 So just to explain the format to everyone, I would like to give a moment to all of our panelists to introduce themselves, give us just a very brief overview or at least some indication of the area that they do their research in, how long they have been at the University of Michigan. And then after that, we will move on to the questions from the audience. There is a Slido link, if you haven't seen it already, where you can ask questions and vote on questions. I will go through those and select them and ask them from our panelists. But if anything comes up, feel free to add more questions as we go. And then we'll try to go about 150 Eastern time, at which point we will take a little break. And then again, go into the different breakout rooms and assign some of our faculty, our panelists, to those breakout rooms. So we have a chance and opportunity to perhaps ask them some of the more directed questions then. I hope that sounds great to everyone. So what I will do is I'll just call on you to introduce yourselves in no particular order other than the order in which I see you in Zoom. And that might not be the order that you will see yourself in Zoom, just note that. So we're going to start with Jenna. Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Jenna Wiens. I'm an associate professor of computer science and engineering and the co-director for the Precision Health Initiative at the University of Michigan. And I'm part of the AI Lab. I had the Machine Learning for Data-Driven Decisions group where we develop and use machine learning techniques to improve health care. And I'm very excited to be here today. Thank you, Jenna. Mark, you are next. Hi, everybody. My name is Mark Gozdial. I am also a professor in computer science and engineering. I'm in the Interactive Systems Lab. And I think we got here. What was it, Nicola, last week or something like that a couple years ago? Still trying to find our bearing. Thank you, Mark. Hasha, you're next. Hi, hello, everyone. I'm Harsha Madhyashta, being at Michigan for, I think, six years now, time flies. My research is broadly in the area of distributed systems and networking. In the last couple of years, I've also been part of the program committee for the Masters in Data Science program. So if any of you have any questions from that front, happy to answer that too. And I've also been serving for the last couple of years in the department's diversity, equity and inclusion committee. So any questions from that front, I would be happy to answer that. Excellent. Thank you, Harsha. And we have quite a few questions about that as well. So it's great to have you. All right. So now let's see who is next. We have two left. Emily, would you like to go? It's me. So hi, I'm Emily Provost. I'm in both AI and interactive systems. I've been here for about eight and a half years now, nine years in January. And my group is really interested in how you can use speech to understand behavior. So we do work in emotion. We're interested in how speech also tells us something interesting about someone's health, either mental or physical. We've been looking at how you can design new algorithms to just get a better sense of how someone's behavior changes when you get outside of the lab and into the world. Oh, also, I'm the chair of our graduate program. So I'd be happy to take questions about that as well. Thank you, Emily. And Manos. Hi everyone. I'm Manos Capritos. I'm an assistant professor. I've been at Michigan for about three and a half years now. And I work in the software systems lab. I mostly do work on distributed systems and for modification and for tolerance. And I've been last couple of years have been part of the graduate committee. So any questions related to that, I'm happy to answer. And again, thank you all for joining us for this panel. So I will just switch here to the questions that we got from the audience. There's a lot of great questions here. I do want to start with some of the easier ones just to get you warmed up before we move to some of the very important ones, but challenging and difficult ones. So let's take a look here. So what happens as you're voting for these questions, they change their order. And it looks like you all downvoted this particular question since the last time I looked at it. No, I'm joking. So this is perhaps an easy one where one of our audience members asks, what separates University of Michigan CSE department from some of the other departments out there at other top universities? And I would open this one up whoever sort of wants to go first. Everything. So anyways, Michigan is a great place. And it's a great place not only for the people and the really cool research that happens here. But I think one of the things that I personally find most exciting about Michigan and specifically Michigan CSE computer science and engineering is the focus and the embrace and the respect for interdisciplinary collaborative research. I think that this type of research is really inspiring because it allows us to answer questions that are not only relevant in the domain of computer science, but really asks about impact beyond how what we do really influences how other people think about computing, how other people think about health, how other people think about so many things. And the fact that this is a core component of the work that we do at Michigan, I think is what sets us apart. Like to add anything to that one? Or should we move on to some of the burning questions that everyone has about the applications? So I guess one thing I want to say kind of compared to a few other programs that I've seen, I think Michigan has a pretty kind of a developed culture of actually getting