I will readily admit that the title is clickbait. While it is technically true, it is misleading as you will soon find out. There was service. That service involved PhDs who are commonly referred to as Doctor in academia. We did travel around the world to perform a service. So what is the rest of the story?
In 2004, I started volunteering at the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board (CSAB) and ABET to strengthen computer science, cybersecurity, and related programs worldwide. This involved traveling to universities around the world on a team and evaluating their program. The university prepares a self-study which we evaluate before we arrive. Once we get on the ground, we interview the faculty, students, and administrators. We examine the labs and institution support. At the end of the visit, we provide a draft report and allow the institution to respond. In July each year, approximately 65 team leaders/commissioners get together and we evaluate 200 or so programs with a votes on the appropriate findings for the visit. Depending on the votes, the program is accredited for six year, not accredited, or accredited for two years with an additional visit.
I got to serve with an amazing group of selfless professionals traveling around the world and advancing the computing discipline. These professionals included Sherif Aly Ahmed, Jean Blair, Andy Borchers, David “Hoot” Gibson, Harold Grossman, Stephen Jodis, David John, Cary Laxer, Joe Luksic, Bruce McMillin, Scott Murray, Shari Plantz-Masters, Rajendra Raj, Heikki, Mary Jane Willshire, Donna Reese, Lois Mansfield, John Schnase, Pearl Wang, Rob Bryd, Barbara Doyle, Kevin Huggins, Michael Oudshroom, Harry Reif, Stephen Seidman, Stephanie Smullen, Judith Solano, David Cordes, David Feinstein, Mary Granger, Ed Sobiesk, Ron Dolye, Andrew Phillips, Joe Turner, Thomas Stanley, and Art Price.
For ABET, I started as a program evaluator in 2004, was selected as a commissioner/team chair in 2006, and moved to the executive committee in 2021. I trained new program evaluators and also volunteered on the training committee and the consistency committee. I conducted visits around the world and given the number of visits I led to Saudi Arabia, I mentored team chairs conducting their first visit there. After 19 years of service, I had to resign in 2023 as UAB would no longer support my travel on behalf of ABET. This is not uncommon and I was one of the few vice presidents on the commission. Most were faculty members with no administrative appointment.
For CSAB, I started in 2008 as part of the executive committee and served as treasurer, secretary, and training committee chair. In a similar fashion, there came a time where my work requirements as a Vice Chancellor made it impossible to continue to serve at CSAB.
For the 20 or so programs I evaluated, I would note that there is little difference between computer science programs in the United States and internationally. They all follow the same ABET criteria. There are cultural differences but that does not limit the knowledge and capabilities of the graduates.
If you travel around the world for nearly twenty years, there are lots of interesting interactions. I’ll share two stories.
Suitless in Jeddah
While traveling to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Delta lost my luggage including the business suit I needed to wear the next day. ABET immediately approved to cover the cost of a new suit and with the university providing a translator, we set out at 7 PM to buy a suit. Like many countries around the world, there is a bit of negotiation involved with buying some things in Saudi Arabia. This means you are not really getting the right price unless you negotiate hard, leave the shop, get chased down and the shop offers tea, negotiate again, leave, be chased, offered soda, leave, chased, and finally get the right price. This takes time.
We went through this at one shop and decided it was not the right shop as we were not making enough progress on the price. We went to another shop who had been paying attention and we made more progress. However, every time the business owner turned around, the translator added more to my pile and then acted like it had been there all along and should be included in the current negotiated price. This was blatantly obvious and led to more spirited negotiations. This occurred several times as I magically gained socks, a belt, some t-shirts, and cuff links. At this point, it is nearing 10 PM. As we go to pay, the translator states that obviously the price involves tailoring on the spot. More spirited negotiations. At some point, the business owner’s wife intervenes, says something in Arabic, and just starts tailoring the suit. I suspect she wanted to go to bed more than get a higher price for the suit.
A Creative but Dangerous Translator
On a visit to a great Mexican university, I found myself on a large multi-team evaluation. The university had a great professional translator (from Sweden). She took part care of part of the team. The associate program chair from computer science served as second translator and took care of part of the team. This led to me serving as the translator for my team as apparently no one else spoke Spanish.
Now, I only speak about 1,000 words of Spanish so I am a low intermediate speaker of Spanish. About one in four words used I have no idea what was said. You, know, like a moron. Everything worked out well and we got to the formal out brief with the university president and other senior leaders. The university turned to crowd and thanked everyone and turned to the translators. He said:
- “Very good translator” and bowed to the the professional translator;
- “Well-dressed translator” and nodded to the associate program chair; and
- “Creative but very dangerous translator” as he smiled at me.
Now you might think that is the end of the story and the president would have the last (and accurate) word but it is not. The ABET out brief is a very formal, scripted presentation and was given in English and in Spanish. Everyone had a script. As luck would have it, the translator got confused and got ahead of me in translating the script and several folks in the room picked up on the mistake. Without missing a beat, I offered to translate the Spanish into English to get the translations back in sync. After we regained control of the room from all the laughter, the president restated his assertion that I was a very dangerous translator to another round of laughter.