CANDIDATE FOR DIRECTOR

Peg Schafer

Dear Folks,

I'd like to ask you to consider voting for me as a director of USENIX. I am proud to say USENIX has been a strong contributor to my computing career: I received the very first USENIX graduate student fellowship, I've met wonderful people at the conferences, I've learned so much through the process of writing papers for LISA and serving on conference committees--and of course, through the support of SAGE. Despite recent grumblings on the sage-members mailing list, I am going to surprise everyone and give USENIX its due: USENIX has spent time, energy, and resources on SAGE's development. SAGE could not have evolved into the strong organization it is today without USENIX'S help.

I desperately want USENIX to continue in its mission to provide a forum for the open exchange and development of ideas and theories. Many great things have happened because of USENIX: Just think of the wheeling and dealing that goes on at conferences, the discussions of the newest technical problems and solutions, the learning, the wonderful exchange of information among people.

To accomplish this, USENIX is now a multi-million-dollar conference development machine, with an outstanding record of high-quality technical conferences. Everyone agrees we want this to continue. But will the current conference model continue to be rich enough to support itself, much less all USENIX's good works? The current Board, looking to the future, has been experimenting with distance learning. USENIX produces a lot of great knowledge. Let's see if we can't do a better job of letting people who cannot get to the conferences, get some of the same knowledge, the same free exchange of information. How to do this without killing the golden goose will be a huge issue for this board to face.

SAGE has grown and developed into a member-service organization. In computing terms, each organization has its own clock, its own goals. The USENIX clock is the master clock; SAGE has a slave clock. I believe SAGE has grown large enough to need its own clock to be efficient and successful. An imperative goal will be to structure both organizations so that both organizations grow, are financially secure, and continue to have a high level of interaction and cross-over. I invite you all to check out SAGE's Strategic Plan, and let the sage-exec@sage.org know what you think!

Where is USENIX going? Historically USENIX gained much of its technical contributions not only from academics, but also the great research labs. These research labs have turned into non-publishable advance-product development houses or have closed down altogether. We need to improve the climate for publishing technical information. As a related project, I'd like to see USENIX do more with its University Liaison Program.

Finally, I believe my many years on the SAGE board, my USENIX experience, and my nearly 20 years of sysadmin experience have prepared me well for service on the USENIX Board. I hope you agree. Thank you.

Biography: For the last 7 years Peg has run EECS.harvard.edu. In the past, she's worked for BBN, Bell Labs/Bellcore (Murray Hill/Morristown), and Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science & Robotics department, which qualifies her as an Old_Sys_Admin ;-) She holds a B.F.A. in Sculpture and a Master's from the Media Lab at MIT. She is living happily ever after with her daughter Ruth in the little house under the big trees in Carlisle, Massachusetts.

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