Research is where its at, Bill Gates said yesterday summing up his (and CRA’s, in fact) message for federal funding priorities in a single sentence to the House Science and Technology Committee. The response came in the final minutes of the hearing when Gates was asked what the priority for federal funding should be given that there is a finite amount of federal money to spend and the large number of potential science and technology areas it could be spent on.
Gates appearance before the committee, his last as Chairman of Microsoft, was in commemoration of the committees 50th anniversary. The theme of the hearing was familiar to those in the science and technology realmCompetitiveness and Innovation. Gates testimony, both written and in response to questions, followed the arguments he and the rest of the S&T community have been making for the last several years: the urgency for improving STEM education at the K-12 level, the critical need for federal funding of basic research, the importance of attracting the best and the brightest from around the world to U.S. universities, the need to increase diversity in STEM fields, and the requirement that we do whatever we can to retain talent in the U.S.
The entire written testimony and a webcast of the hearing are available on the committee web site. In it, Gates, not unexpectedly, highlights the important contributions of information technology and its great potential to aid in solving some of the trickiest problems we face:
Computing and software will also play an increasingly central role in scientific research. We are rapidly moving into an era of data-centric computational science in which researchers across a wide range of disciplines routinely use software and computers as essential tools for investigation and collaboration. The ability to use computers to model complex systems is transforming the way we learn about everything from genomics and biosciences to physics and astronomy. In the future, scientific computing will play a profoundly important role in advances that will help us treat diseases, address climate change, and confront many other critical issues.
…But he raises important questions about whether we’re doing all we can to insure the U.S. remains an innovation leader:
As I hope these remarks reflect, I am optimistic about the potential for technology to help us find new ways to improve peoples lives and tackle important challenges. I am less optimistic, however, that the United States will continue to remain a global leader in technology innovation. While Americas innovation heritage is unparalleled, the evidence is mounting that we are failing to make the investments in our young people, our workers, our scientific research infrastructure, and our economy that will enable us to retain our global innovation leadership.
In particular, I believe that there are two urgent reasons why we should all be deeply concerned that our advantages in science and technology innovation are in danger of slipping away.
First, we face a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and engineers who can develop new breakthrough technologies. Second, the public and private sectors are no longer investing in basic research and development (R&D) at the levels needed to drive long-term innovation.
If the United States truly wants to secure its global leadership in technology innovation, we must, as a nation, commit to a strategy for innovation excellence a set of initiatives and policies that will provide the foundation for American competitive strength in the years ahead. Such a strategy cannot succeed without a serious commitment from and partnership between both the public and private sectors. It will also need to be flexible and dynamic enough to respond to rapid changes in the global economy.
Update: Some press coverage of the hearing from Forbes, the Washington Post, and one in Inforworld (though the latter focuses almost exclusively on Gates’ H-1B testimony).
MicrosoftChairman Bill Gates will testify before the House Science and Technology Committee tomorrow morning to “share his thoughts on efforts needed to further strengthen our countrys competitiveness in the global marketplace, discuss what policies are needed to encourage innovation, and address the role of technology in our countrys economic growth.” (That’s according to the hearing charter (pdf)). The hearing is the first in a series planned by House S&T to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the committee, created in the wake of the shock of Sputnik (an event that also motivated the creation of DARPA and NASA and triggered an rapid increase in federal science funding). Expect Gates to talk about the importance of this federal support for fundamental research in driving the nation’s incredibly successful innovation ecosystem over that time.
The committee will webcast the 10 am ET hearing from a URL that will be available here, where you can also find the hearing charter and some related information. We’ll have our reaction to the testimony here following the hearing.
