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							                                           April 19, 2007



A Herd of Frisky Robots Illustrates the Appeal
Of an Innovative Computer Science Curriculum

Twenty-four dessert-plate-sized, blue "Scribbler" robots on wheels were dancing, drawing and
making music in a Park Science Building classroom on April 17 as students showed off what
they've accomplished in a groundbreaking Introduction to Computing course offered for the
first time at Bryn Mawr College this spring.

The course is also the first offering from the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE),
a joint venture of Bryn Mawr, Georgia Tech and Microsoft Research aimed at increasing
student enrollment — particularly of women and underrepresented minorities — in computer
science (see earlier story). Tuesday's exhibition was part of the official IPRE grand opening on
Bryn Mawr's campus.

The course is the first Introduction to Computing course in which each student gets her own
personal robot. And if the enthusiasm of the students displaying their robots on Tuesday is
any indication, IPRE is well on its way to success.

"I'm really glad I took this class," said Hannah Mueller '10, who had no real previous interest
in computer science but was able to program her robot to play the music from "Close
Encounters of the Third Kind."

"If possible I'd like to take it as a minor," she said.

Students with more experience in computing were equally enthusiastic about the benefits of
working with the technology in an environment not dominated by male students.

"I was the only girl on my high school robotics team," said Michelle Beard '10, of Oklahoma,
"but the guys really tended to hog the robot. I ended up doing the team blog; I guess they
thought that was more appropriate for a female."

The course, which is being taught by Deepak Kumar, chair of Bryn Mawr's Computer Science
Program and an IPRE co-Principal Investigator, was also designed to show students that a
career in computer science doesn't mean a lifetime of solitude and drudgery spent inside a
cubicle.

"Computer science needs people who can work as part of a creative team to come up with
solutions to life's problems," said Kumar.

"When you have students who are interested in archaeology or art history and they decide to
major or minor in computer science, they bring the kind of fresh ideas and perspective that
can lead to great innovation," added IPRE Co-Director and Associate Professor of Computer
Science Doug Blank, who will be teaching the robotics course in the fall.

Caitlin Manley '09 and Natasha Eilbert '09 showed how creativity can flourish through
collaboration by programming their robots to do a duet of "La Cucaracha" and a synchronized
dance to "Hot Cross Buns."
"The robot lets us see that computer science is like any other discipline in that you can be as
creative as you want," said Manley. "The assignment might be 'make your robot dance' but
you can do whatever you want with that and have fun with it."

Working with simple robots has also allowed students to better understand the limitations that
hardware can sometimes put on software development.

"It's always a little messier than you expect," said English major Katie Unger '08 of writing
code to get the robot to do what you want.

Unger noted that even the best-written code isn't any good if there's a problem with a robot's
motor or it has dead batteries or isn't correctly calibrated.

"Robots make the course materials authentic. There are no fake problems, just those that the
students discover themselves," said Blank.

Kumar, Blank and the other members of IPRE will continue to refine Introduction to Computing
and are developing a follow-up course that will also incorporate robotics.

"We're looking towards the possibility of using a robotic arm in the next course. We'll be
exploring what would be the best choice, taking into account costs to students and what will
help drive the learning," said Blank.

The next step for the intro course is to replace the Scribblers with an IPRE-created robot
designed to be a best-of-class personal robot that will be inexpensive enough so that each
student can still have her own, said Blank.

Blank hopes the new robots will include cameras and be more mechanically refined than the
current ones.

"The members of IPRE hope that the inclusion of a school the size of Georgia Tech and the
eventual use of IPRE course models at other institutions will allow them to empirically judge
the effectiveness of using robotics in introductory computer science courses.

"Anecdotally, it appears that we have a group of excited students who have learned a lot, and
might be interested in exploring computer science further. But we won't know how successful
we've been for a couple of years," he said.

One of a Fistful of Fulbrights: Laura Kramer '07

This week, Bryn Mawr Now continues a series of profiles of four graduating seniors who have
won Fulbright Fellowships for the 2007-08 academic year with a look at Laura Kramer, who
will travel to Madrid, Spain, next year on a Fulbright English teaching assistantship. See last
week's issue for the introduction to the series, and look for news about a graduate student and
a faculty member who have been awarded grants by the Fulbright Foundation in upcoming
issues.

Laura Kramer '07 is a native of St. Paul, Minn., and a double major in Spanish and political
science. Both majors reflect lifelong interests that were nurtured by a family of activists —
especially her grandmother, she says.

