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January 1993 …
Tags: caregiver, childcare facilities, colleagues, computing research news, conference attendees, distant place, elaine, extra money, hotels, pipeline, possible solutions, professional societies, young parents,Pages: 1
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January 1993 COMPUTING RESEARCH NEWS
Expanding the Pipeline
Childcare an issue for conference attendees the junior level can afford any such child for the necessary days? If not, valuable members of our professional
BY Elaine J.
Weyuker trips? could they ask their caregiver for a community. Possible solutions include:
Childcare, or the Given that the parent somehow recommendation? If this does not · Professional societies can adopt
lack thereof, is an manages to handle the expense, the real produce leads, I look for faculty the policy that all sponsored confer-
issue for all of us. challenge still looms. How do you members near the conference and ask ences should be held at hotels that
It affects us, at arrange for childcare in an unfamiliar, them to ask students if they would like provide childcare facilities. Hotels, like
least tangentially, distant place? If you can locate a to earn extra money babysitting. I ask other businesses, are responsive to what
whether we are caregiver, how can you feel secure about colleagues whether their teenage they perceive as their economic self-
female or male, leaving a child with a caregiver you children will be attending and might be interest. If major organizations, such as
old or young, parents or not. There have never met? interested in babysitting. It is a lot of ACM and IEEE, demand on-site
have been many articles decrying the Frequently, large hotels list work, and it is not for the faint-hearted. childcare, change is much more likely to
lack of high-quality, affordable child- babysitting as an available service. I have had some wonderful luck, but on occur than if individuals simply request
care, and a variety of suggestions about However, my personal experience is other occasions, I have come up empty- it or individual conferences require it.
what employers and the government that the babysitters rarely exist. My handed and simply decided there was Although I believe there is a
should do to alleviate the problems. daughter was 5 months old when I took no solution, and that I would just have reasonable argument that the cost of
In this article, I will focus on one her with me for the first time. It was the to miss the conference. this childcare should be borne by all
narrow aspect of this broad and most important conference in my field. I The bottom line is that I am a fairly since it is for the common good of the
complex topic: how childcare issues was on the program committee, and I senior researcher and much better able professional community, I am not
affect the ability of a researcher with had a paper in the conference. I would to absorb the costs than many other proposing that. I am only suggesting
young children to attend and partici- not have missed it for the world. I people. Being senior, I know lots of that our professional societies require
pate in conferences, and consequently phoned the hotel and was told they had people around the country and that a fee-for-services facility be
how career advancement is affected. As a babysitting service and that no therefore have good contacts. Still, available at the conference site.
a mother who has no option but to reservations were needed. When we travel to a country where English is not · Rules of granting agencies could
travel with her 4-year-old daughter, I arrived, I learned the reality--maybe the primary language seems impossible be changed to permit additional
write from first-hand experience. they could think of someone I could to me now. I simply do not submit expenses to be charged, when necessary,
The first issue to consider, and one phone and ask if they wanted to come papers to conferences overseas, and I do for the grantee to travel. I frankly have
that frequently is the deciding factor, is to the hotel and babysit. After some not attend those conferences. mixed emotions about this suggestion.
the traveling expenses of a child. discussion, they concluded they could It is certainly true that there are There generally is a fixed, finite amount
Expenses include: not think of anyone. My daughter men who are single parents or the of travel money available, and funds
· airfare (full fare starts at age 2), therefore attended her first conference. primary caregivers for their children, used to pay for a child's travel could not
· childcare (in addition to normal Needless to say, it affected my ability to and who face these problems. And be used by a student or grantee.
childcare expenses at home, which must participate. there are women whose personal However, if this is the only way for
be paid whether or not the child Similar situations happened at the situation allows them to travel without someone to attend, then perhaps it is
attends), next several conferences we attended. their children. Still, at the present time, worth the tradeoff.