The House of Representatives Budget Committee passed the FY09 budget resolution and a Sense of the House resolution last night reaffirming the importance of S&T funding. The budget resolution provides a large pot of money for the accounts that fund science agencies, including an additional $379 million above the Presidents request for the account that funds NSF. The Sense of the House resolution, a non-binding resolution, says that it is important to fully fund the America COMPETES Act. While this is a good sign of support for science, it’s only the first step that Congress must take to realize these increases as part of the FY 09 appropriations process. And we’ve seen in the past how good first steps don’t necessarily mean the final steps will be equally good. Sense of the House text:
TITLE VISENSE OF THE HOUSE
SEC. 601. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON THE INNOVATION AGENDA AND AMERICA COMPETES ACT
It is the sense of the House that the House should provide sufficient funding so that our Nation may continue to be the world leader in education, innovation and economic growth; last year, Congress passed and the President signed the America COMPETES Act, bipartisan legislation designed to ensure that American students, teachers, businesses, and workers are pre-pared to continue leading the world in innovation, research, and technology well into the future; this resolution supports the efforts authorized in the America COMPETES Act, providing substantially increased funding above the Presidents requested level for 2009, and increased amounts after 2009 in Function 250 (General Science, Space and Technology) and Function 270 (Energy); additional increases for scientific research and education are included in Function 500 (Education, Employment, Training and Social Services), Function 550 (Health), Function 300 (Environment and Natural Resources), and Function 370 (Commerce and Housing Credit), all of which receive more funding than the Presidents budget provides; because Americas greatest resource for innovation resides within classrooms across the country, the increased funding provided in this resolution will support initiatives within the America COMPETES Act to educate tens of thousands of new scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and place highly qualified teachers in math and science K-12 classrooms; and because independent scientific research provides the foundation for innovation and future technologies, this resolution will keep us on the path toward doubling funding for the National Science Foundation, basic research in the physical sciences, and collaborative research partnerships, and toward achieving energy independence through the develop ment of clean and sustainable alternative energy technologies.
Well have more on the budget resolution as the process moves forward. Stay tuned!
An effort is under way to influence the National Science Foundation’s FY09 funding early this appropriations season. Reps. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Bob Inglis (R-SC) and Brian Baird (D-WA) have put together a letter to the House Appropriations Chair and Ranking Member to urge support for NSF’s FY09 budget request of $7.326 billion (which represents a 13.6 percent increase over FY08), and they’re looking for more of their colleagues to co-sign. CRA has joined with many others in the science advocacy community in alerting our membership to help encourage more Members of Congress to sign on. But you can help, too! Below is the alert that we sent out to the Computing Research Advocacy Network (interested in joining?). You don’t have to be a member to participate!:
Members of the Computing Research Advocacy Network:
I am writing to ask for your help with a brief opportunity that we have to influence support for increasing funding at the National Science Foundation in the FY09 budget appropriations process in the House of Representatives. Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Bob Inglis (R-SC) and Brian Baird (D-WA) have circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter to all of the Members of the House of Representatives asking them to sign a letter (text provided below) to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee urging their support for the agency’s budget request of $7.326 billion for FY09, an increase of 13.6 percent over FY08. As you know, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds 86 percent of all university-based computing research, so securing a funding increase at this vital agency is crucially important to the computing community. We want to get NSF back onto the doubling track.
In order for this effort to have significant impact, the letter needs as many congressional signatories as possible. We’re asking CRAN members to please contact your Representative immediately to encourage him or her to sign this letter. Members wishing to sign the letter MUST do so by March 12, so the window of opportunity is brief to make a difference. Please CALL your Representative’s office today to encourage him or her to sign.
The process is short and simple: Call your Representative’s DC office (if you need assistance finding your Congressman’s phone number, please go to the House of Representatives web site or contact Melissa Norr at CRA at mnorr@cra.org or at 202-266-2944). Ask to speak to the legislative assistant who handles science issues for the Member. Explain that you’re a researcher in the Representative’s district, and that much of work performed at your institution is enabled by support from NSF. Urge the Representative to support the increase requested by NSF for FY09, and to demonstrate that support by signing the letter in the Dear Colleague circulated by Ehlers, Holt, Baird and Inglis last Tuesday. That’s it!
As of last Friday, co-signers, in addition to Reps. Ehlers, Holt, Baird and Inglis, include the following representatives:
* Mike Rogers (AL)
* Thomas Allen (ME)
* Alcee Hastings (FL)
* Betty Sutton (OH)
* Phil English (PA)
* Ron Paul (TX)
* Michael McNulty (NY)
* Jim Moran (VA)
* David Loebsack (IA)
Previous efforts have produced more than 100 co-signers. We’d like to reach at least that level this time as well. Remember, Members have until March 12th to sign on, so please call soon.
On behalf of the CRA, many thanks for your help!
— Jeff
P.S. Here’s a text of the letter we want your Congressman to sign:
Dear Chairman Mollohan and Ranking Member Frelinghuysen,
We are writing to thank you for your past support for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and to ask you to continue that support in the FY 2009 appropriations bill. Our request is to uphold the fiscal year 2009 funding level of the American COMPETES Act of $7.326 billion for the National Science Foundation.