students engaged in research right away, which I have not actually seen in, I mean, it exists in some of the departments, but there's a kind of a big focus of research being the primary thing that you're doing. And that's kind of a combination of a reasonable load of classes and kind of the structure of the program being developed in a way to make sure that people get kind of in their research, kind of the first research project gets started right away and it's like as successful as we can make it. And that's kind of one of the things that I've actually seen gets people engaged quickly and makes them successful for the rest of the program. Thank you. I think those are really, really good answers. So I would like to switch to a lot of questions that we have about the, not so much the application process, but more about what you all look for in an applicant. What do you look for on a statement of purpose when you are considering applicants? Do you consider whether they contact the upfront or not? And I don't know, maybe, Jenna, would you like to take this one? Sure. Yeah, happy to. So what I look for, I think we all look for similar things and different things at the same time. I focus a lot on research interests, but not necessarily perfect fit. So oftentimes in a research statement, well, one, the different components of your application involve a statement of purpose where you're going to describe what type of research you're interested in. And you're not necessarily tied to this statement of purpose, but it does help us in terms of sorting research interests in fit. And what I look for is someone who overlaps with my research interests and also someone who has persevered. So I am drawing towards applicants who have faced some sort of challenge. Maybe they had a paper rejected or they did poorly in their first year and then overcame that challenge because research is very challenging. There are a lot of ups and downs. And being able to overcome those challenges and persevere is a really important quality for a good researcher. So that's one among many other things that I look for. Emily, raise her finger. Would you like to go next? Yes, I should do the full. The other thing, the thing that I look for is the thing I focus on most actually is in the statement of purpose. I'm really interested in why someone is interested in something that's close to what I do. And so when I'm reading statements, I'm really, I'm looking for someone who I think I would love to have a conversation with about these topics, someone who's telling me why they're deeply inspired by this research question. Because, as Jenna mentioned, the research process, I always described it like a sine wave, but someone recently told me that's also what a roller coaster looks like. So fair enough, a roller coaster, where it's so exciting and you're getting these amazing results and you're getting to a publication and you have really understood where your problem's going and then you start the next problem and nothing works. And what you have to do is make sure that what you get when you're down here and nothing's working, you still have the willingness to commit your time to go back up again. And so to me, when I'm reading these research statements, it's sort of a way for me to understand that someone is intrinsically motivated in the topics that I care about, so that when they do hit these low points, they're going to want to continue to find an answer. And so that's kind of what I'm looking for too. I also wanted to ask, Harsha, so you have been involved with the Master's program, right? And I think what we heard from Jenna and Emily was maybe more targeted towards PhD students. Well, what about what about Master's students? What are we looking for? Yeah, so Master's, at least I would say the admissions are largely bimodal, like if you're coming from a really good school with a high GPA, then that's kind of almost that's easy way to get in. But if you are not coming from a well-known school and your GPA is not great, still the statement can make a huge difference. Because if you can articulate why you're really passionate about getting into graduate school and why you're not just pursuing this as a way to not be a software engineer, but you have some intrinsic motivation to do this, that can really persuade the committee to have overlook maybe other considerations. So I would say, I mean, this is probably true for, I mean, I should say definitely true for PhD applicants too. Personally, when I admit students, I really look for, does this student know why they're applying to grad school as opposed to just following maybe someone else advice them, do this, and they're going along. So that's true for both Master's and PhD applicants, I would say. Marcus seems like you were agreeing with quite a bit of what we heard. Is there anything else that you would have? I'm basically just a bobble hood. Yeah, my area is kind of nichey. So it might be a bit different than Jenna and Emily in that I do computing and education research. So the theme that particularly struck me with what Harsha was saying was that I want to see why you want to go to graduate school. And it's particularly relevant for me that students have had prior research experience. I want to know that you know what you're getting in for. You probably know the ROI, the return on investment for your Master's is really good. You spend another year or two, you'll make a much higher wage. You spend several years in PhD compared to staying out in industry, you'll never make it up, right? So you've got to really be bought in. And particularly in my area in computing education research, I want to know that you know