· car rental (cabs rarely have Finally, I realized I was not likely to find childcare responsibilities, especially for Another possibility is that if the
seatbelts, therefore child safety seats childcare at a hotel, and had better young children, fall disproportionately grantee can obtain another source of
cannot be used), make other arrangements. I have on women, and therefore women suffer travel funds for themselves, the grant
· meals (for logistical reasons, devised many creative ways to arrange most often and most directly. travel money can be spent to pay for a
these often must be bought in the for childcare when I attend a confer- How many women face these child's travel. It is sometimes possible to
notoriously expensive hotel restaurant) ence. When I cannot locate what seems situations and find them insurmount- arrange to give a colloquium at an
and to be high-quality, safe childcare, I able? How does this affect their careers? industry or university site near the
· additional hotel costs. simply do not attend the meeting. Are they taken less seriously because conference. If that source pays the
Usually, none of these costs are Several months before the they cannot attend meetings, and grantee's expenses, then the grant
reimbursable by a research grant or conference, I begin phoning everyone I therefore publish less than their male money could be used instead for the
employer. These costs are not even tax- know who lives and works in the colleagues? Are they considered child, thereby allowing the grantee to
deductible, although they are manda- conference area. I ask if they have unprofessional if they attend with a attend.
tory for the employee to attend the colleagues with children my daughter's young child because that is the only way Whatever solutions we settle on, it
conference. It is not unusual for it to age. I then phone those "leads" and ask they can attend? Even if a parent means changing public policy. We are
cost $1,000 to take my child to a about their childcare arrangements. manages to attend and arrange not likely to accomplish this in the near
conference. How many conferences can Could they find out whether their childcare, it is difficult, if not impossible, future. As long as it is not perceived by
a parent afford to attend with this type caregiver would take an extra (wonder- to attend the social events surrounding our community as a serious problem
of financial burden? How many people at fully bright, easy-going, ever-cheerful) the conference. What contacts are requiring action, nothing will change.
missed as a result? Elaine Weyuker is a professor of computer
COMPUTING RESEARCH NEWS We need creative solutions, or we
will continue to lose the participation of
science at the Courant Institute of Mathemati-
cal Sciences of New York University.
Vol. 5/No. 1/January 1993
Copyright 1993, all rights reserved, by the Computing Research Association (CRA), collectively with other scientist in its
McCarthy from page 2
1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 718, Washington, DC 20009, Tel. 202-234-2111; defense and not try to take advantage of
fax: 202-667-1066; E-mail: jbass@cs.umd.edu. CRN is published five times per year they need most is not more gigabit
the others by an illusory merger of
in January, March, May, September and November. Material in CRN is not endorsed communication, but a variety of other
computer science and computer
by CRA nor intended to reflect any official positions of CRA or its board. things.
engineering.
COMPUTING RESEARCH NEWS Staff: · Focusing research on committee-
In this connection, the NSB
Fred W. Weingarten, Editorial Director determined methodology is a recipe for
commission's report on NSF [See Page 4]
Joan Bass, Managing Editor narrowness. In the 1970s, DARPA had
is encouraging. It emphasizes the impor-
Kimberly P Peaks, Assistant Editor
. a speech recognition project that set out
tance of investigator-initiated research,
COMPUTING RESEARCH NEWS Editorial Board: to pick five research teams initially, then
restates the mission of NSF as being the
John E. Savage, Board Chair, Brown University narrow it to three, then later end up
support of basic research and shows no bias
Laszlo A. Belady, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories Inc. with one enormously narrowed speech
in favor of research empires. In this, it
Francine Berman, University of California, San Diego recognition research. Everyone hoped
agrees with the petition rather than with
Ashok K. Chandra, IBM Almaden Research Center to be part of the team that was finally
the NRC report and the line taken by
Dorothy E. Denning, Georgetown University selected and knew quite a lot about the
Peter Likins and Fred W Weingarten in the
.
Jim Foley, Georgia Institute of Technology prejudices of the committee members.
September issue of CRN.
John Gannon, University of Maryland Although there is a government crisis
James Varah, University of British Columbia over the support of basic research, I believe John McCarthy is a professor of computer
Helen Wood, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that computer scientists should act science at Stanford University.
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Postmaster: Send Form 3579 to CRA, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite
Correction: The first paragraph of a page 1 article on federal policy in the
718, Washington, DC 20009. Postage paid at Washington, DC. November issue incorrectly identified a House subcommittee.
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