CRA RELEASES PROMOTION AND TENURE BEST PRACTICES MEMO

In August the CRA Board of Directors approved the "Best Practices Memo: Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers for Promotion and Tenure." The memo considers the types of evidence that should be used for determining promotion and tenure in computer science and engineering. These guidelines suggest giving greater emphasis to conference proceedings than are often given in other academic disciplines because of the high quality and peer review of the best computer conferences.

COMMERCE DEPARTMENT RELEASES IT WORKER STUDY

The Office of Technology Policy released "The Digital Workforce: Building Infotech at the Speed of Innovation" in June, 1999. The study explores the nature and impact of the Information Age on the U.S. economy, with particular focus on the IT labor market. It assesses the extent of the tight IT labor market both nationally and regionally. It recaps discussions about the IT work force that were held at OTP town meetings and recommends several ways in which government, industry and education can work together to address the "IT work force challenge."

NOMINATIONS DEADLINE FOR CRA OUTSTANDING UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS

The deadline for nominations is October 25, 1999.

This annual awards program recognizes undergraduate students who show outstanding research potential in an area of importance to computing research. A cash prize of $1,000 is awarded to two undergraduate students, one female and one male, who are majoring in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or an equivalent program. In addition, a number of other outstanding candidates, equally distributed among men and women, will receive certificates of honorable mention.

NSF DIRECTOR TO SPEAK AT CALTECH IT SYMPOSIUM

Director Rita Colwell will serve as the keynote speaker at Caltech's science policy symposium, "Information Technology at the Turn of the Century: A Computational Science Perspective," which runs October 27-28. Caltech's Center for Advanced Computing Research is hosting the event, which includes several speakers from computational science and engineering.

"The requirements of computational science have traditionally driven many aspects, both hardware and software, of IT. With the advent of systems developed for computational science from commodity hardware and software components and the increasing role of networks and visualization, computational science now depends increasingly on trends stimulated by other areas of IT. As the new millennium approaches, the Caltech CACR is organizing this science policy symposium to bring together key figures in the IT arena. The objective of the symposium is to explore this interplay between computational science and IT and its implications at the turn of the century." (From CACR's website)