CCL: Computational Chemistry, algorithms, and the people who create them

 Sent to CCL by: "Clark, Aurora" [auclark.:.wsu.edu]
 Hi Jim;
 Every person who has travelled a difficult path has a story to tell and it
 is psychologically normal to demean the experiences of others by saying
 how much harder it was for them, or that they "didn't whine mope or
 complain" so why should anyone else?
 I've had a hard path, I had 4 kids pre-tenure with no clock extension and
 I keep my level of research productivity and quality at a level I am happy
 with - and, yeah - I selfishly feel like it was harder than that you
 describe belowŠit is human  nature to try and make it into a contest of
 who suffered worse. But I also made that choice, just like I made a choice
 to be at an institution where I felt that gender biases were at a minimum.
 I have actively chosen to surround myself with colleagues where this is
 not an issue. There are other women on this list who got tenure while
 being single mothers (which I am not), or experienced tremendous sexism
 during the course of their careers (which I never have), and they made
 choices and had the support of others and were smart and savvy enough to
 be at the top of this field. Good for them! - they and your friend below
 are great role models for the next generation of women in STEM.
 Talking about an issue is not whining. Calling out organizers for not
 doing their job well is not moping because you weren't invited to the big
 kids club. The idea that anyone is advocating the forced invitations of
 women that haven't earned the right to be invited is absolutely ludicrous
 - the whole premise of this discussion was that there are many many women
 who are incredibly well qualified, people who have demonstrated their own
 qualifications several times over. These are real, successful peopleŠmany
 of them I have looked up to and have acted as mentors to me and helped me
 to be successful in my own career by giving me the opportunity to prove
 myself (or not -  sometimes I completely and utterly make an ass of
 myself). Nevertheless, to presume that a person is advocating change
 because of an attitude of entitlement is really a terrible thing to say
 and you should be ashamed of yourself.
 While I know CCL can get on tangents, the main premise that we have openly
 discussed is that there are still people in very important positions
 within our discipline that aren't being very good citizens. Peer pressure
 is a beautiful thing and while I have been disappointed that more "old
 white guys" like Chris haven't piped up (THANK YOU CHRIS AND OTHERS FOR
 DOING SO), perhaps this discussion will make others take notice.
 I don't think we should make this a bullying thing - but I do think that
 if you as an organizer don't make an effort to bring in ALL qualified
 people to the table in a public forum - then you should be held
 accountable, because, as I stated before, there are real and important
 ramifications of this biasŠif enough people hold others accountable in
 public and private conversations then perhaps things will change.
 A
 Aurora Clark
 Associate Professo
 Department of Chemistry
 Washington State University
 Pullman, Wa 99164
 Ph: 509-335-3362
 Fax: 509-335-8867
 On 2/17/14 8:23 AM, "Jim Kress ccl_nospam:kressworks.com"
 <owner-chemistry-,-ccl.net> wrote:
 >
 >Sent to CCL by: "Jim Kress" [ccl_nospam[-]kressworks.com]
 >Hi Chris and other responders,
 >
 >Just so you can be more aware of my context and perspective:
 >
 >In my career in industry, I made it a point to find and promote the most
 >qualified engineers and scientists I could locate.  I do the same in my
 >current nonprofit scientific research organization.  The only
 >characteristic
 >I care about are is the person I hire better than me (since I believe the
 >best people higher better people than they to work with them).
 >
 >One interesting result of this philosophy was that I wound up with a large
 >number of women working with me and advancing their careers as a result of
 >my ensuring their superior qualifications and WORK PRODUCT were made well
 >known to ALL levels of management.  I did not do this out of a sense of
 >Political Correctness, since the really qualified, hardworking, superior
 >female engineers and scientists were offended when they thought that was
 >the
 >criteria which was to be used to govern their advancement.  I did this
 >because they EARNED it.
 >
 >One example is a good friend of mine.  She EARNED a BSCE, BSEE, MSEE from
 >U
 >of M Ann Arbor.  It wasn't given to her due to her gender, girth, nose
 >size,
 >etc.  She WORKED for it.  She pushed herself to the limit of her
 >(extremely
 >high) capabilities and EARNED her credentials with honors.  She then went
 >into the work force and EARNED her senior management position, where she
 >is
 >responsible for a $1 billion of business products, WORKING her way up
 >from a
 >starting engineer to her current management position.  She didn't whine
 >about gender diversity, she IGNORED it.  When people tried to use it as a
 >tool on her behalf, she BERATED them for doing so.  She was, and is,
 >defining herself by the quality of her WORK, not the physiological
 >configuration of her genitalia.  She became, and is, the best Engineer and
 >Engineering Management in her company.
