AC_1965_Web

11 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z B A U M A N BAUMAN ELLIS A. THEN AND NOW 4 B.S., Math 4 M.S., Math, New York University FAMI LY � 4 Wife, Susan Joan Bauman ADDRESS 4 125 N. Hamilton St., #407 Madison, WI 53703 CONTACT 608 257-2443 or 608 576-8270 ellisabau@aol.com U P O N G R A D U A T I O N , I went to work for my last co-op employer, a software house in New York City. When the Vietnam war heated up and my employer could not prom- ise a deferment, I enrolled in gradu- ate school at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Studies. Although I did obtain my M.S. degree, I was not particularly happy at NYU—the math they were doing felt more like applied phys- ics than the more theoretical math that was of interest to me—so, at the suggestion of a long-time friend liv- ing in Madison,WI, I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison to continue my graduate studies, arriv- ing in January 1967. After several years,during which time I served as a teaching assis- tant, graded correspondence course papers for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute, did some computer pro- gramming for the chemistry depart- ment, and got married, I left gradu- ate school without another degree, but with computer programming as my marketable skill. I got a job with the Family Practice Program—later the department of family medicine and practice in the U.W. Medical School, staying there for about seven years until grant money was not re- newed. My duties there were mainly to flesh out the ideas of the found- ing chairman about how computers might be applied in office-based pri- mary care. In connection with that endeavor, I co-authored two articles published in academic journals, one in Medical Care (1975), and one in The Journal of Family Practice (1975). Having done very little actual programming while at family medi- cine, I moved to the Office ofTesting and Evaluation Services in the U.W. School of Education. There I spent about four years re-honing my skills by programming the mark-sense scanning machines which read re- sponse sheets for multiple choice exams, survey forms, and other such documents. I finally landed the best job of my career when I transferred to the Office of Biostatistics. Although housed in the department of oncol- ogy within the Medical School, the office actually performed database programming in support of clini- cal trials for many research projects throughout the medical school and eventually became the department of biostatistics within Letters and Science.The most memorable proj- ect on which I worked while there was a program on a Macintosh to simulate tumor growth response to fractionated radiation treatments. That program was used to help de- velop the intuition of residents, post- doctoral students, and physicians participating in continuing educa- tion courses. After about 15 years at biosta- tistics, I was once again the victim of grant nonrenewal. So, I took a job at a small software firm working on transferring messages between dis- parate email systems. When I left there, I went to work for the U.W. Medical Foundation, the billing arm of the U.W. Medical School faculty’s private practice—they treat patients as well as teach and conduct re- search.After a number of years there, programming projects sort of died while management struggled with the issue of upgrading to a more modern computer system. Since all of the contending systems were to be web-based, I asked to take a leave of absence for one semester so that I could obtain a relevant certificate from the local community technical college.The response I got surprised me.The gist of it was,“Gee, no one has ever asked for an educational leave before, and we can’t guarantee you a position when you’re ready to return.” I left, earned the certificate, and then was asked to teach the ma- terial starting the next semester. I took that offer, but after a year or so, administrative changes led to my be-