GS Chandy
Posts:
4,348
From:
Hyderabad, Mumbai/Bangalore, India
Registered:
9/29/05
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Re: None Dare Call It "The Gap"
Posted:
Sep 18, 2012 12:29 AM
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Haim posted Sep 17, 2012 4:43 PM (GSC's remarks at end):
>
> Here is a fascinating NY Times article about how men
> lag women in college degrees,
>
> >While women now earn more college degrees than men
> over
> >all...
>
> Wait! No, I don't think I got that quite right.
> ht. The article is about how men lag women in arts
> disciplines and the efforts to help the men catch up.
>
> No, wait! I still didn't get that right. Oh, I
> , I see, the problem is,
>
> >...they [women] lag in STEM fields---particularly
> >computer science and engineering, where they earn
> less
> >than 20 percent of all undergraduate degrees.
>
> So many Gaps, so little time. Boy! It's hard
> ard keeping up.
>
> Haim
> Shovel ready? What shovel ready?
> - -----------------------
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/education/online-men
> toring-program-to-encourage-women-in-sciences.html?hpw
>
> September 16, 2012
> Online Mentors to Guide Women Into the Sciences
> By TAMAR LEWIN
>
> Hundreds of prominent women working in science,
> technology, engineering and math will become online
> mentors for college students next month, part of a
> six-week program to encourage young women to pursue
> careers in STEM fields.
>
> ?I think of this as a MOOC ? a massive open online
> course ? and a big mentor-fest,? said Maria Klawe,
> the president of Harvey Mudd College and a sponsor of
> the project. ?Getting more women into STEM is my
> passion in life, and every institution that?s set up
> mentorship programs for young women has been
> successful at increasing their numbers, so I think
> this can make a real difference.?
>
> The program has no curriculum, no exam, no grades and
> no credit ? just a goal of connecting young students
> with accomplished women working in STEM fields.
> Prominent universities ? including the California
> Institute of Technology, Cornell, the Georgia
> Institute of Technology, Harvard, the Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology, Princeton, Stanford and the
> University of California, Berkeley ? have been quick
> to sign on, contributing mentors and publicizing the
> program to students.
>
> ?I thought this was a great idea as soon as I heard
> about it,? said Dennis Berkey, the president of
> Worcester Polytechnic Institute. ?Young women in
> STEM, more than young men, have a lot of questions
> about what kind of career they?ll have, whether the
> rewards are based on performance or the old boys?
> network, whether it?ll let them make a positive
> impact on the world, and how it will relate to their
> aspirations for family.?
>
> While women now earn more college degrees than men
> over all, they lag in STEM fields ? particularly
> computer science and engineering, where they earn
> less than 20 percent of all undergraduate degrees.
>
> To help raise those numbers, Dr. Klawe has lined up
> six prominent women as lead mentors, including Mae C.
> Jemison, the first black female astronaut; Jacqueline
> K. Barton, the chairwoman of the chemistry department
> at Caltech; and Padmasree Warrior, Cisco?s chief
> technology officer ? as well as nearly 300 other
> mentors. They will answer questions submitted online
> by students at any of the universities participating
> in the project, which is known as Women in Technology
> Sharing Online, or WitsOn.
>
> Undergraduates at other colleges can participate by
> getting a faculty member to nominate them. Although
> the program is especially designed for women, men
> will also be able to ask questions.
>
> According to the Web site, the project could even
> lead to jobs. ?We will do our best to connect
> students who are interested in positions with
> mentors? organizations that have positions to fill,?
> it says.
>
> A test forum in May attracted more than 800 questions
> in a day, according to Pooja Sankar, the founder of
> Piazza, a WitsOn sponsor. Young women had a wide
> range of queries: ?How sexist is programming?? ?How
> did you get where you are?? ?Do you have time for
> your family?? ?When is it right to correct
> misunderstandings about women in technology fields
> and when do you have to just let it slide?? And,
> inevitably, ?Can I work for you??
>
> Ms. Sankar, who went to engineering school in India,
> said that given her own awkward experiences in
> school, she had long wanted to offer support to
> female students.
>
> ?I was embarrassed to look at a boy, much less ask a
> question about homework,? Ms. Sankar said. ?I didn?t
> have a support group, and I thought it was because I
> was growing up in a traditional society. What was
> such a surprise, when I was at Facebook and Sheryl
> Sandberg had a session for women engineers, was that
> American girls, even if they?d gone to coed high
> schools, felt the same sense of isolation.?
>
> Jacqueline El-Sayed, a professor of mechanical
> engineering at Kettering University, said WitsOn
> could help bolster the confidence of women who think
> differently from their male classmates ? giving
> answers that are correct but unexpected, and in
> response getting what some call ?the look.?
>
> WitsOn?s somewhat unstructured approach is in some
> ways similar to the earliest massive online courses,
> created years before Harvard, M.I.T., Stanford and
> other leading universities started offering free
> online versions of their traditional campus classes.
> Like WitsOn, the first MOOCs were meant to help form
> connections online rather than provide a formal
> curriculum. The participants shaped the content,
> often interacting in so many different online threads
> that no student or teacher could follow all of them.
>
> ?In a connectivist MOOC, people get out of it what
> they put into it,? said Stephen Downes of the
> National Research Council of Canada, a pioneer of the
> early MOOCs. ?It?s something like a Yahoo group or
> other interest-based community. But it has a start
> date and an end date, and it pulls people out of
> different networks and plops them into a new one,
> which results in new connections and gets people
> hearing new voices.?
>
> WitsOn is not the only connectivist MOOC starting
> this fall. Athabasca University in Alberta ? along
> with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Educause,
> a nonprofit organization focused on information
> technology; The Chronicle of Higher Education; and
> others ? will present one called Current/Future State
> of Higher Education.
>
> Empire State College, a division of SUNY, will offer
> VizMath, which Carol Yaeger, a leader, said would be
> about ?the visualness of math ? things like math in
> art, Escher?s work, and exploring hyperbolic curves
> through knitting.? Participants will have the option
> of taking the class for credit at Empire State.
>
> ------- End of Forwarded Message
>
And so?
Is this another bit of your 'evidence' that will help put the 'Education Mafia' in jail?
GSC
("STILL Shoveling Away!")
------- End of Forwarded Message
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