Apr 20, 2011 - titled Top Secret Rosies (a reference, of course, both to ... ments of Computer Science and Visual ... neering and science degree enrollments.
Botswana twice in the past year. “There has to be an understanding that your family means more than just the people who live with you in the U.S.,” she says about her situation. Upton considers the field assistant who passed away to be part of her family and she now pays the school fees of his five children. “Could my partner and I use that money? Of course! But we also know what’s really important and where we want to put our efforts.” Additionally, says Upton, “I know I do things like this more than my male colleagues do, but my commitment to Botswana is a huge part of both my professional and my personal life.” Upton’s family will be happy to have her back in the United States for a while, though, while she’s on sabbatical and planning to use the time to write a book on the intersections between HIV and infertility/the impact on women’s lives in Botswana. She credits the University of DePauw with being “amazing” in its support of her, noting that her sabbatical was actually supposed to be last year, but then she was able to move it after getting the Fulbright scholarship. Upton also loves teaching the university’s undergraduates. “I like getting them interested in research,” she says. “I want them to realize that the world is bigger than wherever they happen to be and that, while they can learn a lot in the classroom, there is a lot to learn outside as well.” Upton is proud to be able to take students with her to Botswana from time to time, where they work as field assistants gathering research alongside the Batswana. “I can tell them until I’m blue in the face about how HIV has ravaged people’s lives, but they don’t normally get it until they’ve seen it,” she explains. “It’s an ‘ah-ha!’ moment for them.” It is usually at this point that students understand that these aren’t just academic concerns, but real life issues. “There are different ways to think about different things, like health, for example,” she says. “People shouldn’t be bound by their own personal cultures.” —Leslie Prives
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IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
“Top Secret Rosies” Documentary chronicles pioneering women technologists
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Before the invention of electronic computers, “computer” was a job description, not a machine. There were a number of areas where large-scale, repetitive calculations were needed, including actuarial tables for the insurance industry and gunnery tables for the military. Despite the tradition of mat hematics-ba sed c areers being male dominated and the male-oriented nature of the industries using such computers, women were prominent in the field. There was a large pool of
labor pool was reduced as men entered the armed services. In the United States, hundreds upon hundreds of women were employed at locations—many of them high security—around the country as computers. One such location was the Moore School of Electrical Engineering in Philadelphia, part of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where dozens of women worked cranking the handles on their calculators and producing column after column of numbers. Observing this work, engineers such as John Mauchly thought that a machine could be designed to do these processes and began to work on what became the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), one of the first electronic digital computers.
Filmmaker LeAnn Erickson will screen the documentary “Top Secret Rosies” at Rutgers University in New Jersey and participate in a Q&A session about the film.
women with training in mathematics, but their exclusion from other fields meant that they could be hired for much less money than men with comparable training. With the onset of World War II, the demand for computers became much greater at the same time that the male Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2011.940497 Date of publication: 20 April 2011
JUNE 2011
When the ENIAC was nearing completion, six women were chosen from among the human computers to be trained as programmers. These were Kay McNulty (later to marry Mauchly), Frances Bilas, Betty Jean Jennings, Elizabeth Snyder, Ruth Lichterman, and Marlyn Wescoff. It was these six individuals who devised the very first computer program, which was demonstrated when the ENIAC was unveiled in early
1946 (the war was over by then, but the project was not canceled because the Cold War had begun). Soon after, however, the ENIAC was turned over to the military, and the women were not taken along. Although some stayed in the computing field, a pattern—the underrepresentation of women in computing—was set that troubles us to this day. Although the public is not often aware of the role of these pioneering women technologists, historians have for some time been intrigued by the women computers and what their story has to say about a number of issues concerning gender, technology, and society. Now, LeAnn Erickson, an associate professor of film and video production at Temple University and an independent filmmaker, has made a documentary about the story titled Top Secret Rosies (a reference, of course, both to Rosie the Riveter—the American cultural icon who represented the women doing “men’s work” on the home front during World War II—and to the fact that the work was at once classified and also not widely known). Some time ago, the IEEE History Center advised Prof. Erickson on some of the historical material and also helped to arrange for her to get a small grant from the IEEE Foundation. As a result, Rutgers University, the cosponsor of the IEEE History Center, is one of the venues on the premier tour this fall. The showing, cosponsored by the IEEE History Center and Rutgers’ departments of Computer Science and Visual Arts, will include a question-and-answer session with the filmmaker. The documentary will soon be shown on some local PBS affiliates, and the DVD will be available through the PBS Web site and via download from iTunes. Having the filmmaker come and show the film and give a Q&A might also make for a good activity for an IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group. Full information on the film is available at: http://topsecretrosies. wordpress.com/ —Michael Geselowitz, Ph.D. Staff Director, IEEE History Center
cost of education. However, the major components under which the variables can be outlined are the student, the teacher, and the school. These three components are essential to establishing an educational procedure, and they can not be isolated from each other as: student + teacher + school = education.
How on Earth Can a Teacher’s Reward Be in Heaven? A call for a more thorough campaign to support teachers
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High school subjects such as mathematThe Role of Teachers ics, the physical sciences, and the bioOver the years, attention has been given logical sciences are core subjects that to improving the schools and inspirstudents must study in high school ing the students to study. Most of the to enable them to choose an engineerexisting solutions for increasing engiing or science career. Some of the topics neering and science degree enrollments in these subjects are quite abstract and have focused on the students, school sometimes entail deep reasoning. curriculum, and school infrastrucAccording to Internet sources,, ture while not giving the teachtu current statistics show that eers’ role adequate attention. there is a decline in the numApart from the media and ber of first-year students in the environment, teachers engineering and sciences can also stir the curiosity of degree programs. However, high school students. From not only is there a decline my own high school experiin the enrollments in these ence, I remember that the Oladayo Salami degrees, there is also a decline probability topic in mathein the number of science, matics was taught in an interesting way technology, engineering, and math by my teacher. His explanations were (STEM) teachers. very practical so that I always tried to We all cannot over-emphasize the introduce probability into every situarole of engineering and science in our tion. Since then, I have found the use of society and how it has revolutionized our probability very important, and it was world. Today, technology occurs in every very easy for me to adapt the concepts facet of our lives (e.g., homes, offices, of probability in my master’s thesis and and cars). The fact is that as a decade currently in my doctoral thesis. goes by, technology gets more advanced. The complexity of teaching the core The concern now is that the potential subjects of engineering and science goes engineering and science students of tobeyond having a B.Ed. degree or a diploday may not be appropriately educated ma in education. These teachers are also to meet the demands that will be placed major role players, and they contribute on them in years to come [1]. Educating largely to arousing and buffering the future engineers and scientists should go interest of students toward a degree in beyond motivating high school students engineering and science. There are very to choose careers in science and engifew teachers who can adequately teach neering. There is a need to effectively these subjects, and the numbers of these pay attention to all the components that teachers are even declining for certain enable a strong engineering and science reasons. educational background. First, in the same manner that a Generally, there are several varistudent finds it easier to opt for social ables that affect education, moreso science/accounting degrees, so it is with the quality of education. Some such teachers. Teaching a social science subvariables are the curriculum and the ject requires a lesser effort than teaching math and science subjects. Second, the teaching profession has been underDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2011.940498 mined over the years, and saying you are Date of publication: 20 April 2011
JUNE 2011
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
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