"I've been speaking Spanish ever since I was a kid," she says. "My grandmother spoke the
language. She traveled extensively in Latin America working for social justice, and social
activism and speaking Spanish both became family traditions. At birthday parties, we'd sing in
Spanish, and I went to a Spanish immersion school from kindergarten through sixth grade in
St. Paul. It is an important part of my identity, and I knew that I wanted to retain my fluency
in Spanish and my commitment to activism in college."

Kramer has pursued both passions at Bryn Mawr. After two years of coursework in Spanish
literature and culture, she spent the first semester of her junior year abroad in Chile. During
the summer, a Bryn Mawr Alumnae Regional Scholarship allowed her to return to Chile to
undertake an internship with the Chilean government, in the ministry of education.

"Chile had just inaugurated its first female president, and it was such an exciting time to be
there," says Kramer.

Hoping to complement her office work at the ministry with some field experience, Kramer
went to a nearby school and offered her help.

"They asked me to start right away," she says. "I taught English, science and math to first-
graders. I got so attached to the kids that I wanted to teach again, but in a place I hadn't
visited before. But I also enjoyed balancing my teaching with research I did for the ministry.
The Fulbright encourages research projects, too, so it was very attractive to me," she says.

While in Spain, Kramer hopes to research the role of women in Spanish politics.

"The president of Spain has made half of his cabinet female," Kramer notes. "I'm interested in
what, if any, difference this makes in the position of women socially and culturally."

Kramer is now finishing a political-science thesis that compares the transitions to democracy
in Chile and Argentina, looking at both domestic and international actors and how they have
aided or hindered the creation of democratic institutions.

As the founder of a campus advocacy organization called Students for Justice in Palestine,
Kramer has continued her family's tradition of activism as well, addressing one of the most
hotly contested issues on campus. Her family has close connections with antinuclear
movements — her grandparents are the adoptive parents of the controversial Israeli activist
Mordechai Vanunu, who spent 18 years in prison in Israel for revealing details of Israel 's
nuclear weapons program, about which the Israeli government had maintained a policy of
"deliberate ambiguity," to the press.

"I'm not sure how I'll be politically active in Madrid next year," Kramer says. "Maybe I'll get
involved in a women's organization. It will be a learning process — figuring out how everything
works and what kind of action is most effective," she says.

This summer, Kramer will work in Barcelona as an adviser to a summer study program for
American high-school students; then she'll spend a month visiting friends in Chile before
beginning her Fulbright year in the fall. She hasn't firmly settled on post-Fulbright plans.

"I may go to graduate school, probably in international relations. As for my career, I want to
do something that has a direct, positive impact on people's lives. I guess it doesn't really
matter exactly where I end up, as long as I can feel that I'm changing things, helping make
the world better in some way."
Founders of South Asian Dance Troupe Mayuri
To Pass the Torch After Saturday Performance

When the dance troupe Mayuri performs in Pembroke Studio on Saturday, April 21, at 8 p.m.,
it will be the last performance with the group for founders Piyali Bhattacharya and Gayatri
Deodhar, both graduating seniors. But neither woman has any fear that the troupe or its
unique brand of South Asian/hip-hop fusion will disappear from the Bi-College scene any time
soon. In its four years, Mayuri has grown into a solid and sustainable organization with a
board, a constitution and enough momentum to carry it into the future, Bhattacharya and
Deodhar say.

"Mayuri has played a huge role in both our lives," says Bhattacharya. "It isn't just that we
practice three times a week all year long. We've learned so much from it — how to write a
budget, how to buy 10 sets of costumes and have those costumes altered for 10 different
dancers, how to conduct an audition and how to be sensitive in announcing our selections."

"We also discovered how important it is to make our expectations explicit and create
structures to share responsibility," Dheodar adds. "When we started, we were really relaxed,
but now we have very specific rules about absences and tardiness to practice. At first, the two
of us took on almost all the responsibility, but now we have a board with officers who share
the work. Each dance piece we perform has a different choreographer or choreography team.
The organization will definitely survive our graduation."

Bhattacharya and Deodhar began collaborating as a dance team when they were first-year
students. Both auditioned for the annual culture show sponsored by South Asian Women with
performances of classical Indian dance, which both had studied from an early age.

"The organizers of the show told us that they didn't want to include two acts doing the same
kind of performance, so they asked us to perform together," Bhattacharya says.

The two worked well together, they found. So when Bhattacharya was inspired to create a
fusion dance team by Columbia University's Naach Nation festival, an event featuring several
South Asian dance troupes, she turned to Deodhar for help.

Last year, Mayuri performed at Naach Nation. The invitation to perform at the festival was one
of many the troupe has received from colleges and universities around the country.