 >
 >She did not whine, mope about and claim "discrimination".  She did
 not
 >boycott or expect a collective of her colleagues to advance her due to her
 >gender.  She refused and denigrated that approach.
 >
 >In fact, when I showed her the CCL emails she was incensed and disgusted
 >by
 >the inadequacy and refusal of the complaining women (and men) who were
 >signing petitions, talking about how horrible the people were who
 >disagreed
 >with the complainers as well as the organizers of the ICQC.
 >
 >She has succeeded on her own merits.  When she met a barrier, she WORKED
 >around it.  She didn't just stop, whine and complain.  She WORKED with the
 >people with whom she needed to advance her career.  She didn't organize
 >boycotts of them.
 >
 >Bottom line: don't whine, complain, boycott, etc. against so-called
 >"gender
 >inequity", work around it.  Organize your own conferences,  Demonstrate
 >your
 >own abilities and superior qualifications.  Get rid of the "entitlement
 >mentality" and go earn and/ or make your own place in the field.
 That's
 >what real, successful people do.
 >
 >Jim
 >
 >
 >-----Original Message-----
 >> From: owner-chemistry+ccl_nospam==kressworks.com]-[ccl.net
 >[mailto:owner-chemistry+ccl_nospam==kressworks.com]-[ccl.net] On Behalf Of
 >Christopher Cramer cramer- -umn.edu
 >Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 10:24 PM
 >To: Kress, Jim
 >Subject: CCL: Computational Chemistry, algorithms, and the people who
 >create
 >them
 >
 >
 >Sent to CCL by: Christopher Cramer [cramer__umn.edu] All,
 >
 >   I've been a CCL member since 1989 or so. (Is that about right, Jan?)
 >During that time, I have not posted particularly frequently; but, when
 >I've
 >felt that I could contribute in a productive way, I've done my best to
 >advance our field and assist friends and colleagues by commenting on
 >issues
 >raised in this forum.
 >
 >   The recent exchanges about ICQC 2015, focusing on the lack of gender
 >diversity in its original speaker list, and the subsequent back-and-forth
 >as
 >to whether that is a suitable topic for CCL, or even an issue to be
 >concerned about in general, prompts me to this post. Especially, I feel
 >obliged to reply to Jim Kress, in what I hope is a respectful fashion.
 >
 >   Jim, you make a living at computational chemistry, i.e., it probably
 >pays
 >your mortgage. Moreover you are a supporter of CCL with actual dollars;
 >thank you for that -- your generosity benefits all of us. As such, I can
 >understand how for you, the value of the forum is in the degree to which
 >it
 >helps you stay on top of the nuts and bolts of the field, and in that
 >regard
 >I hope that my own occasional posts on topics like partial charges,
 >solvation  models, etc. have proven useful to you. We've also exchanged
 >email outside of CCL, including very recently, in what I hope has always
 >been a cordial fashion.
 >
 >   However, I now hope that you will accept that I, as an academic who is
 >charged in part with training the NEXT generation of computational
 >chemists,
 >may have a more expansive view of what is appropriate for CCL than your
 >own.
 >> From my point of view, if there is something that is hindering the most
 >efficient progress in our field, even if that "something" might
 fall into
 >the dreaded area of "social science", then attempting to address
 it
 >through
 >CCL is not merely appropriate, it is worthy of advocacy!
 >
 >   You (and others) raised the question of whether the selection criteria
 >of
 >the ICQC 2015 organizers was known, whether anyone had contacted them,
 >etc.
