 From the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, it's the Q. At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, here is your host, Jeff Frick. Hi, Jeff Frick here. We're on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona at the Phoenix Convention Center at the 14th annual, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Over 8,000 women are attending this event. I think it's like a 40% increase over last year, a ton of great momentum. And so we're out here, we're talking to the leaders, we get to feel for what's going on and really deliver the information back to you if you're not in Phoenix. So we're really excited about our next segment. We're joined by Maria Klave, the president of Harvey Mudd College. So welcome. Thank you. It's a thrill to be here and of course always a thrill to be at Hopper. It's got to be the most enthusiastic, buzzy place I've ever been in my life. And with 8,000 women, I mean, it's just over the top. And you just came off the keynote with Satya and your fellow board member with Satya and Microsoft. I am. And as I mentioned, I think you're our third Microsoft board member that's been on the queue. We've had John W. Thompson on before. We had Satya on before. So you just can't find other people to interview that you just have to go up to the Microsoft board. Yeah, Satya was awesome this morning. He's such a good spirit and it's his first time being at Hopper and I really want to just show off the person he is because, I mean, there are very few CEOs I could have had that conversation with who are just so willing to be open and have such a good sense of humor. So it was great. So it was great and a good frame for being here. But it was kind of funny. There was a little bit of controversy. The Twitter stream lit up a little bit when there was the conversation about whether you should or shouldn't ask for a raise or whether you'll just be recognized for what you do and you're going to get the money. So it seemed to be a little difference of opinion on that one. Yeah. Most of disagreement was polite. I was trying to be polite. But I think one of the things is, one of the things Satya said is that the system works and so you shouldn't worry about what your salary is on a day-to-day basis because it will eventually reward you for what you've actually contributed. And I do believe that that's what he believes, but as a female who has always found it really hard to ask for raises and has become aware over time that I'm significantly underpaid compared to my male counterparts, I've really gotten big into telling young women and senior women and coaching them about how to ask for raises. And I've even started to ask for raises myself. What a concept. And you're even in progressive California, right? It's probably even worse in a number of states, I would imagine. It probably is. But I know that there have been lots of times when I took a job and I just didn't do my homework to find out what reasonable salaries were. And so I wasn't in a position when they offered me something that would say 20% less than what the norm would be. I wasn't in a position to ask for more because I hadn't done my homework. So now I'm a big proponent of do your homework, the data's out there, and then practice asking, being able to say, oh, that's a little bit lower than I was expecting. Would you consider going up to such and such? Right. And you don't have to be obnoxious about it, it's just, it's your responsibility if you really want women to be paid as much as men to be as good as pointing out that you'd really like to be paid what a comparable person, a comparable male would get paid. And when you have done that or when you're coaching women on that, what's been the feedback in terms of the reception to that? Oh, they're really, I mean, first of all, they really, we actually practice what you're going to say. And for some of the Shire women, they go, can I really say that? And I say, okay, say it to me, if this is safe, say, I've had a really great year, I earned, let's say 30 million for the company, that you really didn't have in revenue before, and I think that I know there are other people in who have done similar kinds of things who are earning significantly more than I am. And so I'd really like you to consider promoting me to the next level and raising my salary to, and they practice it, and then they go, it's not that hard, I can do this. And then I say, okay, and you have to email after you've actually done it. So let's shift gears a little bit about it. You run Harvey Mudd College, a great technical school on the West Coast. No, no, no, no. Let's say great technical schools, liberal arts college or science and engineering. I went to Claremont, so I was just down the street, used to go to Claremont, go stags. So talk a little bit about what's going on in education, and women at schools like Harvey Mudd, Caltech, but it is a technical school. They're really smart kids. You've got to, I think you still have the curriculum where you make. Everybody take the same classes with no grades, freshman year, because they haven't been kicked that hard in their whole lives, right? They've always been straight A students. They've always been straight A. So top of the class. Absolutely. So the first thing I'll say is we compete with Caltech, Stanford, and MIT for our students. Those are our top three competitors. So yes, our students are extremely strong, and yes, we're a school of science and engineering. But we're really proud that our students take 30% of their courses in Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts, which is why we don't think of ourselves as a technical school in exactly those words. Okay, so we are 47% female. 47%. We are 40% female on our faculty. We have recently managed to dramatically increase the number of African American and Hispanic students who are incoming classes. And we have increased the diversity of our faculty as well. So, what were those numbers when you came in? I think looking at your bio, you came in like 2006? I came in 2006. I think we were probably 31, 32% female on both students and faculty at that point. So in my first year, we did a strategic planning exercise. And one of the themes out of the six themes that we came up with, one of them was unsurpassed excellence and diversity at all levels. So we've been working really hard across all areas of diversity. So it's not just gender or race. It's also, we want people from low income families. We want people who are first generation college goers. We want people from rural farm areas, because we don't get a whole bunch of them, we want international students. And so I can tell you we have a much more diverse student body than we had before. And one of the things I'm super proud of is not only are they more diverse. They're happier. So the standard thing at Mudd is we'll hear from a parent that says, I've never seen my son or daughter work as hard as they do. They work 100 hour weeks. And then they'll say, and they're not getting nearly enough