In 2007, a pathway was established to double the budget of the NSF over the course of 10 years. The priority recommendation of an esteemed panel of the National Academies, the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, served as the catalyst for Congress and the Administration to find consensus on the doubling path for the physical sciences. The National Academies’ convincing report warned that the U.S. must invest in fundamental research or our innovation pipeline will deteriorate.
Despite the evidence and overwhelming support for the COMPETES Act, which was signed into law in August 2007, funding for NSF fell short of the ten-year doubling path in both the FY07 and FY08 appropriations cycles. Cumulatively, NSF was funded $500 million below the request in the past two years. Our request – as authorized by the COMPETES Act – adds this amount to the funding request for NSF by the Administration in FY09 ($6.854 billion) in order to restore these deficits. This will put the NSF back on its doubling path.
A renewed commitment to core basic research and educational programs at NSF is essential to meet the enormous promise of scientific innovation, to better train future scientists, engineers, and technicians, and to promote the success of multidisciplinary initiatives, including biotechnology and nanotechnology. We now need to make substantial investments in the physical sciences and engineering. NSF is the core agency for these endeavors.
Past investments in NSF have contributed greatly to major technological advances in areas and industries that are critical for U.S. economic growth and defense. We respectfully request that you continue the flow of such advances in the FY09 budget by funding NSF at $7.326 billion.”
—
Jeffrey S. Vitter
Frederick L. Hovde Dean of the College of Science
Purdue University
Update: A list of additional signers as of March 6, is below. Update 2: The letter has 126 signers as of March 17. The total list is below. Thank you to everyone who contacted their Congressmen.
Data from CRA’s own Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting computer science and computer engineering departments in North America shows that the number of newly declared CS majors has increased for the first time since the height of the dot-com boom in Fall 2000. This might indicate that interest in CS has stabilized after a long period of decline post-2000, writes Jay Vegso in the CRA Bulletin.
While the number of enrollments in undergraduate CS departments continues down among the CS departments surveyed, the increase in newly declared CS majors suggests that these highly-cyclical enrollments may be poised to exit their current trough in the coming years. The Taulbee numbers also show that though enrollments are down from Fall 2000 peak, enrollments are still above the pre-boom 1995 numbers.
CRA will release the full results from the Taulbee Survey in May.
There’s good coverage of the release of the undergraduate info today in both Inside Higher Ed and Computerworld. Both are worth reading. And of course, Jay’s got the full detail at the CRA Bulletin. Update: Also, E-week.
CRA’s Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research. The CRA Board of Directors has selected W. Richards (Rick) Adrion, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to receive its 2008 Distinguished Service Award.
Adrion was recognized for his sustained record of effective and significant service contributions spanning more than two decades. He has played a key role in building, nurturing and shaping todays computer science community. Among these contributions are leadership in the development of the Internet; leadership in setting strategic directions at the National Science Foundation; leadership in developing a stronger political voice for computer science in national politics; leadership in strengthening the software engineering community; leadership in strengthening, modernizing and invigorating computing and information technology programs in Massachusetts public higher education; and overall service to the computer science community. Rick Adrion was general chair of the first ACM/CRB Conference on Strategic Directions in Computing. He also played a leadership role in the formation of CRA and was an active board member for many years, serving on the Executive Committee and Government Affairs Committee.
Rick Adrion is Professor of Computer Science at UMass Amherst, Co-Director of RIPPLES, Co-Director of the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI), and Director of CRICCS. He served as Division Director for Experimental and Integrated Activities in the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) from January 2000 through August 2002 and as a part-time Senior Advisor in CISE until September 2003.
CRA’s A. Nico Habermann Award is usually presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented members in the computing research community. It honors the late A. Nico Habermann, who headed NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate and who was deeply committed to increasing the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing research. The CRA board has selected Richard E. Ladner, Boeing Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, to receive the 2008 Habermann Award. Professor Ladner is recognized for his lifelong, strong and persistent advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities in the computing community.