Mayuri's founding mothers were nudged in the direction of sharing responsibility last year,
when both spent time studying abroad. Bhattacharya, a double major in English and South
Asian studies (the latter major undertaken through Bryn Mawr's exchange program with the
University of Pennsylvania), traveled to New Delhi, where she studied English literature and
Hindi language. She has native fluency in Bengali.

"Piyali had been primarily in charge of the team, and when she went abroad, she more or less
handed it over to me," Deodhar says. The following semester, when Deodhar studied abroad
at University College London, she handed the reins back to Bhattacharya. By that time, the
founders had begun to find ways to delegate some of the responsibility for the team.

According to Bhattacharya and Deodhar, Mayuri sets itself apart from other South Asian fusion
troupes in a couple of ways. One is their eclectic choice of music.

"We choose music that we think has a good beat that allows us to choreograph a variety of
different moves," says Bhattacharya. "We use music by the Black-Eyed Peas and the Low
Fidelity All-Stars as well as South Asian fusion artists like Bikram Ghosh, Rishi Rich and Om."
"It's very popular to choreograph to Bollywood hits," Deodhar says, "but we tend to stay away
from that — not just because it's trendy, but because it's too limiting. There's a Bollywood
style of dance, and Bollywood music suggests Bollywood moves. We want to tap a broader
range of sources for our choreography."

Another of the group's distinguishing features is related, says Bhattacharya: "Mayuri's
diversity is very important to us. Most South Asian dance teams in the area are composed
almost exclusively of people from South Asian backgrounds, but we have a real mix. I think
having that range of perspectives helps make our choreography very original."

The showcase planned for Saturday night will include six dances, each with its own set of
costumes, many of which were personally imported from India or Pakistan by members of the
troupe. Seating is limited, and Bhattacharya and Deodhar advise spectators to arrive early.
For more information, e-mail bmcmayuri@gmail.com.




World-Renowned Author Neil Gaiman to Read

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman, whose celebrated Sandman series of graphic novels is widely
considered a groundbreaker in introducing comic books to a literary audience, will read at Bryn
Mawr on Tuesday, April 24, at 7 p.m., in Thomas Great Hall. The event is free and open to
students, faculty and staff of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges.

Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for
readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top 10
living postmodern writers and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism,
comics, song lyrics and drama. He is the winner of three Hugos, two Nebulas, one World
Fantasy Award, four Bram Stoker Awards, nine Locus Awards, one British Fantasy Award, two
British Science Fiction Awards, four Geffens, one International Horror Guild Award and two
Mythopoeic Awards.

His 2001 novel American Gods was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX and Locus
awards. His recently published book Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders has been
praised by Kirkus reviews for its "lush prose ... and a winning faith in the enchantment of
stories." His film adaptations of his books Stardust and Coraline, as well as an adaptation of
Beowulf, are scheduled to be released this year.

Gaiman's work has also appeared on the small screen: Neverwhere, his six-part fantastical TV
series for the BBC, aired in 1996. His novel, also called Neverwhere, set in the same strange
underground world as the television series, was released in 1997.

Gaiman's reading is sponsored by the Bryn Mawr Department of English and will be followed
by a book-signing event.

Sociologist Mary Osirim to Lecture on
Effects of Globalization on Women in Zimbabwe

Professor of Sociology Mary Osirim will wrap up the Center for International Studies' lecture
series on women in the new global economy next Thursday, April 26, with a talk titled
"Enterprising Women: Coping With Economic Crisis and Globalization in Urban Zimbabwe." The
talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place in Dalton 300 at 4:30 p.m.
Refreshments will be served.
Professor Osirim will talk about her research on the effects of economic globalization on
women in Zimbabwe, particularly those in the microenterprise sector. Based on fieldwork
conducted among entrepreneurs in crocheting and knitting in urban Zimbabwe, her study
documents the negative effects of globalization on their enterprises during the 1990s. Using a
feminist political economy paradigm, Osirim considers the experiences of these women against
the backdrop of the economic and political development of Zimbabwe from the colonial to the
post-independence periods.

Osirim, who serves as an advisory committee member for the Africana studies program at
Bryn Mawr, has focused her teaching and research on gender and development, race and
ethnic relations, the family and economic sociology in Sub-Saharan Africa, the English-
speaking Caribbean and the United States. During the past 20 years, she has conducted
fieldwork on women, entrepreneurship and the roles of the state and nongovernmental
organizations in the microenterprise sectors in urban Nigeria and Zimbabwe. She has also
focused much of her attention on local, national and transnational organizations to support
women's microenterprises and to meet their strategic gender needs in the current phase of
globalization.

