A day in the life of Dean Ilene

ASEE Prism, Dec 2000 by Hannon, Kerry

Like engineering deans everywhere, Ilene Busch-Vishniac of Johns Hopkins puts in long hours and keeps a hectic pace.

A package of contraceptive pills on the window sill? What?

Ilene Busch-Vishniac, the dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., proudly points them out to a visitor.

The set of unused birth control pills were a gift from a female colleague back at the University of Texas at Austin, where Busch-Vishniac spent 16 years as an engineering professor. The colleague, who decided against using the pills, went on to have three sons, all the while carrying a full teaching load. The symbolic gift was a thank you to Busch-Vishniac, who had counseled the woman that she could, indeed, do both. Busch-Vishniac herself has proven that by her own example, as she has risen to the top rank of academia while raising three children. Not that it is easy-for her or for most women. In an ASEE survey of woman in engineering education, nearly everyone said that balancing work and family is difficult; 20 percent said it is very difficult.

Busch-Vishniac has advanced, big time. Two years ago, "Dean Ilene"-as she is fondly called around the red-brick, white-- trimmed building campus in the heart of the edgy city-took up her current post after nearly two decades at UT-Austin as the Temple Professor of Mechanical Engineering. While there, she won the Achievement Award, the highest honor given by the Society of Women Engineers.

MUSIC TO HER EARS

Research was and is her passion. One particular area that has interested her throughout her career has been acoustics. In particular, she won acclaim during her days in the Lone Star State for designing highway sound barriers. That may sound mundane, but from an engineering standpoint, it is a fascinating exercise and truly critical in today's world of superhighways and burgeoning traffic flows around our major cities. Try living near the Baltimore Beltway-as Busch-Vishniac does-and you'll understand the importance of the work she did to soften the cacophony of cars on sensitive eardrums.

Her fascination with noise is not all that surprising. Busch-- Vishniac, a native of a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, originally set out on her adult career path to be a pianist. Sound is close to her heart, to be sure-she loves music of all kinds.

But after she took a course in the physics of music during her freshman year at the University of Rochester, Busch-Vishniac never looked back. That classroom experience sparked an interest in acoustics and the engineering challenges that surround sound, and from that time onward she keenly focused her studies in that arena.

Busch-Vishniac, 45, is one of only a handful of female engineering deans in the country. The others include Kristina Johnson at Duke University, Eleanor Baum at Cooper Union, Denice Denton at the University of Washington, Jane C.S. Long at the University of Nevada-Reno, and Janie Fouke at Michigan State University The lack of women at the core of engineering programs has been an issue of late and of significant concern. Just over 21 percent of undergraduate engineering degrees are awarded to women, according to ASEE data, and that number dips to 18 percent for Ph.D.'s. Busch-Vishniac is out to change all that.

She understands the demands of being a minority: she was one of just three Jewish students in her elementary school class. She says students routinely ambushed her on her walks home from school, shoving and sometimes actually hitting her. "You get strength from those sorts of traumatic events," according to Busch-Vishniac.

Today, she works at being a mentor to other women and minorities trying to get started in the engineering field. "There are so few women in big-time engineering positions. I feel an obligation to be available and support women coming along today," she says with conviction. Her take is that women have always been intimidated by the demands of the profession combined with the desire to raise a family.

But the times they are a-changing, and Busch-Vishniac is on the cusp of that change. Day-in, day-out, she juggles a dead-run schedule at Hopkins with her family--daughters Cady, age 14, and Miriam, 12; Ethan, her husband of 24 years and a professor of physics and astronomy at Hopkins; and two demanding but lovable mixed-breed dogs, Princess and Karaoke.

To say that this sixth dean of engineering at Hopkins is dynamic, forthright, direct, in-your-face, and funny to boot, would be an understatement. Not to mention whip-smart. Clad in a monotone, practical dark pantsuit, loafers, and a brightly colored scarf, and with her palm pilot always near at hand, she exudes competence and practicality.

A whiteboard takes up an entire wall of her sunny office overlooking a campus lawn, where a gaggle of students are lolling in the late autumn sun. The massive antique wooden slide rule over the door is a small nod to nerdiness. Remember slide rules? She does.

GROWING AT HOPKINS

Busch-Vishniac admits that she is blunt and straightforward, and loves to engage people in debate. No one interviewed denies this claim. "Patience is not one of my virtues," she says with a hint of pride. I tend to be very fast. I need to slow down sometimes so that I'm not 20 miles ahead of everyone. I'm a big-picture person, I'm not good with minutiae."