what that is and that you've had research experience and know what you're getting into. That's pretty important to me. Anas, any thoughts? I just want to second what Mark said. It is really important that that's actually what I'm looking for in a statement of purpose. Is there an actual reason why you're pursuing a PhD? My experience says that people that actually start with that reason firmly in mind, preferably they actually write it down in some notebook that they can go and look at later when the hard time comes. Those are the people that really do persevere through the hard times because it is inevitable that hard times will come during the PhD. This is much less true of the Master's degree. Of course, there could be hard times, there's still a lot of workload, but the PhD is a different beast altogether and it takes a lot of perseverance. So that's really what I look at. Someone that is consciously doing this, not just following the, you know, I got my, I was good at school, so I'm going to do PhD. That's not a good enough reason. There was a related question. So you talked quite a bit about what you might be looking at from the perspective of statement of purpose, but what about getting in touch with students? How can they actually get in touch with you? There were some questions about should they directly email professors? How should they go about it? So I think it's fine to email professors. I would say email me once you've applied, right? We receive a lot of emails before we even see an application and there's very little we can do with that. But once you've applied, I can go in and I can take a look at your application. So that would be my advice. That's a very good advice, actually. Harsha, were you going to say something? Yeah, I was going to add that even before applying, if you email any faculty member, at least I find it's most helpful if you make it personal, like show that you're maybe read some of my papers and you, there's a reason you're emailing me as opposed to others, particularly like just this week I had an email saying, hey, I want to work with you at the University of Southern California. So that clearly shows me, okay, you didn't meant to email just me and so if you do email faculty that do take care and in crafting your email. Yeah, don't address me as dear sir. I've gotten those. I actually, I'm going to agree with both Jenna and Harsha, but I also really like it when students reach out to me like a year before. So this is, you're looking around, you want some advice, there's a lot of undergraduates I've talked to who say they're interested in the area. Could I advise them on where they should apply, me or elsewhere? I'm happy to take those sorts of conversations. It's kind of fun to talk about where your match is across the country. And also perhaps gives us an opportunity to help students prepare their applications better. So yeah, both great, great advices. Anything else to add on contacting professors? Because there's something else that a lot of our audience members asked about and Mark almost alluded to. And that is interdisciplinary research. I think there's a lot of interesting questions there. But I want to first start with asking kind of a broader question of is there really such a thing as interdisciplinary research at CSC at the University of Michigan? And Mark, because you brought it up that you are interdisciplinary, you want to go and try and answer that one? I did. I'm pretty sure it was Emily who talked about interdisciplinary. She's right there next to you. Emily is next in line, believe me. Yeah, of course there's interdisciplinary research at the University of Michigan. I think that in particular there's a lot of collaboration between CSC and the med school. And also probably the School of Public Health, though I'm less aware of that. Just because we've got a great med school, one of the top public health programs in the country. If you want to do things with computing and health, this is a really terrific place to do it. I am a courtesy appointment also in the School of Information. So I have the title of Professor of Information, which I think is a pretty cool title. And there's a lot of stuff that goes on between SI and CSC. And all of SI, I mean for the most part, is interdisciplinary. I mean, what is information? Well, it's about connections across. So I think that you can find a lot of that across the campus at the University of Michigan. I do want to ask more about that healthcare angle that you pointed out, both from Jenna and Emily. But there's another thing that I also wanted to ask Emily about, because Mark brought up this connection between CSC and SI. But what about CSC and ECE? And what's the difference? So there are a lot of differences. And then when you get closer to the overlap, some of those differences become more subtle. So to say actually just straight out, every single one of my degrees is electrical engineering. And now I find myself in a computer science department. So clearly there is a period of overlap, particularly when you're talking about systems, the system side, anything doing with, again, information or signal processing. There tends to be a lot of overlap and machine learning. And so my first student, it was an ECE student. And I have a student now also who's an ECE student. And so there are some really great questions that exist right at the overlap. And actually another one of my students is a CS student, but I think could just as easily be a signal processing focus program instead. And so I think that the question, I think the question that you should be asking really when you're trying to decide where to apply, which I'm assuming is the