wouldn't be as effective.

I think it's also really
important to have.

You know I think staff play
a really important role in.

Those Well in terms of because I certainly
know if I think about her you might call

it so we have about ninety faculty we
have about two hundred staff we have

eight hundred students and I know that our
students interact with the staff a lot and

whether it's the dining staff or the dean
of students staff or you know the staff

who are the technicians in the labs those
people actually really matters well and

one of the things that was for
me incredibly wonderful was we have

a an orientation tea with the president
reception for parents and

their kids and the Dine the catering staff
the person who heads up the catering for

those kinds of events
Her name is Bernice and

she's Latina she came up to me
after that and she said Maria.

Maybe she said President I'm not sure.

The students look really different
this year and I said yeah they do and

I said to her the different
she said they look like us.

Are our class incoming class this
year was thirty eight percent white.

It was really pretty significant.

And it was more than twenty
percent Latino Latina I mean it

just was a much different class and she
was right if they looked more like her and

to me that was just a very big deal.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you for asking so I'm probably not
everybody knows what this is about so

as I'm on the board of Microsoft and

one of the things I did about
a week after such a became C.E.O.

was to ask him to come to
the hopper conference and I really

wanted him to come because we've never
managed to get a C.E.O. of a major tech

company to Hopper there's something they
have called a technical executive form and

I wanted him to be the first to offer
me a pretty who'd come to that and

I told them and if you say yes and I'll
go after a bunch of other C.E.O.'s and

try to persuade them to come off which
happened and within a week he said yes and

then after he said yes then tell
me who's the C.E.O. of A.B.

I said could you persuade
him to do a plenary and

so I emailed right so
we'll see you're going to be here.

Would you like to do a plenary and
you could either do an interview or

you could do a fireside chat
to nature's Farsight Tet So

then we decided that we
would raise questions and

we got questions and
he put the questions he wanted to answer.

And and then we had the interview and

the one thing I hadn't thought about
was so as you probably already guessed

I'm pretty informal and I didn't realize
that Sacha had not seen me in that

role before because that Microsoft
board meetings it's intimidating

I'm pretty quiet I mean the first few
times I was ridiculous I got squashed so

you know I'm pretty serious there and
so we're backstage and I'm.

Going such a we're going to run
on together he's queen really and

then for those of you who were there when
I was talking about how I got him to come

I actually knelt down like this and said
pretended I was begging him to come and

he was so embarrassed that's culturally so
inappropriate I just wasn't thinking and

so any how as we went
through the interview.

I think I put him off a stride and
so when I asked him the question

what advice would you give to women
who feel uncomfortable asking for

a salary increase he didn't
answer from his scripted answer

he answered from his cultural background
so he grew up in South India and he said.

It's good karma to do great
work without asking for

a reward and I think it's really great for
people it's one of

He'd been using references to
superpowers and he said I think it's one

of the superpowers that women can have
is that they can do great work and

not want to asked to be rewarded for
it which was interpreted as

he's telling women they shouldn't ask for
raises whereas he was actually saying

something different that the world would
be better of nobody asked for raises and

expected the system to work and
I have some sympathy with that but

as being somebody who personally
has trouble asking for raises and

who knew who knows a lot of women
in the audience have trouble or

I felt that wasn't the right answer so I
disagreed with them and gave my answer and

it got tweeted out that he had told
women that they shouldn't ask for

raises they should just let the system and
it went worldwide instantly OK so

my first reaction is incredible
guilt I got him to that conference

I got him to do a plenary and
I caused them to have people.

Saying horrible things about him
with that he didn't deserve.

My later reaction was wow

he handled this magnificently and
he has gone back to Microsoft

with a commitment to diversity it's not
that he wasn't committed before but

he now recognizes what a gap
the wrist between commitment and

actually understanding how the issues
affect people so really happy for

Microsoft it happened and then third
it raised the awareness of gender

equity in terms of pay in
the tech industry in a way that

simply hadn't been raised for probably
you know a decade if not longer and so

you know having that opportunity so
I still feel this moment of guilt and

this amount of joy.

If

you.

Let's an excellent question so
the first thing I'll say is.

So I think there are some I have
seen we recently some really

nice.

Software that's aimed at teaching computer
science concepts without words even so

roughly ages five through eight and
and I'm also you know I know

of a fair amount of a really nice work
that's done at the middle school level so.

The one that I'm talking about for
ages five to eight is called The food's

F.O.'s and
spy a company start up called Spark and

I just think it's beautifully done and
really.

Completely culturally.

It's not gendered it's very inclusive and
those kinds of things so

I was really happy with it.

I also you know really limited the amount
of time my kids spent watching television

when they were young I I tried to convince
them that the only channel our television

had was you know P.B.S. and
unfortunately my father visited once and

exposed them to cartoons like but

you know this is my father when we didn't
have a television when I was growing up.

But you know I I'm a very
big believer that first

of all too much of anything it's a bad
idea it's probably a bad idea to

read all day every day that's
certainly what I did as a kid and just

in the same way it's bad to play video
games all the time is about to watch T.V.

all the time so but
I think the sort of the kinds of.

Memes that are out there about your fry
your brain if you spend too much time

watching screens I think
it's highly unlikely so.

So you know.

No matter what I mean it's just
sort of like vaccines I'm probably

going to offend somebody by saying that if
you're not getting your kids vaccinated

you're really not doing your children
a favor well in society a favor.

You know I think that there's all
of these sort of beliefs that have

very little scientific basis
that become you know sort of

cultural beliefs and.

There's not often there's not that much
you can do about what happens in school

but they're only in school if you are city
and you can do a ton about what happens

outside of school and so you know I
had I have two very mathematic had

two I still have two very mathematically
gifted kids whose teachers for

sure they're really bad at math and my
husband and I are both mathematicians so

we did our thinking they were good at math
have any influence on either of them nope.

Fortunately they eventually both came to
the collision they were good at math so

you know I mean.

I guess what I fundamentally
believe if if like your parents you

are supportive of creativity and the use
of technology in appropriate ways and

all those kinds of things
will turn out great.

That's great thank.

You wow we are we are honored
to have you as to one fine

with distinguished selectors thank for
being Thank you Mary thank you so

much and thank you all of you thank.

You.

And we have a find
an opportunity to continue to

talk together with each other and
with Riyadh in the lobby at least your.