Ladner’s contributions have taken three forms: mentoring of students, research both with and for persons with disabilities, and national advocacy. He is known for his dedicated, one-on-one mentoring of students (both with and without disabilities). Over the past 15 summers, he has worked with 38 severely disabled high school students on week-long summer projects in computing. Ladner has also mentored undergraduates and graduate students with disabilities, often working with them on assistive technology research. His assistive technology efforts have resulted in networking (remote login, email) for Seattle’s deaf-blind community, large-print user interfaces for Unix machines, video compression algorithms that are tailored to American Sign Language and simple enough to implement in real-time on a cell phone, and new image processing and enhancement algorithms to convert graphical images–diagrams in math and science textbooks–into tactile images.
Richard Ladner currently co-leads the NSF-sponsored AccessComputing Alliance, a national effort to increase the number of students with disabilities majoring in computing. As part of their effort, the Alliance hosts workshops and summer camps around the country, and Ladner has run many of these, including a three-day Vertical Mentoring Workshop for the Blind in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and a nine-week summer camp for deaf students. Ladner has also been tireless in his advocacy at the national level: he has spoken to many groups, including department chairs at the CRA Conference at Snowbird, and worked with organizations and departments (through AccessComputing’s communities of practice) to make it easier for students with disabilities to fully participate.
[The following guest post by CRA Chair Dan Reed originally appeared on Dan’s blog, Reed’s Ruminations. We’re pleased to repost it here.]
Much has been written about declining enrollments in computer science, the image of computing among secondary school students, and the depressingly small numbers of women and minorities enrolled in computer science programs. There are many opinions about the root causes of our enrollment problems and at least as many opinions about possible solutions. The reality of the problem is not in dispute, however. Slicing the Infinite Onion
As I reflect on the past thirty years of computer science curricula and my experience as both a student and a professor, I am often struck by how little has changed. The core elements of our curricula remain centered on formal languages and theory, data structures, programming languages and compilers, operating systems and computer architecture. These are the courses I took as an undergraduate in the 1970s, and we still teach their evolutionary variants today.
Around continuous and discrete mathematics, physical and biological science and this computing core, we have added successive layers to the computing curriculum onion: graphics and human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, mobile and embedded devices, computational geometry, networks and distributed systems, numerical and scientific algorithms, parallel computing, databases and data mining, privacy and information security, just to name a few.
As this non-exhaustive list illustrates, the computing curriculum onion has grown ever larger and more complex, with each layer derived from new discoveries and technologies. I do not believe this expansion can continue indefinitely. Asymptotics do apply the number of students will tend (indeed, is tending toward) zero as the knowledge and degree expectations approaches infinity. This must change. Rethinking Computing Education
I believe we must rethink our computing education approaches in some deep and fundamental ways. First, as researchers and technologists we seek to reproduce students in our technical image, failing to acknowledge that most of our students will not develop compilers, write operating systems or design computer chips. Rather, they benefit from training in logical problem solving, knowledge of computing tools and their applicability to new domains.
In short, most of our graduates solve problems using computing rather than working in core computing technologies. We must recognize and embrace the universality of computing as a problem solving process and introduce computing via technically challenging and socially relevant problem domains.
The magic hierarchy of computing from atoms to gates to bits to in-order instruction architecture and machine language to code translation to “hello world” was an attractive and emotionally enticing technology story to previous generations. It is often esoteric and off-putting to a generation of students reared on ubiquitous computing technology.
This does not mean we should eviscerate the intellectual core of computing. Rather, we must emphasize relevance and introduce computing as a means to solve problems. Show the importance of computing to elections and voting, energy management and eco-friendly design, health care and quality of life.
Second, we struggle to accept the fact that not every student needs detailed knowledge of every computing specialization. If I were to draw a tortured analogy with the history of automobile, drivers need not understand combustion dynamics, the stiff ODE solutions underlying antilock brakes or superheterodyne radio engineering. Drivers do need to understand how to operate a car safely and recognize the high-level principles underlying that operation.
All of this suggests we should create multiple educational tracks that emphasis the disparate aspects of computing, layered atop a smaller, common core. Of course, I could be wrong I often am. CRA-E Committee
To explore the future of computing education, CRA has chartered a new committee, CRA-E (E for education), chaired by Brown professor Andries (Andy) van Dam. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. As I noted in the press release:
I am delighted that Professor van Dam has agreed to service as the initial chair of CRA-E. Not only is Andy a distinguished and respected researcher, he is passionate about computing education, both its theory and its practice. Moreover, he has long worked to apply novel technologies to computing education.
Andy will be assembling a committee to think deeply and strategically about the future of computing education, especially at the undergraduate level. I look forward to the outcome of these explorations.