motivation behind that question. It's not so much, what should my degree be called? I think all of these degrees have great potential for future employment. The question really is, who am I most excited about working with? And you should apply to the department, assuming you have the background so you'll be able to get into that program, but you should apply to the program where you feel most aligned with the people in that program. And if there are multiple departments with people that you're excited about, apply to those departments. Because really, I think the biggest thing when you're thinking about where to apply, and then when you're really deciding where you want to go, is who do I gravitate towards? Because the PhD, it's a long process, as you know, we've alluded to already. And you really want to make sure that there's alignment, not only in terms of topic, but in terms of personality, in terms of the milestones that are relevant to the program. Because you just want to make sure that you're setting yourself up to, given that it's hard already, you want to make sure you're setting yourself up for as smooth sailing as possible. And so if the decision is CS versus EE, I'd argue that's less meaningful than who is in each of the places and what flavor their research brings to the questions you care about. That's great because you also answered another question that somebody posted and it was about, I'm interested in both in SI and CSC, where should I apply? And I think this already answers that as well. But I wanted to then go back to some of these collaborations that happen, obviously, with other parts of University of Michigan, but maybe some of the other entities like medicine. And Jenna, I know you have a lot of collaborations going on. Would you be able to tell us more about that? Yeah, yeah. So as Mark mentioned, we have a top med school, but we also have a top hospital. And it's filled with clinicians with interesting challenges that are ripe for AI solutions. So I sit in CSC, we develop machine learning techniques, we ultimately aim to make contributions to CS, but we are very inspired by challenges in healthcare. There are very rich data, multimodal data, so everything from physiological time series data to imaging data to work with. And at the same time, while we're making contributions to machine learning, we can solve some problems in healthcare and improve patient outcomes. So that's also what keeps me motivated. In those research lows that Emily was talking about, the promise of improving society and people's lives. That's a great answer. And then I just wanted to also touch on this. Maybe it wasn't directly asked in questions, but I'm curious, what about collaboration with industry? I don't know, Manos or Harsha, would you like to maybe touch on that? You might know more about what's happening at the University of Michigan about those kinds of collaborations. So we usually, yes, I guess it depends on the field. My group has, for example, collaborations with Microsoft and Microsoft Research, that is usually on the start on the academic side of working on a research project together. But then there is a lot of, the collaboration is multifaceted in the sense that we actually sometimes work on the project together. Sometimes the students go over and do internships, and it's much easier for them to actually bring the project down to whatever product Microsoft cares about. And that collaboration is helpful for both sides. Because the company benefits from the ideas and the research side, and we benefit from having a clear view of what's important to them. And how do we get to actually solve real world problems? Yeah, I can only speak on the systems side. I know the systems lab, we have quite a bit of collaborations with industry. For example, just my own research, I would say in the last couple of years, my students and I have co-authored papers with Google, Facebook, Nutanix. So it's, I mean, University of Michigan has pretty close ties with most of the big, I mean, companies which have really large scale infrastructure. And the university is pretty flexible in terms of, in most of these cases, the students went off, did an internship, then they came back, they continued working with the companies. In some of these cases, the students had like part-time appointments with the companies even after they came back. So this is, I think, a win-win for both the student in terms of getting a lot of good experience and almost be guaranteed an employment place or employment once they graduate, because the company then knows the student is good. And of course, having some real impact gives you a lot of fulfillment without doing a research. So you mentioned a lot of different research areas while you were talking about this. And there are some questions about, you know, how to pick a research area. What research area to mention in your application? Can you switch between different research areas? So maybe we can spend a little bit of time on that. And I don't know who to call on in particular, but Jenna made this easier for me and then Emily also raised her hand. Okay, great. Thank you. Jenna, you want to go first? Yeah, just in terms of advice, I would say keep an open mind. So you don't want to list all of the areas in your research statement, but you also don't want to be so specific that you're really only interested in working with one person on this one problem. And that's it, because maybe that person's not taking on students that year, maybe there's funding in that area. So I would say try to keep an open mind when writing your statement of purpose, but also write about what you're excited about. And again, you're not tied