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The Computer Science Clubhouse
Thursday, January 12, at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time
Only 17 percent of undergraduate computer-science degrees were awarded to women in 2004, according to the Computing Research Association, down from 19 percent in 2000. Why is the number so low, and dwindling?
Are women less attracted than men to programming, as an influential study from the late 1990s indicated? Should admissions policies and curricula be redesigned with women in mind? Or will that serve only to marginalize women?
More-recent research suggests that women avoid the field because they are discouraged as children from using or playing with technology, then discriminated against in computer-science classes and high-tech workplaces. What kinds of support systems, such as mentoring programs or alumnae networks, might solve those problems?
» Wanted: Female Computer-Science Students (1/13/2006)
Claudia Morrell is a psychologist and the executive director of the Center for Women and Information Technology at the University of Maryland-Baltimore Country. She is directing several efforts to increase the participation of girls and women in the field and has been studying their attitudes and influence in computer science.
Jeffrey R. Young (Moderator):
Hello, and welcome to Colloquy Live. Today we're talking about how to attract more women to computer science, a field where the proportion of women is small and getting smaller. I'm Jeff Young, the technology editor here, and I'll be moderating the discussion.
Our guest is Claudia Morrell, a psychologist and the executive director of the Center for Women and Information Technology at the University of Maryland-Baltimore Country, and she'll be here for the next hour answering your questions.
Thanks for being here Ms. Morrell.
Claudia Morrell:
I would like to thank the Chronicle of Higher Education for the opportunity to share some of the knowledge the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) at the UMBC has developed or identified regarding women and IT since 1998. It is a pleasure to be with you on-line today to discuss these important issues.
Claudia Morrell:
The Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT), established at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in July 1998, is dedicated to providing global leadership in achieving women's full participation in all aspects of information technology (IT). Women's participation in IT will strengthen the workforce, raise the standard of living for many women, and help to assure that information technology addresses women's needs and expands the possibilities for their lives.
The mission has three objectives:
1) To encourage more women and girls to prepare for careers and become leaders in information technology;
2) To communicate information related to the richness and breadth of women's lives, concerns, and possibilities using technology; and
3) to foster research concerning gender and information technology.
The Center is working to accomplish its mission through varied initiatives focusing on secondary school students, university students, women in the workforce, and women in leadership.
Question from Michael Fishbein, Daniel Webster College:
Computer science is more than "the nuts and bolts of computers" and the facility with which women adopt and adapt to technologies of use to them, e.g., cell phones with advanced features, suggest to me that neither premise is valid. What does the reserach reveal about the facets of technological change that DO engage women? These, it seems to me, form the basis of a practical program to improve the enrollment of women in this field.
Claudia Morrell:
First, let me start by agreeing with you. Part of the challenge of engaging any student in Computer Science is recognizing that Computer Science is more than programming. Unfortunately, many colleges and universities require students to do nothing but programming classes for the first two years of their college education. Only in their junior year do they begin to have an opportunity to experience the wide range of options the career provides, but by then we lose many students, and particularly women.
There is much debate about whether it is programming that drives women out of CS classes or the unwelcoming culture that makes them change majors. Our own surveys on why students leave indicates that students do leave because they do not care for programming, but women do not like it more or less than men. Note that our studies have all been qualitative. For expertise on this subject, I would refer you to my colleague at Carnegie Mellon, Lenore Blum, who has looked exhaustively at this issue for years with important updates on the excellent book "Unlocking the Clubhouse" by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher.
One last item. To address the issue of "nothing but programming" in the first two years of college, my CS colleague Dr. Rheingans, is developing a survey course as a first year seminar for freshmen. We hope this helps to both recruit interested students, including women, to CS but also helps retain them as they get a glimpse of what is ahead if they "hang in there."
Question from Dana, State U:
Just to be a devil's advocate here: so what if women are less interested in computer science? Is that something that requires intervention? (Especially since the job market isn't great for techies at the moment.)
Claudia Morrell:
Good question. I suppose the job market depends on where you are located, but in Maryland and Virginia, it is really heating up. I expect the rest of the country will begin to feel the effects of an iincreasing demand for technology workers if they ahve not done so already.