sleep. And they're deliriously happy. It's like, yes, that is Harvey Mudd, that's who we are, yes. So let's stay on kind of the education vein, because STEM is a big point of focus. And where do girls kind of come in? When do they traditionally drop out? There's a lot of studies, I think, and you can validate or tell me I'm wrong with that. Girls learn differently, behavior in the classroom where boys will just put their hands up immediately before the questions even ask. And a lot of times girls think about it a little bit before they answer. What can you tell people about helping girls that then grow into young women stay on a STEM track? What's works? What doesn't work? What advice would you give to parents and kids? Yeah, so let me, first of all, differentiate between areas of STEM. So if you look at biology and chemistry, they're about 60% female at the undergraduate major. So we have tons of young women going into biology and chemistry. The areas where women are underrepresented are computers. We also have lots of young women going into math. It's about 44% female across the country. So the areas where women are underrepresented are some areas of engineering that well represented bioengineering, chemical engineering, probably because of their interest in biology and chemistry. They're very poorly represented in areas like computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering. And the areas of science that they're underrepresented are physics. Roughly a little bit more than 20% of the undergraduate majors are female across the country. And in computer science where, depending on how you count computer science, they're between sort of 12 and 18% female. And the reason that it's mixed up about computer science, because there's areas like information studies which tend to have more women. So I have worked on getting girls interested in computer science from kindergarten through college. We have done programs. I have been out in schools at every grade level trying to convince girls that computer science is exciting, it's creative, it's problem solving. And we have run summer camps. We have done all kinds of things for girls at all ages. And I think it's important to do all of those things. But I was just talking to a mother of two girls, Susan Wojcicki who runs YouTube for Google. And she's pregnant with her fifth child. And she was saying, she's really frustrated that she can't find great access to computer science activities for her daughters. And she has a lot of money as to many senior executives at tech companies, great careers in terms of that. But she was saying there's just not a lot available. So my feeling is that if you're a parent of a girl, yes, definitely look for things like code.org, look for Alexa cafe, which is a summer camp for 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds. By all means, look for those. We also are offering from my CS course, which is about computer science using Scratch and Legos that is available from MudX for teachers who would like to teach a course. But my own feeling is in terms of if you really want to get young women into computer science, the easiest level to focus on is at when they're starting college. Because the problem is if you get a young girl interested at the age of, let's say 10 or 13, there's so much current in our society that sells this idea that computer science is for boys, computer science is boring, computer science is full of dorks, people young women wouldn't want to be like. So the problem is even if you get interested when they're younger, the chances will actually still be interested by the time they start college is not so great. But if you can interest them in their first semester in college with a fabulous course that is more fun than any other course they've ever taken in anything and have them do well on it, and then get them to take the next course, and then the next course after that, by the time you've done that, they're hooked. You got them. Interesting. And I wonder if that philosophy on computer science guys are more geeky is changing with the tremendous success, almost a rock star status of not only guys like Steve Jobs, but the guys at Google and Zuckerberg and those guys have really, I wonder if they've kind of changed a perception of what you think? No, I hate to tell you this. Nothing's up. I like Zuckalock. I mean, I'm very impressed by what he's done with Facebook, but he's not a role model for what young women, he's just not. I mean, he's a geeky guy. And so if you do a movie that shows Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or let's, I don't know, the founder of Twitter or of Square, they are not going to appeal to young women. You've got to show young women who are really successful or even slightly older women. So I think Marissa Mayer and Charles Sandberg are way more attractive as role models. I have a couple of women in tech on my board, actually more than a couple, but one of them, Jocelyn Goldfein, I mean, she's amazing. She's mother of two kids. Now she's doing angel investing and startups. Jocelyn is the kind of person I want them to see. So when I was talking to Susan, I was telling her, we need a movie or a sitcom or drama or something where we show teenage girls who are attractive and have boyfriends and who have a life doing really cool things with tech. And so she said, I can do that. I'm going to do a series about this group of teenage girls who start, do a startup and make a gazillion dollars and change the world and how all of their love life with their boyfriends goes. You go. That's great. All right. So I have one more thing for you. So Patty Lopez was just stopped by from Intel. She's a big participant in the conference, co-chair last year. And she gave me a gift and it's a deck of cards. Oh, yeah. And it's women in tech. Yeah, I got one too. Funny thing. So I'm looking through there. Yeah, and guess who the joker is. That's what I was going to say. Padme sure warriors in here. She's been on theCUBE. Got a few more CUBE alumni. And I go through, you know, it's like the ace of spades. But I get back to the jokers. And who do I find in all of her glories? I'm just wondering, is there some symbolism there? There's definitely some symbolism. You're clearly a laugh a lot. Yeah, I laugh a lot. So let's talk about mud for a moment. So we have a pranking culture. Yes, you do. A really good pranking culture. And my office has been pranked a number of times. It turned into a kindergarten classroom one day. Another day it developed this 12 foot reflecting pond with a fountain in it. You know, it's, so I think being joker is entirely appropriate. Perfect. Maria, thanks for stopping by. I've taken a few minutes. I know you're really busy in getting pulled a thousand directions. But great event. Terrific job with Satya and the keynote. And thanks for stopping by. Thanks. It was a ton of fun. Great. Thanks so much. On the ground at the Grace Hopper event, the 8,000 women come next year, get some of this leadership. Jeff Frick from theCUBE.