to your statement of purpose or what you say you're going to do there. So that gets you in the door and then during visit weekend, you get to meet with faculty and discuss research topics and you could change your mind then. And that's totally okay. Yeah, as a personal anecdote, so I was very, very inspired by Star Wars when I was writing my statements. And I really wanted to create Luke Skywalker's hand. That was what I wrote every single essay about. That's what I wanted to do. I was really excited about designing control for robotic hands, robotic prosthetic hands. And so I think I even decided to write that statement before I even looked at various universities. And so then the only places I applied were places with robotics programs. And the place, so then when I got in, I went to the different universities and was talking to people there. And I ended up going to USC University of Southern California. So maybe I was the one who emailed Harsha. And so then when I was talking to the people who would be my advisor, the one who was in human-robot interactions, HRI, she said, you know, we don't do prosthetic hands, but if you're interested in HRI instead, you could come work here. And so I decided to totally switch topics. So away from this idea of prosthetic limbs to thinking about HRI. And then as it turns out, once you get into a PhD program, that's also not the last time that you have to decide if you wanted to switch. Because I was working in, I was working in this area for a few years. And by working, I mean obsessing with the details and not making very much progress. Until finally, I decided to internalize all the feedback I'd been getting from people, which is maybe you've chosen an area that is a little bit too large. And I narrowed down entirely to a speech emotion recognition. And so my essays were about prosthetic hands. My PhD was about emotion recognition from speech. And so, yes, there's a lot of flexibility. Sometimes, frankly, the flexibility comes from making a decision midway through the process to switch who you'll be working with. But sometimes if it's a close enough jump, you can just switch topics too. And so you're certainly not tied to a specific topic of whatever it was you wrote your essays about. In fact, I think for most of my students, I couldn't even tell you what they wrote their essays about. And I guess just to add on that, you're not tied to any topic and you're also not necessarily tied to any individual faculty. There's plenty of students that, you know, they start working some faculty. And if that relation is not working for either party, then they decide to move on. And that's something that's perfectly okay, perfectly acceptable. In fact, it's incorrect if you, you know, if that's not the best place for you to be, to rather work with someone else, then that's exactly what you should be doing, you know, just because you started working with some faculty, you're not like married for life. Then I brought something interesting and said, maybe the faculty that you really want to work with is not taking students. How do students or how do applicants know who's taking students and who isn't taking students? How do you find out? Again, if anybody can make this easier on me, otherwise I have to pick on Mark. Ah, there we go. Ask them. I mean, I'll take those questions. I, you know, and when you ask them, it's not just you take any students this year. Describe yourself and what your interests are a little bit because there had certainly been years where I don't think I really want to expand my group at all. And then I get an applicant that's right up my alley and somebody that I've known before because they've contacted me previously. Yeah, I'm, I'll be interested. So I wanted to make a slight twist to the jumping between areas. It's, it depends on your area. You know, it's easy if you're going into easy, I don't quotes robotics or AI, we have several great faculty in those areas. If you're interested in computing education research, yeah, it's probably going to be me. And so we're going to have to have, we're going to have to be able to get along. I mean, you can always jump to do something else. But if this is the area that you want, there's not a whole lot of other faculty to connect with in CSC. It's a really balancing point and writing your statement of purpose. You want, I mean, if you're excited about Luke Skywalker's hand, I mean, it's great to communicate that passion and what you want to do and that you have interest and you see why it connects to these particular faculty, that's what you want to do. But what you don't want to do is come across and say, I'm doing this and only this and I won't do anything else. Because then it's like, yeah, well, nobody's interested in that, you're not going to get in. You got to say, you've got to show the passion, but also show a willingness to say, I mean, a PhD is all about learning, right? You're growing, you're going to expect to change your focus, you're going to expect to narrow your focus. I shared in the chat the Matt might illustrated guide to a PhD, which I think is like the thing to understand what a PhD is about. Yeah, I think just to follow up on that again, like that's why the statements are so important because it is your chance to say, this is why I'm interested in this question. This is how I think about research. These are the types of problems that explore these are the things I might be interested in following up on. And so again, if you were really specific and wrote something that no one else in the department even did, you can still be of interest. It's just a matter of conveying what that might look like. And you should do your