But let me refer you to someone who I think states it much better than I can - former Lockheed Martin Chair Norman Augustine. He was featured in the Washington Post on December 6 2005. The article is entitled “Learning to Lose.” “In the past five decades since I began working in the aerospace industry, I have never seen American business and academic leaders as concerned about this nation’s future prosperity as they are today.” He is referring to worldwide competition and the movement of jobs to other countries. "Other nations will have the advantage of lower wages, so the United States must compete on the basis of its strengths. Throughout the 20th century, one of these strengths was our knowledge-based resources –- particularly in science and technology. But the scientific and technological foundations of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are building their innovative capacity.”
I would argue that for our country to remain competitive, we must utilize technology to continue making advances in medicine, politics, education, business, agriculture, national defense, etc. We need many of our smartest minds to be focused on information technology and related fields -– including women. Having a limited labor pool hurts the economy and national defense and limits our ability to advance our society.
Question from Leah Cook, Florida Distance Learning Consortium:
I have just started working on a project involving doing outreach to young women, specifically middle school girls, to encourage them to continue with their math and science studies and ultimately consider IT as their career. In your experience, what types of outreach and recruitment methods have been most effective with girls and why?
Claudia Morrell:
This sounds much like our ESTEEM program that is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and run in collaboration with the Shriver Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Currently we have informal STEM programs active in six middle schools. One school has all girls and no boys, although the rest are up to 50% male. Five out of six are at capacity (25 students) including the all girl program. To recruit students, we first make a presentation to the school where we hold the program. Second, we recruit students using flyers that are sent home and classroom presentations. Once we have an initial group of middle school students, we have had those students help us the following year to recruit. During all of our presentations, we have made a specific point of mentioning to teachers, parents and the administration our desire for the classes to be minimally 50% female. The curriculum we used was developed initially by Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California. They have successfully run all girl programs for a number of years. The curriculum is very appealing to girls' interests without discouraging boys. For example, they like making their own telephones, digital photography, and digital storytelling, which are all examples of relational curriculum that piques their interest and gets them in the door.
Comment from Revi Sterling - U Colorado:
Dana brings up a good point - there's been a backlash about pushing women into CS who might not want to be there. My concern isn't that, as I hold young women able to pick their majors and careers based on their personal passions and interests; but I AM concerned that younger women don't even know what CS is, and thus don't get the opportunities to explore an area that they might really like, and we do not get to benefit from the advances that these women might contribute. One of my favorite quotes about the lack of women in the pipeline is that "we cannot measure absense" - it's so true.
Comment from J. McClellan, SUNY Canton:
Perhaps women are responding to the decline in occupational opportunities in computer science. One can hardly watch nightly news without hearing about the "off shoring" of computer related jobs. From Microsoft to Cisco and lots of other smaller companies, off shoring is hot business, therefore, I would propose to you that women are merely being logically selective in declining enrollment for occupational opportunities that are diminishing in the US.
As it would regard sexism, in any discipline, it is hardly overt anymore. Sexist decisions, promotions and hiring are much more sophisticated (for the most part) than 20, 15, or even 5 years ago. The impact is still the same although decisions are presented much more charmingly.
So, with women in most professions still earning 76 cents to a man's $1.00, it's still a matter of women having to work twice as hard to get half as far. See this release....
Moreover, when "girls" do begin to achieve academically on a par or superior to males in academia, there comes a hue and cry to "save the boys."
One might say that it is socially and culturally pervasive... That calls for a much bigger cure than encouraging girls and women... otherwise, we encourage them to work harder to fail brilliantly.
Question from David Holtzman, Santa Clara University:
Isn't the problem with computer science enrollments a general problem which applies to both men and women? Isn't the root of the problem in the dwindling long-term career prospects for CS graduates in the US regardless of whether they are men or women? The lack of clear long-term career paths in the field, and the uncertainty about the future of the field in the US affect both men and women.
