TITLE: Playing the Big Points Well
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: August 24, 2006  5:34 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
This week I've had the opportunity to meet with several
colleagues from around my college, as part of some
committee work I had volunteered for.  This sort of extra
work is often just that -- extra work -- but sometimes it
is an opportunity to be reminded that I have some impressive
colleagues.  Sometimes, I even learn something new or am
prompted to think about an idea that hadn't occurred to me
before.

One of my colleagues spoke of how important it is to get
the science faculty working more closely with one another
at this time.  He couched his ideas in historical terms.
Science in the early 20th century was quite interdisciplinary,
but as the disciplines matured within the dominant paradigms
they became more and more specialized.  The second half of
the century was marked by great specialization, even with
the various disciplines themselves.  Computer science grew
out of mathematics, largely, as a specialty, and over the
course of the century it became quite specialized itself.
Even within artificial intelligence, the area in which I
did my research, became almost balkanized as a set of
communities that didn't communicate much.  But the sciences
seem to have come back to an era of interdisciplinary work,
and CS is participating in that, too.  Bioinformatics,
computational chemistry, physics students rediscovering
computer programming for their own research -- all are
indications that we have entered the new era, and CS is a
fundamental player in helping scientists redefine what they
do and how they do it.

Another colleague spoke eloquently of why we need to work
hard to convince young people to enter the sciences at the
university level.  He said something to the effect that
"Society does not need a lot of scientists, but the ones
it does need, it needs very much -- and it needs them to
be very good!"  That really stuck with me.  In an era when
university funding may become tied to
<A HREF="http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060822/NEWS02/608220369/1001/NEWS">
   business performance</A>,
we have to be ready to argue the importance of departments
with small numbers of majors, even if they aren't compensating
with massive gen-ed credit hours.

Finally, a third colleague spoke of the "rhythm" of an
administrator's professional life.  Administrators often
seek out their new positions because they have a set of
skills well-suited to lead, or even a vision of where they
want to help their colleagues go.  But minutiae often dominate
the daily life of the administrator.  Opportunities to lead,
to exercise vision, to think "big" come along as fleeting
moments in the day.  What a joy they are -- but you have to
be alert, watching for them to arise, and then act with some
intensity to make them fruitful.

For some reason, this reminded me of how sports and other
competitive activities work.  In particular, I recall a
comment Justin Henin-Hardenne made at Wimbledon this year,
after her semifinal win, I think.  She spoke of how tennis
is long string of mostly ordinary points, with an occasional
moment of opportunity to change the direction of the match.
She had won that day, she thought, because she had recognized
and played those big points better than her opponent.  I
remember that feeling from playing tennis as a youth, usually
on the losing end!, and from playing chess, where my results
were sometimes better.  And now, after a year as an administrator,
I know what my colleague meant.  But I'm not sure I had
quite thought of it in these terms before.

Sometimes, you can learn something interesting when doing
routine committee work.  I guess I just have to be alert,
watching for them to arise, and then act with some intensity
to make them fruitful.

(And of course I'm not <EM>only</EM> an administrator...  I'm
having fun with my first week of CS1 and will write more as
the week winds down and I have a chance to digest what I'm
thinking.)
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