homework and know who does what at the institutions that you're applying to. And I would call them out in your statement. So list the faculty that you're interested in working with because we have a mechanism to search for our names when reviewing applications. And that's a really easy way to find people where there might be a good fit. So then basically, I think the answer to how do you know if somebody's taking students is contact them. And I would just perhaps also say maybe contact even their students and we'll talk a little bit more about that in the graduate student panel later on. There was a question that I want to maybe circle back to because I think it's a very specific question about the Suggs program at University of Michigan. And I don't know, Harsha, maybe you can tell us just a little bit more about it briefly. And also, what do you look for in students who are applying to that program? And maybe we can expand then later on more discussion about just very quickly, you know, are GREs important? Are GPAs important for those students? So I mean, I'm not personally involved in Suggs or maybe Emily could actually say better, more accurate information. But my understanding is it's only a program for those who are currently undergraduates at the university already. And it's meant to be a way for you to get a master's with one more year at school as opposed to if you go to a different school, then maybe you would have to put at least a year and a half or two years to get a master's. And best I know, as long as you have a good GPA and you have at least a couple of faculty who are willing to recommend you, you should get in. I believe, especially this year too, the GRE has been made optional in graduate admissions. But yeah, I think maybe I should defer to Emily on this. I don't know to put her on the spot, but maybe she knows more accurate information. So the one who actually is in charge of the Suggs program at NCS is Quentin Stout who unfortunately is not here. But yeah, exactly what Harsh has said. The idea is that when you hit certain achievement points in terms of GPA, then it's a relatively straightforward path to getting admitted to the program. And the idea is that it's a streamlined master's program. But we can follow up with details, more details if necessary. Okay, so no, this is really great information. I hope it's really great for our audience as well. But there is a set of questions that I really want to move to right now. And I am leaving them for the last, but it doesn't mean that they are not important. They're actually exceptionally important. Now it's really great to have a lot of you who are actually involved with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Some of you also serve on the DEI committee. So it's great to have you here and maybe we can tackle some of these questions as well. And the one that I would like to start off with is a question that says, how does the University of Michigan make sure that people from marginalized backgrounds in terms of race, gender, disability and sexuality feel supported and welcomed? And perhaps, I know Emily, Harsh for both of you are on the DEI committee. Emily, would you like, you are involved with the initiatives though, right? I don't mind commenting. I'm actually not part of the DEI committee. Okay. I'd love to hear from Harsh too, who actually is part of the committee. I can start, it doesn't matter. So part of what we do, and part of, especially as the pandemic has been hitting, but just in general, I think that one of the most important things that we can do is listen. Because I think as academics or humans, I think that there's this big impulse to try to say things like, oh, I am a person who has challenges. And so therefore, I understand your challenges and I understand what you need to make those challenges more palatable. And I think that that's a step to just doing things that aren't very helpful. I mean, sometimes it works out. Sometimes whatever challenges they are are sufficiently universal that those strategies are effective. But I think the most important thing and the thing that we've been really focused on is trying to build bridges with individual communities so that instead of speaking in the abstract about strategies that might make people feel more welcome or more included, we actually understand the problems. Because once you understand the problems, you can start to build tailored solutions that people will feel represents them and their needs. And so this is something that we've been heavily involved in. I started in this position in September. So we've been heavily involved in it since September. We have standing meetings with different student groups. And the goal really is to do not a lot of talking, but more listening to figure out what the biggest challenges are and how we might be able to address those through small local things. And so one of the things that has started this year as an example is this peer onboarding. I forgot the name that we've actually that the students came up with. It was really great onboarding buddy. It's something like that. And the goal there is to allow our incoming PhD students to understand what a healthy DEI climate would look like. And so that way, if students are encountering challenges, but don't really know anything else, because they've just started in a PhD program, they have an outlet. Another thing that started this year, actually one of Jenna's students is co starting it is a wellness group, which is also designed as a peer mediation group that again is trying to find ways to sort of solve problems that might arise again through lots and lots of listening. So I think that to