A Reboot in Recruiting Women Into Computer Science; Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/29/12

Ben Gose, Chronicle of Higher Education; A Reboot in Recruiting Women Into Computer Science: "Experts on the gender gap in computer science have increasingly come to believe that a multipronged strategy is needed to close it. The tactics would include the following: •More-diverse programming activities, to seize the interest of middle-school girls, in the same way that role-playing video games are embraced by boys. •A revamped introductory course, whether taken in college or as an Advanced Placement course in high school, to provide a broad overview of the real-world applications of computer science. •Early exposure to research projects during the first year of college. (Ms. Lamm was paired with her mentor, Mr. Gray, during her first month at Alabama.) •Opportunities for undergraduates to interact with women who have enjoyed successful careers in technology.... Some computer-science departments are venturing elsewhere on their campuses to make a pitch for their major. At Indiana University at Bloomington, for example, the nursing program is so popular that even students with strong grades sometimes don't gain admission. The university's School of Informatics and Computing encourages those women to consider majoring in informatics, or "the application of information technology to the arts, sciences, and professions." Informatics majors can choose to earn the equivalent of a minor in health, setting them up for a quick path to a nursing degree after graduation, should they choose. "We're always looking for strategic ways to interest people in coming into the program," says Maureen Biggers, assistant dean for diversity and education. The number of women majoring in informatics at Indiana has doubled within two years, to 150 students, or 18 percent of all the majors."

What Equality Sounds Like; New York Times, 10/25/12

David Firestone, New York Times; What Equality Sounds Like: "In his Denver speech, the president listed the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as among his most significant accomplishments. “I promised to cut taxes for middle-class families and small businesses and we have,” he said. “I promised to end taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts for good, and we did. I promised to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, and today you can’t be kicked out of the military because of who you are and who you love.” He returned to the subject in the conclusion of his 16-minute speech, and got an even bigger cheer. “You can choose to turn back the clock 50 years for women, immigrants and gays,” he said. “Or in this election, you can stand up for that basic principle that we’re all created equal. That no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter who you love, here in America you can make it if you try.”"

White Journalists Writing Overwhelming Number Of Newspaper Political Features: Study; HuffingtonPost.com, 10/25/12

Jack Murkinson, HuffingtonPost.com; White Journalists Writing Overwhelming Number Of Newspaper Political Features: Study: "A new study finds that there is a deep lack of racial diversity among the newspaper journalists writing about some of the biggest political issues of the 2012 campaign. The 4th Estate, which makes infographics about media trends, looked at 38 different newspaper front pages across the country from January through mid-October of 2012. It found that white journalists dominated when it came to writing feature stories about campaign issues."

Deans See Families as Key to Recruiting Hispanic Students; Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 10/25/12

Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Diverse Issues in Higher Education; Deans See Families as Key to Recruiting Hispanic Students: "Juan Garcia, Vice President of Student Success at NMSU Alamogordo, said the program is in line with Moder’s advice to start early and begin with the family when seeking to recruit Hispanic students. “If you’re going to recruit the Latino, you have to recruit the whole family,” Garcia said. If institutions fail to involve the family, he said, “you’re setting the students up for failure.” Moder—drawing from his past experience as president of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, where more than half the students are Hispanic—offered a series of tips on working with Hispanic students and their families. Those tips, listed in a handout titled “Strategies for Recruiting Hispanic Students,” included..."

NYCC: Gay Marriage In Comics; ComicBookResources.com, 10/24/12

Jennifer Cheng, ComicBookResources.com; NYCC: Gay Marriage In Comics: "Jimenez agreed, saying "Stakes are high, particularly in mainstream superhero comics, simply because of the setup, with the alpha straight white male setting the standard. I'm more careful, some of my peers are more careful, because those [gay, female or minority] characters stand in for so much. When characters carry that burden, and they often do, you have to be more careful with them. People say, 'When are we going to see gay villains?' When there are so few of them, you can't explore options as readily." Parent characterized Kevin Keller as "the role model for gay characters at Archie Comics" and was conscious of the character's status as a representative."

Homeland is brilliant drama. But does it present a crude image of Muslims?; Observer, 10/13/12

Peter Beaumont, Observer; Homeland is brilliant drama. But does it present a crude image of Muslims? : "How we portray the "other" – those whom we fear or are suspicious of – reinforces cultures of conflict. In some respects it has always been thus. The author and journalist Robert Winder detailed in his book Bloody Foreigners how Charles Dickens, in creating the character of Fagin for Oliver Twist, refashioned a real social problem. The boys' "rookeries" were run by Italian gangmasters in Clerkenwell's Little Italy, but in keeping with contemporary suspicion and hostility to Jews Dickens made Fagin Jewish – something he later regretted... Stuart Hall, the cultural theorist who has examined the phenomenon of "reception theory" as applied to televisual media – building on the work of Hans Robert Jauss in the late 1960s – has argued, indeed, that the messages in television drama "intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional, more active ideological dimensions". In other words, television drama such as Homeland not only reflects cultural and social anxieties at any given time, it reflects back those anxieties, reinforcing and shaping them. Crucially there is strong evidence that counter-stereotypical fictional depictions in popular culture may have a positive impact, with some arguing that it can help turn around prejudicial attitudes."

Why a Bible belt conservative spent a year pretending to be gay; Observer, 10/13/12

Paul Harris, Observer; Why a Bible belt conservative spent a year pretending to be gay: "For an entire year Kurek lived "under cover" as a homosexual in his home town of Nashville. He told his family he was gay, as well as his friends and his church...The result was a remarkable book called The Cross in the Closet, which follows on the tradition of other works such as Black Like Me, by a white man in the 1960s deep south passing as a black American, and 2006's Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent, who details her time spent in disguise living as a man...Kurek also said that he felt his experience not only should show conservative Christians that gay people need equal rights and can be devout too, but that it can also reveal another side of evangelicals to the gay community."

A Changed Court Revisits Affirmative Action in College Admissions; New York Times, 10/10/12

Adam Liptak, New York Times; A Changed Court Revisits Affirmative Action in College Admissions: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a major affirmative action case, with the justices debating the nature and value of diversity in higher education and the role of the courts in policing how much weight admissions officers may assign to race."

Men, women on corporate boards split on diversity; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/5/12

Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Men, women on corporate boards split on diversity: "Men and women who serve on corporate boards of directors worldwide frequently agree on political and economic issues that impact business but they have widely divergent ideas on how to improve diversity in their own board rooms. Those are among the findings of a survey that polled more than 1,000 directors on issues ranging from environmental regulations to diversity quotas."