The National Science Foundation (along with all other federal agencies) released its FY 09 Budget Request to Congress on Monday. We’ve already had some preliminary coverage of it, noting that, on the whole, computing research does pretty well. Late Monday afternoon NSF hosted a briefing on its budget to provide a little finer resolution look at what they hope to get from Congress in this appropriations season — and we’ve got those details below (spoiler: they’re pretty good).
But maybe just as importantly, NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate also provided some detail about how it plans to deal with the austere appropriation it received from Congress for FY 2008. Before we get to the relatively good news from the request, it’s probably appropriate to close the book on the FY 2008 numbers. You’ll recall that CISE had some big plans for FY 2008. We’ve listed some of the potential impacts on NSF overall from the omnibus funding levels in a previous post, but here’s what we know specifically about CISE:
NSF had requested a 9.0 percent increase for CISE in FY 2008, an increase of $47 million. Instead, CISE will see just a 1.5 percent increase — $39 million less than requested.
The Cyber-enabled Discovery Initiative (CDI), a new initiative when it was proposed for FY 08, will see all of its requested funding. For FY 08, that’s $20 million. Foundation-wide, CDI will be funded at $48 million in FY 08, down a bit from the overall request of $52 million, but still a strong commitment to a program that has attracted considerable attention within the computing community (with more to come in FY 09).
The biggest impact on CISE, therefore, is the growth that won’t occur across the rest of the core in FY 08. Because NSF has targeted an average award size of $120,000 for FY 08, that’s approximately 325 grants they had planned to award that they will not now as a result of the omnibus. On average, those 325 awards would have supported more than 400 graduate students this year.
Now, the good news.
For FY 2009, NSF hopes to make up the ground lost in the omnibus by requesting significant increases for its research directorates. Overall, NSF would see its budget increase by 14 percent over FY 08, to $6.06 billion in FY 09. Within that increase, computing research is featured prominently in the request. The Foundation-wide, but CISE led, Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation program would expand considerably under the agency’s plan, growing from $48 million in FY 08 to $100 million in FY 09, including $33 million in CISE. Additionally, the agency has proposed two new foundation-wide initiatives that have strong computing foci. The first is a $20 million investment in “Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law,” which “aims to position the U.S. at the forefront of communications and computation capability beyond the physical and conceptional limitations of current systems.” That program would be led by the Mathematics and Physical Sciences directorate, but CISE would control $6 million in awards. The second is a $15 million investment ($3.5 million in CISE) in “Adaptive Systems Technology” that focuses on “generating pathways and interfaces between human and physical systems that will revolutionize the development of novel adaptive systems.”
Additionally, CISE would see its core research budget increase by 19.5 percent, or $104 million, in FY 09 under the President’s plan — essentially making up all the ground lost with the omnibus. Programs of note within the directorate include:
$78 million for Computing Fundamentals — set-aside for basic, potentially transformative research answering fundamental questions in computing that have the potential for “significant, enduring impact.” Foci include cyber-physical systems, data-intensive computing, software for complex systems, cybersecurity, network science and engineering, and understanding “what is computable?” when humans and machines work together to solve problems neither can solve alone.
$33.6 million for CDI — CISE would contribute over a third of the total NSF investment in the initiative and would be the “lead” directorate.
We’ll have some additional charts spelling out exactly how CISE plans to spend its money in FY 09 very soon.
For now, it’s enough to say that the budget appears to once again represent a good start for NSF and computing in the appropriations cycle. But it’s just the start of a long, unpredictable process.
Next up, a focus on DOD IT R&D….
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Gates Tells Congress to Support Research
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Computing Education, Diversity in Computing, Funding, FY09 Appropriations, People /by MelissaNorrResearch is where its at, Bill Gates said yesterday summing up his (and CRA’s, in fact) message for federal funding priorities in a single sentence to the House Science and Technology Committee. The response came in the final minutes of the hearing when Gates was asked what the priority for federal funding should be given that there is a finite amount of federal money to spend and the large number of potential science and technology areas it could be spent on.
Gates appearance before the committee, his last as Chairman of Microsoft, was in commemoration of the committees 50th anniversary. The theme of the hearing was familiar to those in the science and technology realmCompetitiveness and Innovation. Gates testimony, both written and in response to questions, followed the arguments he and the rest of the S&T community have been making for the last several years: the urgency for improving STEM education at the K-12 level, the critical need for federal funding of basic research, the importance of attracting the best and the brightest from around the world to U.S. universities, the need to increase diversity in STEM fields, and the requirement that we do whatever we can to retain talent in the U.S.