me, the thing that I'm beginning to understand is so very important or continuing to understand is so very important is just a lot of active listening and solutions based on things that we're learning. Yeah, I think that's perfect. Our strategy since, I mean, especially since last year has been that we really need to better understand the concerns of the students. So for example, Wes Weimer, who's been leading many of these efforts last year, he organized at least a couple maybe more, what we call these town halls where students show up and we typically have the chair of the department, even some of the deans present there so that it's meant to be an environment where everybody is welcome to raise any concerns without any consequences. And having that even the deans be present there is really important so that even those who are higher up in the administration know what problems exist and what measures need to be taken. Some of the other things we have been doing in terms of even understanding concerns is for example, over this past summer, we had a staff member who's part of the DEI committee talk to every single PhD student in the program. I spent 15 minutes try to see what concerns they have with their advisor or with their group and see what patterns emerge. They're still trying to make sense of this data but that's kind of part of the overall effort towards just trying to understand even the concerns that exist. I would just add to that the DEI is really core to our values and beyond the grad committee this is something that comes up often at faculty search. So I serve on the faculty search committee where we review applicants after graduate school but to our faculty. So people we plan to hire and they're not only do does the application involve a DEI statement we also listen again going off of Emily's theme of active listening to the students and their feedback. So we have a round table after faculty candidate job talks where the students can ask them questions and find out what are their thoughts on how we can improve things like climate and what contributions they might make to climate in CSC and that weighs very heavily when making our decision. And we're actually just to increase the participation of the grad students in the in the research process which is critical for for maintaining the DEI climate we actually have as of this year a graduate student representative on the faculty search committee just to make sure that the graduate students opinion is always heard and that they have a voice not just in the you know in the abstract but actually you know if someone that you know kind of the the searching process is transparent and and and they can they can voice their concerns and opinions. It's in transparency as well because then the students have more some of the processes that are happening behind scenes are more visible. This is great because you also answered another question that we had and that is what has the department done in response to a lot of challenges that we've been facing and you know things that put the University of Michigan in general in news for for all the bad reasons. But I want to also ask another question. This was a very interesting one so but what do we do to make sure that these kinds of issues are not disproportionately assigned to underrepresented groups to deal with at CSC because every once in a while we see cases where members of these underrepresented groups are almost called on to take part in panels committees to almost solve DEI issues. What do we do about that? I'll take it. I think that it's really important that the DEI burden not fall on the members from underrepresented groups. Women faculty BIPOC faculty often have to pay a tax because they get asked so often to do these sorts of things and that's just wrong. It's important. I think it's really cool that several of us have mentioned Wes Weimer who's really been very active in DEI and like me he's an old white dude. It's a good thing. I think that it's really important that the burden be shared across all of the faculty and I see an effort within CSC to do that. I think again part of it is having conversations and building community so that people who are not in whatever underrepresented group we're talking about also understand the problems because again if people don't understand what the problems are and what the challenges are it's really hard to figure out how to be a good ally and whenever you say something like that immediately like a very fair reaction would be well that's still putting pressure on people from these underrepresented groups to be the educators and so I think something that's been I know personally very helpful this past spring when we were thinking about how to support people going through participating in the Black Lives Matter protests is the the sheer quantity of reading lists and podcasts and other types of resources that were provided so that people in these groups didn't have to have these really hard conversations again didn't have to explain all of the challenges they faced again. Instead we could be pointed towards resources that would allow us to begin to understand what these conversations are looking like and begin to understand how else we could gain the information that we need to be supportive allies without asking people to inform us. Thank you so much it's 150 and I know that there's so many questions that audience asked so many great questions we couldn't cover them all but I hope we covered a good majority of them I hope that this was really good information for everyone I hope you learned something new let's let's thank all of our panelists if nothing else with that little clap icon in