Wednesday, April 26, 2017

The AS11 staff, then and now

Applied Sciences 11 was the original name for CS50, a course I created in 1981, before Harvard had either courses called "Computer Science" or an undergraduate degree by that name. AS11 wasn't a renaming of Nat Sci 110, it was a whole new enterprise, an attempt to be systematic and scientific about the introduction to the science of computing, more rigorous than Nat Sci 110 and with less of the Santa-suit lecture stunts that I had pulled in Nat Sci 110. It is hard to remember how thinly staffed we were in those days. Not only did I not get a leave term or even summer support to prepare the new course, I actually taught AM108 (now CS121) simultaneously in the fall of 1981. And the previous term hadn't been a light one--I was teaching AM110 (now CS51). (My whole teaching record, and an almost complete list of my TFs, is here.)

The second year I taught the course, the midterm was on Hallowe'en, and I invited the TFs over to my house for dinner after we finished grading. Margo Seltzer--now my colleague two doors down but then an undergraduate--arranged for everyone to show up with tweed jackets, mustaches, and pipes. (I still wear tweed jackets, but the pipe and mustache are long gone.) Here is the group photo, about which I blogged five years ago.
A remarkable number returned for the Celebration of Computer Science on my 70th birthday.
Left to right, Ted Nesson, Lisa Hellerstein, Phillip Stern, Michael Massimilla, HRL, Craig Partridge, Christoph Freytag, Margo Seltzer, Larry Lebowitz, John Thielens, John Ramsdell, Phil Klein. Rony Sebok also showed up, a few minutes too late to make it into the picture, and Larry Denenberg and boo gershun, who didn't make it into the original picture, were also at the event. So that is 14 of the original 23 came back 35 years after the fact (no more than 22 are still living). Sweet!

Thanks everyone!

Friday, April 21, 2017

Harvard's nondiscrimination hypocrisy

I have an op-ed by that title in the Washington Post.

Birthday stuff

I turned 70 on April 19. I made the decision some time ago to creep toward retirement around now. So I am giving up my role as Director of Undergraduate Studies in CS, a role I have had most years since even before there was a CS undergraduate major. I will be teaching half time for the next two years (I have already blogged about the cool new Classics of Computer Science course I will be teaching). I then have a year of saved sabbatical, so will transition to Research Professor or some such title on July 1, 2020.

To mark the moment, and to celebrate what has happened to the field of CS at Harvard and elsewhere in the years since I started teaching at Harvard in 1974, SEAS put on a big celebration on my birthday. Many of my former students and teaching fellows attended, and there was a terrific program of talks. You can watch all six hours of it if you are a beggar for punishment! Here is the video -- thanks to the CS50 team for producing it and getting it up so quickly. (If you just want to hear what I, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg had to say, go to about 20 minutes from the end.)

And Harvard Magazine has a nice report on the event. Thanks to everyone, and especially to Margo Seltzer, David Parkes, and Henry Leitner for their roles in putting this together.

We were able to reproduce a facsimile of A 30th Anniversary Family Photo, which I will post when I get it.

In the meantime, here is another classic -- six women computer scientists of the class of 1980 all came back for the celebration. That really means a lot to me! From left to right, Jeanette Hung, Jennifer (Greenspan) Hurwitz, Betty (Ryan) Tylko, Diane (Wasserman) Feldman, HRL, Christine (Ausnit) Hood, and boo gershun. Thanks!

(Added June 7: Video link repaired. Also here is a shorter video with some greetings from other former students.)


Monday, April 10, 2017

Tip of the hat to Dave Fahrenthold!

Harvard, the Crimson, and my family are all proud that Dave Fahrenthold '00 of the Washington Post has just been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for his work investigating Donald Trump's charitable donations and for breaking the "Access Hollywood" video story. Dave is married to my daughter Elizabeth (see family photo). Before he met her, he covered me for the Crimson while I was dean. See this early example of his thorough, fair-minded work covering an uncooperative subject!

Saturday, April 1, 2017

This week's developments in USGSO policy

The Crimson reported a confusing development this week in the battle over “Unrecognized Single Gender Social Organizations” at Harvard.

Traditionally all-female final clubs and sororities will be allowed to retain their “gender focus” for the next few years—and potentially beyond that period—while complying with the College’s policy penalizing single-gender social groups, according to Associate Dean of Student Life David R. Friedrich.

This fulfills the Implementation Committee’s recommendation that it “supports the idea of continuing to allow the female final clubs and sororities to operate with gender focused missions, with the understanding that the positive contributions of those organizations to the campus community would be assessed in three to five years.” There is a catch, however.

Friedrich clarified, however, that any groups’ gender-focused mission should exist simultaneously with “substantive advancement toward full inclusion,” including gender inclusivity.

This development brings two thoughts to mind.

First, when I referred in my original remarks before the Faculty to an Index of Prohibited Organizations, I was half joking. I didn’t think anyone would actually have to keep a list, because everybody knew which organizations were covered: The men’s and women’s Final Clubs, and the fraternities and sororities that were restricted to Harvard students. Targeting that constellation of clubs may not make a lot of ethical sense (seems odd that Lambda Upsilon stays off it by having MIT and Wellesley members), but at least it’s pretty well defined.

But now a published list really will have to exist. Someone in University Hall will have to make judgments about which groups have a “gender focus” and which are just women’s groups. Which groups are making “substantive advancement” and which groups’ advancement is less substantive. Which groups are making “positive” contributions and which groups’ contributions are neutral or negative. The keeper of the Index will move groups onto and off the list in accordance with periodic audits—another new concept introduced recently, which seems to mesh with the Implementation Committee’s recommendation that student groups submit their “demographic breakdown” to University Hall.

In the absence of a published Index, a student affirming her compliance with the USGSO policy could not know whether the organization of which she was a member was prohibited or not.

(At this point I was going to write a sentence or two explaining what was wrong with having a dean keeping the Index and deciding which organizations to move onto it on the basis that they are utterly without redeeming social value. I couldn’t make myself do it. If you don’t see anything wrong with this, probably nothing I could say would convince you.)

That was one thought. The other was surprise that the University would adopt an implementation plan that so plainly discriminated against men’s organizations. We have only the Implementation Committee report and the Crimson interview to go on, but it seems that what is described as a “gender focus” loophole is in fact strictly for women’s groups, and no men’s group can escape the Index on the basis that it makes positive contributions to the experience of its members.

Whatever the asymmetry between the experience of men and women at Harvard, I am surprised that the University would so starkly state that all men’s organizations are worthless and intolerable but women’s organizations can be useful and will be tolerated, having in its recent pronouncements focused exclusively on nondiscrimination as the rationale for the policy. It’s a very odd idea—gender discrimination in furtherance of gender nondiscrimination.

I have to wonder if this implementation plan meets President Faust’s minimum requirement.

“I hope that, and trust that, during the process things that might concern me would be communicated during the process,” Faust said. “Ultimately, I want to be able to ensure that this policy is not going to get us sued instantly, is legal, is something that the governing boards feel is acceptable to implement.”