The entire written testimony and a webcast of the hearing are available on the committee web site. In it, Gates, not unexpectedly, highlights the important contributions of information technology and its great potential to aid in solving some of the trickiest problems we face:
…But he raises important questions about whether we’re doing all we can to insure the U.S. remains an innovation leader:
Update: Some press coverage of the hearing from Forbes, the Washington Post, and one in Inforworld (though the latter focuses almost exclusively on Gates’ H-1B testimony).
Gates to Testify Before Congress on Innovation
/In: Events, People, Policy /by Peter HarshaMicrosoft Chairman Bill Gates will testify before the House Science and Technology Committee tomorrow morning to “share his thoughts on efforts needed to further strengthen our countrys competitiveness in the global marketplace, discuss what policies are needed to encourage innovation, and address the role of technology in our countrys economic growth.” (That’s according to the hearing charter (pdf)). The hearing is the first in a series planned by House S&T to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the committee, created in the wake of the shock of Sputnik (an event that also motivated the creation of DARPA and NASA and triggered an rapid increase in federal science funding). Expect Gates to talk about the importance of this federal support for fundamental research in driving the nation’s incredibly successful innovation ecosystem over that time.
The committee will webcast the 10 am ET hearing from a URL that will be available here, where you can also find the hearing charter and some related information. We’ll have our reaction to the testimony here following the hearing.
FY09 House Budget Resolution
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY09 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrThe House of Representatives Budget Committee passed the FY09 budget resolution and a Sense of the House resolution last night reaffirming the importance of S&T funding. The budget resolution provides a large pot of money for the accounts that fund science agencies, including an additional $379 million above the Presidents request for the account that funds NSF. The Sense of the House resolution, a non-binding resolution, says that it is important to fully fund the America COMPETES Act. While this is a good sign of support for science, it’s only the first step that Congress must take to realize these increases as part of the FY 09 appropriations process. And we’ve seen in the past how good first steps don’t necessarily mean the final steps will be equally good. Sense of the House text:
Well have more on the budget resolution as the process moves forward. Stay tuned!
Help Urge Congress To Support Increases in Science, Computing Research
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY09 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrAn effort is under way to influence the National Science Foundation’s FY09 funding early this appropriations season. Reps. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Bob Inglis (R-SC) and Brian Baird (D-WA) have put together a letter to the House Appropriations Chair and Ranking Member to urge support for NSF’s FY09 budget request of $7.326 billion (which represents a 13.6 percent increase over FY08), and they’re looking for more of their colleagues to co-sign. CRA has joined with many others in the science advocacy community in alerting our membership to help encourage more Members of Congress to sign on. But you can help, too! Below is the alert that we sent out to the Computing Research Advocacy Network (interested in joining?). You don’t have to be a member to participate!:
Update: A list of additional signers as of March 6, is below.
Update 2: The letter has 126 signers as of March 17. The total list is below. Thank you to everyone who contacted their Congressmen.
Read more →
Interest in Computer Science Degrees Improving?
/In: CRA, People /by Peter HarshaData from CRA’s own Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting computer science and computer engineering departments in North America shows that the number of newly declared CS majors has increased for the first time since the height of the dot-com boom in Fall 2000. This might indicate that interest in CS has stabilized after a long period of decline post-2000, writes Jay Vegso in the CRA Bulletin.
While the number of enrollments in undergraduate CS departments continues down among the CS departments surveyed, the increase in newly declared CS majors suggests that these highly-cyclical enrollments may be poised to exit their current trough in the coming years. The Taulbee numbers also show that though enrollments are down from Fall 2000 peak, enrollments are still above the pre-boom 1995 numbers.
CRA will release the full results from the Taulbee Survey in May.
There’s good coverage of the release of the undergraduate info today in both Inside Higher Ed and Computerworld. Both are worth reading. And of course, Jay’s got the full detail at the CRA Bulletin.
Update: Also, E-week.
Rick Adrion Recognized for Distinguished Service to Computing Community
/In: CRA, Events, People /by Peter HarshaCRA’s Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research.
