Reed's Ruminations: A Blog by Dan Reed

Research, Teaching and Service: Dynamic Balance

The following is a preview of my regular column for Computing Research News (CRN), the newsletter of the Computing Research Association (CRA), which will appear in September 2008. Today, corporate employers make much of work-life balance and the importance of workforce development and sustainability. They also strive to inculcate the corporate culture and ethos. Research universities also have a culture and ethos, one that is reinforced by tenure and promotion evaluation criteria and processes.

I worry that we are devaluing teaching and service, to the possible detriment of academia in general and computing in particular. If there is a lesson from the evolution of the American university, it has been its increasing democratization of access and emphasis on delivering value to the children of each generation. We need to remember that.

Advice to a Young Scholar

You are a newly minted Ph.D. recipient, who landed a faculty position at a research university. The fall semester is just beginning, and you are simultaneously excited and a bit apprehensive. University life is unchanged and also surprisingly new – writing research proposals, teaching classes and serving on faculty committees. Your friends and new colleagues are giving you sometimes conflicting advice on time management and priorities. What really matters? How do you choose? How do you find your own path?

Research, teaching and service: they are the standard academic mantra, which one suspects Socrates himself whispered in Plato's ear. The disquieting truth is that we honor them to varying degrees, but often in that rank order. All too often, those of us with graying hair whisper to our junior colleagues, "Focus on your research!" Or, we opine, "You need to be a decent (but not great) teacher to get tenure." Then there's service, where we inevitably say, "Make sure you serve on program committees for good conferences, but leave time consuming service for later."

These are the oft-unspoken rules for success and tenure at major research universities. They define our academic culture, creating expectations and defining behavioral norms, passed across the academic years. I generalize and exaggerate, of course, and the relative emphases on research, teaching and service vary greatly across institutions. However, I find even the generalizations worrisome because the academic child becomes the adult, remembering the lessons of youth. I believe we need better balance, recognizing the criticality of the triumvirate to computing's future.

Rebalancing the Future

Do not misunderstand my comments on balance; our emphasis on research really matters. As I testified to the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee in July, economic growth and innovation are fueled worldwide by information technology research, conducted by talented and engaged faculty at research universities. In my testimony, I urged Congress to fund the America COMPETES Act fully and to encourage greater risk taking in long-term, innovative research across our universities and laboratories. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is also working to foster long-term research agendas; I encourage you to participate.

Nevertheless, our passion and commitment to teaching and education are equally important. We have an image problem in information technology, and I believe we need to rethink our curricula and approaches to computing education, as well as the rewards and recognition we extend to committed educators, if we are to broaden the base of participation in computing and attract the diverse talent needed for the future. The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E), chaired by Andy van Dam, is hard at work on a set of best practices and suggestions for computing education. I know Andy would be delighted to hear your ideas and suggestions.

Remember, though, that Chaucer long ago captured the shared passions for research and teaching that define the best aspects of academic scholarship, "And gladly would he learn and gladly teach." We need to translate those passions into 21^st century reality. Research and teaching are but two manifestations of the same quest. As every young professor has learned, sometimes to his or her chagrin, there is no better way to truly understand something than to teach it.

A final, worrisome cultural manifestation is our occasional reluctance to serve the discipline when the need and opportunity arise. Each generation owes a debt to the preceding one, a debt best repaid to the generation following. Whether it be community advocacy, service as a funding agency program officer, a term as department chair, dean, provost or chancellor, or a host of other important roles, service advances our field and ensures a vibrant, rich and attractive environment for a new generation of students and scholars. Each of us owes a debt to our mentors, our colleagues and our friends. We need to better honor those who serve our community.

The Triumvirate

Research, teaching, service; these three points define a plane of excellence. We need not sacrifice one for another. Teach, explore and serve – in balance. We will all be better for it.

Rikei Banare and Global Competition

On Saturday, May 17, the New York Times ran a front page story (below the fold) on the dearth of Japanese students entering science and engineering fields. Japanese universities call it rikei banare or "flight from science." The article notes:

The decline is growing so drastic that industry has begun advertising campaigns intended to make engineering look sexy and cool, and companies are slowly starting to import foreign workers, or sending jobs to where the engineers are, in Vietnam and India.

The article continues by relating comments from Japanese students that they prefer high-paying jobs in disciplines that do not require the long hours and hard work associated with science and technology careers.

Does this sound familiar? It should, as we in the U.S. are also struggling to attract enough students into computing disciplines with marketing campaigns, curricula changes and outreach programs. These outreach programs are critically important, because we and other science and engineering disciplines have for too long failed to include a sufficiently broad and diverse community in computing. We can and must do better, for both ethical and practical reasons.

International Competition

At roughly the same time as the New York Times article appeared, Georgia Tech's Technology Policy and Assessment Center (TPAC) released its bi-annual "High-Tech Indicators" report. Via TPAC's metrics, China has now surpassed the United States in a key measure of international competitiveness. On a 100 point scale, China's technological standing is 82.8, versus the United States at 76.1. While China's ranking increased from 22.5 in 1996 to 82.8 in 2007, the United States ranking peaked at 95.4 in 1999. Equally tellingly, if the European Union were considered as a single entity, it too would have surpassed the United States.

This is not news to those of us in the computing and technology world. Global competition is fierce and international companies seek competitive advantage wherever they can find it. As Manufacturing and Technology News put it, there has been "no Sputnik moment" to awaken the broader population to the competitive challenge and the need for an internationally competitive knowledge workforce.

Looking Ahead

Without doubt, there has always been ennui about the next generation and their interests. Many of us have heard the old saw about walking five miles in the snow-- barefoot -- to school and that it was uphill both ways. In my case, my late father regularly asked me if I were ever going to get a "real" job. (Perhaps my now working at Microsoft qualifies as a real job!)

Generational jocularity aside, in a technological society where continued economic vitality depends on knowledge creation, a qualified pool of knowledge workers is the only truly renewable resource. Smart, educated people will always be in short supply. Each country's long-term competitiveness depends on having enough such people to engage their international peers. The "Gathering Storm" report made this point clearly and pointedly.

Closer to home in computing, Andy Grove got it exactly right when he famously said that only the paranoid survive. However, most people do not realize what he really said. The full quotation is more thoughtful and thought provoking:

Success breeds complacency.

Complacency breeds failure.

Only the paranoid survive

Eudora, You Got the Love?

As I was unpacking boxes of books recently, as part of my move to Microsoft, I opened my copy of the collected stories of Eudora Welty. This awakened memories of my southern childhood and two anecdotes about Ms. Welty, one technical and another cultural.

Reflections on Tibet

In an earlier blog entry, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek essay about dual head crashes while in Tibet. I experienced altitude sickness and migraines. I also suffered a disk failure because the heads lacked enough air to fly above the platters. Both were minor annoyances during a wonderful visit to a region rich with history and natural beauty. Hence, I have been following the recent news about Tibet with great sadness and thought it appropriate to comment on my experiences.