{"id":22417,"date":"2014-11-03T11:34:28","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T16:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=22417"},"modified":"2014-11-18T14:31:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T19:31:05","slug":"professor-student-inspired-at-grace-hopper-celebration-of-women-in-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2014\/professor-student-inspired-at-grace-hopper-celebration-of-women-in-computing\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor, student, inspired at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the male-dominated field of computer science, Dee Weikle<\/a> is used to being in the minority. The associate professor of computer science<\/a> at Eastern Mennonite University can name all of her female students majoring in the field on the fingers of one hand.<\/p>\n

One of those students, among the approximately 18 percent of women who will earn a computer and information science degree<\/a> in the United States, is Jennifer Fawley<\/a>, in the process of earning her second bachelor\u2019s from EMU (her first is in environmental sustainability<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If Fawley had any doubts about joining that minority, a recent weekend at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing<\/a> in Phoenix, Arizona, dispelled them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really enjoying the coursework and look forward to future possibilities,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really exciting field to be in right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tide is changing slowly,\u201d Weikle said, of a growing number of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. \u201cBut Grace Hopper is special. Just that concept that there are 7,500 other women doing computer science and they\u2019re all there in one place is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fawley, too, found it \u201cenergizing to be around other women\u201d in the field. With Weikle\u2019s encouragement, she had applied for and was named a Grace Hopper Scholar. The award covered all travel expenses and waived her registration fees.<\/p>\n

At the convention, Fawley chose from a variety of sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities, from her particular interest of cybersecurity to data science, programming languages, cloud computing, wearable computing, hacking for social justice, and plenary sessions with technology executives from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Symantec, and Mozilla.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to find out what other women in the field liked and what they struggled with as well,\u201d Fawley said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good chance to learn more about technical fields in computer science that I haven\u2019t necessarily been exposed to yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

EMU professor attended first conference<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The conference, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, is named for the renowned computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral. Grace Hopper was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in mathematics in the United States and went on to make significant contributions to computer development, programming languages and data processing. In 1969, Hopper was awarded \u2013 ironically \u2013 the inaugural Computer Sciences Man of the Year award from the Data Processing Management Association.<\/p>\n

That same year, 20-year-old Anita Borg began her first processing job. Borg would emerge as one of the foremost promoters of women in technology. The Anita Borg Institute of Technology<\/a> partners with the largest international society devoted to the field, the Association for Computing Machinery<\/a>, to host the Grace Hopper Celebration.<\/p>\n

Weikle attended the first Grace Hopper Celebration in 1994, when it was \u201csmall and intimate,\u201d she says, with only around 500 attendees. Men have always been encouraged to attend \u2013 then and now (in conference parlance, these attendees are called \u201cmale allies\u201d). During that first conference, her husband took care of their infant son while Weikle, a doctoral student at University of Virginia, presented a paper. In the audience that night was rising star Maria Klawe, then head of the computer science department at University of British Columbia. She later held baby Ricky at a banquet, a memory that still makes Weikle smile. Now president of Harvey Mudd College, Klawe was listed No. 17 on Fortune\u2019s list of world leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The conference attracts both academicians and tech executives, and often, like Klawe, those with connections to both worlds. Keynote speakers at the 2014 convention included the studio head of the Halo franchise, a lab director at EBay Research Labs, a founding member of Google, and the chief data scientist for Barack Obama\u2019s 2012 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u2018Great time\u2019 for women in computing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Weikle says conferences like Grace Hopper help women see that choosing a STEM-related profession doesn\u2019t require them to change who they are. Nor are women in the field stereotypically \u201cnerdy,\u201d serious, and incapable of completing domestic tasks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve often had people ask me, \u2018Do female engineers cook?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I say, ‘Some do and some don\u2019t.’ I ask them, \u2018Do male engineers cook?\u2019 Some do and some don\u2019t. Technical people are in fact just other people, and Grace Hopper does that for the women who go, and also for the men who go, because there are a lot of men who struggle with some similar stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grace Hopper also celebrates successful women in a profession that is meeting new needs and creating new applications across the world. This is a message that Weikle especially wants to share with prospective computer science majors and minors, as well as re-entry students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big push in the industry to get women into these jobs,\u201d Weikle said, \u201cand very favorable hiring conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Computer science is one of the fastest growing fields in the United States, with 1.4 million new jobs expected to open by 2020<\/a>, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. And because of the speed at which the field is changing, Weikle says it\u2019s one of the most accessible to the recent graduate or the retooling job hunter.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now is a wonderful time for women in this profession,\u201d Weikle said. \u201cThe field is changing so fast. If you\u2019ve been on the job market for a while, it\u2019s OK, because, guess what? Everybody has to learn new things in this field. Being at a conference like this helps women imagine doing that and accomplishing that and not feeling like they need to be different to do that. They can still be who they are and do this work, and that is a wonderful vision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the male-dominated field of computer science, Dee Weikle is used to being in the minority. The associate professor of computer science at Eastern Mennonite University can name all of ... read more about Professor, student, inspired at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4515,266,13808,5642,5730],"tags":[16136,15926,16134,16133],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-22417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-computer-science","category-faculty-and-staff","category-undergraduate-programs","tag-association-for-computing-machinery","tag-dee-weikle","tag-grace-hopper-celebration-of-women-in-computing","tag-jennifer-fawley"],"yoast_head":"\nProfessor, student, inspired at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2014\/professor-student-inspired-at-grace-hopper-celebration-of-women-in-computing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Professor, student, inspired at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the male-dominated field of computer science, Dee Weikle is used to being in the minority. 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