The CRA Board of Directors has selected W. Richards (Rick) Adrion, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to receive its 2008 Distinguished Service Award.
Adrion was recognized for his sustained record of effective and significant service contributions spanning more than two decades. He has played a key role in building, nurturing and shaping todays computer science community. Among these contributions are leadership in the development of the Internet; leadership in setting strategic directions at the National Science Foundation; leadership in developing a stronger political voice for computer science in national politics; leadership in strengthening the software engineering community; leadership in strengthening, modernizing and invigorating computing and information technology programs in Massachusetts public higher education; and overall service to the computer science community. Rick Adrion was general chair of the first ACM/CRB Conference on Strategic Directions in Computing. He also played a leadership role in the formation of CRA and was an active board member for many years, serving on the Executive Committee and Government Affairs Committee.
Rick Adrion is Professor of Computer Science at UMass Amherst, Co-Director of RIPPLES, Co-Director of the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI), and Director of CRICCS. He served as Division Director for Experimental and Integrated Activities in the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) from January 2000 through August 2002 and as a part-time Senior Advisor in CISE until September 2003.
CRA Selects Richard Ladner as 2008 A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
/In: CRA, Diversity in Computing, Events, People /by Peter HarshaCRA’s A. Nico Habermann Award is usually presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented members in the computing research community. It honors the late A. Nico Habermann, who headed NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate and who was deeply committed to increasing the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing research.
The CRA board has selected Richard E. Ladner, Boeing Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, to receive the 2008 Habermann Award. Professor Ladner is recognized for his lifelong, strong and persistent advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities in the computing community.
Ladner’s contributions have taken three forms: mentoring of students, research both with and for persons with disabilities, and national advocacy. He is known for his dedicated, one-on-one mentoring of students (both with and without disabilities). Over the past 15 summers, he has worked with 38 severely disabled high school students on week-long summer projects in computing. Ladner has also mentored undergraduates and graduate students with disabilities, often working with them on assistive technology research. His assistive technology efforts have resulted in networking (remote login, email) for Seattle’s deaf-blind community, large-print user interfaces for Unix machines, video compression algorithms that are tailored to American Sign Language and simple enough to implement in real-time on a cell phone, and new image processing and enhancement algorithms to convert graphical images–diagrams in math and science textbooks–into tactile images.
Richard Ladner currently co-leads the NSF-sponsored AccessComputing Alliance, a national effort to increase the number of students with disabilities majoring in computing. As part of their effort, the Alliance hosts workshops and summer camps around the country, and Ladner has run many of these, including a three-day Vertical Mentoring Workshop for the Blind in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and a nine-week summer camp for deaf students. Ladner has also been tireless in his advocacy at the national level: he has spoken to many groups, including department chairs at the CRA Conference at Snowbird, and worked with organizations and departments (through AccessComputing’s communities of practice) to make it easier for students with disabilities to fully participate.
CRA-E in the Chronicle
/In: Computing Education, CRA, People /by MelissaNorrAndries van Dam, the newly appointed chair of the Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E), is already hard at work getting the word out about the problems of computing education. He spoke to the Chronicle of Higher Education about the concerns and the future work necessary.
Computing Education and the Infinite Onion
/In: Computing Education, CRA, People, Policy /by Peter Harsha[The following guest post by CRA Chair Dan Reed originally appeared on Dan’s blog, Reed’s Ruminations. We’re pleased to repost it here.]
Much has been written about declining enrollments in computer science, the image of computing among secondary school students, and the depressingly small numbers of women and minorities enrolled in computer science programs. There are many opinions about the root causes of our enrollment problems and at least as many opinions about possible solutions. The reality of the problem is not in dispute, however.
Slicing the Infinite Onion
As I reflect on the past thirty years of computer science curricula and my experience as both a student and a professor, I am often struck by how little has changed. The core elements of our curricula remain centered on formal languages and theory, data structures, programming languages and compilers, operating systems and computer architecture. These are the courses I took as an undergraduate in the 1970s, and we still teach their evolutionary variants today.
Around continuous and discrete mathematics, physical and biological science and this computing core, we have added successive layers to the computing curriculum onion: graphics and human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, mobile and embedded devices, computational geometry, networks and distributed systems, numerical and scientific algorithms, parallel computing, databases and data mining, privacy and information security, just to name a few.