She has many publications in these areas and is currently working on three books:
Enterprising Women: Identity, Entrepreneurship and Civil Society in Urban Zimbabwe, African
Voices on Gender Research and Activism in Africa, co-edited with Akosua Adomako Ampofo,
Josephine Beoku-Betts and Wairimu Njambi, and Global Philadelphia: Immigrant Communities,
Old and New, co-edited with Ayumi Takenaka.

Bryn Mawr Unveils New Athletic Logo


After nearly a year of meetings and discussion, the
brand new Bryn Mawr athletic logo has finaly
arrived. The logo was unveiled last Thursday night,
April 12, in Schwartz Gymnasium to a sea of
athletes, students and staff members. Acting
Director of Athletics Jody Law opened up the
festivities with a little history of the department's
decision to commission the logo, before introducing
seniors Cara Petonic (Track and Field) and
Stephanie Wujcik (Lacrosse) to unveil the new
logos. Petonic and Wujcik both served on the
committee for the new logo.

Law went on to say "A few years ago when Bryn
Mawr went from being the 'Mawrters' to the 'Owls,'
there was no definitive Owl for our logo. The current
college seal has the Athena Owl, but that is not very inspiring for athletics. I felt it was
necessary to create an athletic logo to inspire unity and pride in what we do and who we are.
So this past fall a focus group was formed to aid in the creation of this new logo. Students and
other campus departments helped to define what we wanted to convey and the designer took
it from there."

The Athletics Department provided Hope's Cookies, while members of the Public Affairs staff
donated a logo-bearing cake. Several t-shirts and a hooded sweatshirt were given away to
audience members, after which an eager crowd pressed forward to buy apparel bearing the
new logo from representatives from the Bryn Mawr Bookshop. Items of clothing sporting the
new logo are now available online through the Bookshop's Web site.

Expert on Sports and Race Relations to Speak
Richard Lapchick, a human-rights activist and advocate of racial justice who is an
internationally recognized authority on sports issues, will speak in Thomas Great Hall on
Thursday, April 26, at 8 p.m. His lecture, titled "Sport as a Bridge Across America's Racial
Divide," is free and open to the public.

In an era of heightened racial tensions on college campuses, Lapchick argues, the concept of
teamwork in sports presents a rare opportunity to bring different racial groups together on an
equal playing field rarely available elsewhere in American society. His presentation will focus
on this special role athletics plays and also the lessons of teamwork that can serve as a model
for society at large.

Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of
Central Florida, helped found the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern
University in 1984. The Center's numerous award-winning initiatives included programs aimed
at preventing violence, improving race relations, preventing drug and alcohol abuse, and
balancing academic and athletic priorities.

Lapchick was the American leader of the international campaign to boycott South Africa in
sport for more than 20 years. In 1993, the center launched TEAMWORK-South Africa, a
program designed to use sports to help improve race relations and help with sports
development in post-apartheid South Africa. He was among 200 guests specially invited to
Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

A columnist for ESPN.com and The Sports Business Journal, Lapchick is a regular contributor
to the op-ed page of the Orlando Sentinel and has appeared repeatedly as an expert on sports
issues on national news broadcasts. Among his myriad awards are his induction, along with
Arthur Ashe and Nelson Mandela, into the Sports Hall of Fame of the Commonwealth Nations
in 1999 in the category of Humanitarian and the Ralph Bunche International Peace Award. He
joined Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe and Wilma Rudolph in the Sport in Society
Hall of Fame in 2004.

Lapchick's lecture is sponsored by the Department of Athletics and Physical Education, the
Sociology Department, the Class of 1902 Lecture Fund and the Haverford College Dean's
Office.

Conference to Examine Medieval Poetry of Spain
in Arabic, Hebrew and Mozárabe Languages

At 4:15 p.m. on Monday, April 23, Thomas 224 will be the site of a conference of multilingual
verse, history and discussion titled "Why Spain? Poetry from Medieval Spain in Arabic, Hebrew
and Mozárabe." The participants are Walid Hamarneh, an assistant professor in the Arabic
section of the Department of Modern Languages of Swarthmore College, Senior Lecturer in
Spanish Peter Brampton Koelle and David Rabeeya, a retired member of the Bryn Mawr
College Program of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.

"Medieval Spain produced one of the greatest flowerings of poetry in both Arabic and Hebrew,"
says Koelle. The panelists will examine this issue, providing examples of poetry in the original
languages and translations in English. The panel will also discuss works in Mozárabe, a
Romance language or continuum of Romance dialects of southern Spain that played a role in
both Arabic and Hebrew poetry. It was often through this language that there appeared the
voice of the woman.

This program is sponsored by the Departments of History and Spanish; the Center for
International Studies; the Office of Intercultural Affairs; and the Program of in Comparative
Literature. All are welcome to attend; refreshments will be served.