 >Actually, one of the organizers posted on a separate mailing list (devoted
 >to molecular dynamics), that the 26 male speakers had been selected from a
 >slate of 27 (evidently, the one woman had failed to respond). He was
 >shocked
 >that anyone might think that inviting 3.8% female speakers might be
 >regarded
 >as inadequate. He went on to note that upon reviewing the end result, he
 >then solicited suggestions from IAQMS members for some remaining speakers,
 >asking in particular for women. Certainly, if _I_ were a woman, I'd be
 >thrilled to know that my chief qualification for a subsequent invitation
 >was
 >not my science, but a desire to achieve gender balance after the
 "real"
 >speakers were selected. For the record, you can find this post at
 >https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1402&L=molecular-dynamic
 >s-
 >news&F=&S=&P=13069
 >
 >   Jim, I've trained roughly 100 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral
 >co-workers. I admit that it pains me that I KNOW that the women members of
 >that group will face discrimination that will make it much harder for them
 >to achieve their full potential than will be the case for my former male
 >co-workers. I say that not because I subscribe to a belief in
 "evil" (as
 >you
 >put it), but rather to an acceptance of the extremely well documented
 >phenomenon of implicit bias. We are all creatures of our culture and,
 >worldwide, there is a culture in science that works against women that
 >reflects hundreds of years of history and tradition. There is a lot of
 >scholarship in this area, but the most recent example was published in
 >PNAS
 >in 2012 and showed that, when presented with resumes for lab managers that
 >were in every way identical except for the name of the fictitious
 >individual, scientists (men AND women) ranked the man significantly more
 >highly than the woman and offered "him" a !
 > starting salary significantly higher than that offered to "her".
 These
 >weren't "evil" people, they were just people formed by their own
 >backgrounds
 >and experiences. The PNAS study is available at
 >http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109
 >
 >   But, let me come back to the bottom line, Jim, which I suspect you
 >consider important. What if it's a woman who has the next big breakthrough
 >idea that advances our field dramatically? And, what if she can't get that
 >idea recognized as quickly precisely because implicit bias slows
 >appreciation for her scholarship? You'll suffer, too, as you won't be able
 >to offer your clients a service that you otherwise would have become more
 >rapidly aware of. We all like to believe that cream rises to the top, but,
 >in all honesty, "it's not what you do, it's who you know" goes a
 long way
 >in
 >science, too. Aurora Clark has already posted eloquently here on the topic
 >of how proactive steps to increase diversity propagate to the next
 >generation, so I won't belabor this point.
 >
 >   Returning to the specifics, I've been around in this field a long
 >time. I
 >think that I can legitimately claim to have earned a certain level of
 >experience to comment. Do I think that the International Academy of
 >Quantum
 >Molecular Science is ridiculously dominated by old white guys? (I say this
 >as an old white guy.) Well, yes, I do. Have I attended ICQC meetings and
 >been struck by the cronyism in the field and the repetitive speakers
 >rosters? Um, yes, I have. Happily, I am at a stage in my career and a
 >level
 >of privilege that I can say suicidal things like this and not. really.
 >give
 >a damn. But the call for a boycott by my colleagues Professors Carter,
 >Gagliardi, and Krylov was not motivated by a one-time gaffe - it followed
 >years and years of frustration, and the ICQC 2015 speakers list was the
 >straw that broke their respective colloquial camels' backs.
 >
 >   You called this entire discussion "politically correct". Hmm.
 Politics
 >is
 >the means by which groups of people come to collective decisions. Taken at
 >literal face value, politically correct sounds like a good thing to me. In
 >the United States, once it was politically correct to abolish slavery,
 >provide women voting rights, eliminate school segregation, eliminate
 >anti-miscegenation laws, and, most recently, secure the marriage rights of
 >our gay and lesbian citizens. If advocating for gender equality in science
 >puts me in the same category as earlier advocates for any of those
 >positions, call me proud to have them as compatriots.
 >
 >   Some full disclosures:  (1) I'm married to one of the three women
 >signatories of the original call for a boycott. I'm ridiculously proud to
 >have her as a partner. (2) As an Associate Dean, my portfolio includes
 >responsibility for trying to increase the representation of women and
 >underrepresented minorities in my college's graduate students, postdocs,
 >and
 >faculty. I care about that passionately. (3) The ICQC organizer to whom I
 >refer to above is a member of the editorial board for the journal for
 >which
 >I am Editor in Chief. Small world, no? (4) I write posts that are way too
 >long. Sorry.
 >
 >Chris
 >--
 >Christopher J. Cramer
 >Elmore H. Northey Professor and
 >  Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
 >University of Minnesota
 >Department of Chemistry and
 >  College of Science & Engineering
 >Minneapolis, MN 55455-0431
 >Phone:  (612) 624-0859 (Chemistry)
 >Phone:  (612) 624-9371 (CSE)
 >--------------------------
 >Mobile: (952) 297-2575
 >Email:  cramer:umn.edu
 >Twitter:  :ChemProfCramer
 >Website:
 >http://pollux.chem.umn.eduhttp-:-//www.ccl.net/cgi-bin/ccl/send_ccl_messageh
 >ttp://www.ccl.net/chemistry/sub_unsub.shtmlhttp://www.ccl.net/spammers.txt>;
 >