As this non-exhaustive list illustrates, the computing curriculum onion has grown ever larger and more complex, with each layer derived from new discoveries and technologies. I do not believe this expansion can continue indefinitely. Asymptotics do apply the number of students will tend (indeed, is tending toward) zero as the knowledge and degree expectations approaches infinity. This must change.
Rethinking Computing Education
I believe we must rethink our computing education approaches in some deep and fundamental ways. First, as researchers and technologists we seek to reproduce students in our technical image, failing to acknowledge that most of our students will not develop compilers, write operating systems or design computer chips. Rather, they benefit from training in logical problem solving, knowledge of computing tools and their applicability to new domains.
In short, most of our graduates solve problems using computing rather than working in core computing technologies. We must recognize and embrace the universality of computing as a problem solving process and introduce computing via technically challenging and socially relevant problem domains.
The magic hierarchy of computing from atoms to gates to bits to in-order instruction architecture and machine language to code translation to “hello world” was an attractive and emotionally enticing technology story to previous generations. It is often esoteric and off-putting to a generation of students reared on ubiquitous computing technology.
This does not mean we should eviscerate the intellectual core of computing. Rather, we must emphasize relevance and introduce computing as a means to solve problems. Show the importance of computing to elections and voting, energy management and eco-friendly design, health care and quality of life.
Second, we struggle to accept the fact that not every student needs detailed knowledge of every computing specialization. If I were to draw a tortured analogy with the history of automobile, drivers need not understand combustion dynamics, the stiff ODE solutions underlying antilock brakes or superheterodyne radio engineering. Drivers do need to understand how to operate a car safely and recognize the high-level principles underlying that operation.
All of this suggests we should create multiple educational tracks that emphasis the disparate aspects of computing, layered atop a smaller, common core. Of course, I could be wrong I often am.
CRA-E Committee
To explore the future of computing education, CRA has chartered a new committee, CRA-E (E for education), chaired by Brown professor Andries (Andy) van Dam. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. As I noted in the press release:
Andy will be assembling a committee to think deeply and strategically about the future of computing education, especially at the undergraduate level. I look forward to the outcome of these explorations.
FY 09 Budget Close-Up: National Science Foundation
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe National Science Foundation (along with all other federal agencies) released its FY 09 Budget Request to Congress on Monday. We’ve already had some preliminary coverage of it, noting that, on the whole, computing research does pretty well. Late Monday afternoon NSF hosted a briefing on its budget to provide a little finer resolution look at what they hope to get from Congress in this appropriations season — and we’ve got those details below (spoiler: they’re pretty good).
But maybe just as importantly, NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate also provided some detail about how it plans to deal with the austere appropriation it received from Congress for FY 2008. Before we get to the relatively good news from the request, it’s probably appropriate to close the book on the FY 2008 numbers. You’ll recall that CISE had some big plans for FY 2008. We’ve listed some of the potential impacts on NSF overall from the omnibus funding levels in a previous post, but here’s what we know specifically about CISE:
Now, the good news.
For FY 2009, NSF hopes to make up the ground lost in the omnibus by requesting significant increases for its research directorates. Overall, NSF would see its budget increase by 14 percent over FY 08, to $6.06 billion in FY 09. Within that increase, computing research is featured prominently in the request. The Foundation-wide, but CISE led, Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation program would expand considerably under the agency’s plan, growing from $48 million in FY 08 to $100 million in FY 09, including $33 million in CISE. Additionally, the agency has proposed two new foundation-wide initiatives that have strong computing foci. The first is a $20 million investment in “Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law,” which “aims to position the U.S. at the forefront of communications and computation capability beyond the physical and conceptional limitations of current systems.” That program would be led by the Mathematics and Physical Sciences directorate, but CISE would control $6 million in awards. The second is a $15 million investment ($3.5 million in CISE) in “Adaptive Systems Technology” that focuses on “generating pathways and interfaces between human and physical systems that will revolutionize the development of novel adaptive systems.”
Additionally, CISE would see its core research budget increase by 19.5 percent, or $104 million, in FY 09 under the President’s plan — essentially making up all the ground lost with the omnibus. Programs of note within the directorate include:
We’ll have some additional charts spelling out exactly how CISE plans to spend its money in FY 09 very soon.
For now, it’s enough to say that the budget appears to once again represent a good start for NSF and computing in the appropriations cycle. But it’s just the start of a long, unpredictable process.
Next up, a focus on DOD IT R&D….