Claudia Morrell:
The answer to your questions are all yes! After the dot com bust, the enrollments in CS and related fields (computer engieering and information systems, for example) all spiraled downwards. The heavy reporting pointing to the transfer of IT jobs overseas has additionally added to the concern nationally that their are no IT jobs in the US. My business sources say otherwise. I have the privilege of working with a number of companies, Dell, Northrop Grumman, AT&T, HP, CISCO, Xerox, Lockheed Martin and others who tell quite a different story. They have a large number of retiring employees, tremendous growth in the the area of national security (jobs which cannot be outsourced) and a real need for innovative thinkers, women and men. The challenge is that almost 45% of the workforce is now women, only 15% of whom go into science and technology fields. We will and should continue to heavily recruit men, but it is not enough to meet the future needs of this country. In addition, diversity among employees brings with it innovative and creative thinking, an advantage the U.S. dare not lose.
Again, we need all our brightest minds focused on technology, men and women so we must focus our strategies to increase their particpation. Traditional strategies have been effective with men. We simply need to develop new strategies to ensure women enter thei field as well.
Question from Kathy Taylor, Cottey College:
Might early exposure go a long way toward attracting girls/young women? What are the efforts to bring computer science into the elementary and secondary curriculums? Are there any formal partnerships being formed between higher ed and public schools?
Claudia Morrell:
You are exactly on target. Partnerships are critical to the success of our efforts. The National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education have long funded programs that help bridge students transition from high school to college and many of them focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Examples can be found at almost every college and university to whom you might speak. UMBC hosts a number of such programs. The ESTEEM project, about which I wrote earlier, is a great example since we work with six middle schools in two counties in Maryland. Another program, Computer Mania Day, which will occur for the fourth year on May 6, 2006, works with 17 school districts in Maryland and Virginia to bring girls to campus for a 1/2 day to learn about IT and related technologies. Last year 650 middle school students attended, many with parents. This year we hope to attract 800 girls. But I would argue that collaborations should be broader than just higher education and K-12. UMBC's CWIT working with the Maryland Commission for Women helped to pass legislation to establish the first "Governor's Taskforce on Women and Information Technology" in the U.S. I am delighted to say that government agencies, leading companies, colleges and universities (including community colleges) and K-12 education all sit together to understand and develop effective strategies to increase women's participation in Maryland.
Jeffrey R. Young (Moderator):
We're about half-way through our discussion... Keep those questions coming, and feel free to post comments as well.
Question from Lisa Michaud, Wheaton College:
I sometimes dispair about my efforts to encourage women when it seems like the social damage has been done at age 13 and by the time they get to me, they "know" computers aren't for them. What can I do to attract women to my classes when it feels like it's already too late?
Claudia Morrell:
Lisa, don't get discouraged! There is a lot of good news out there. Today when we look at college campuses across the country, we can see 50% women in mathematics, biology, and chemistry classes. I don't know your age, but this was certainly not the case 20 years ago when I was in college. I remember well the voice that said "girls can't do mathematics." I seldom here that anymore and for good reason. There is still a lot of work to be done at the graduate levels and among faculty, but signs are changing. Let me say also that when the Center was founded in 1998 by Dr. Korenman, she was one of only a few voices in the wilderness, so to speak. Today, there is a lot of work being done to increase women's participation and every day there is a new voice in the chorus. A perfect case in point is the newly formed National Center for Women and Information Technology led by Lucy Sanders at the University of Colorado. She has pulled together an impressive group of university, K-12, and business leaders to work on this issue. I am privileged to be part of her effort. It's tough when you are in the trenches. Our research, which will be published shortly, shows that attitudes are beginning to change, at least at the middle school level. But there is still a lot of work to do. So keep at it, and when you get really frustrated, give us a call and we will be happy to talk with you directly about strategies that might work in your area.
Comment from Lisa Michaud, Wheaton College:
I'm glad to hear that the cries of "Girls can't do Mathematics" are dying out. Alas, I heard "Everyone knows girls can't program computers" in 1990. I don't think many of my students have faced as much explicit sexism, but I know my teenaged cousin wouldn't take a computer class in high school because she didn't want to be socially punished.
Question from Revi Sterling - U Colorado:
Good morning Claudia - very happy to see you leading this conversation. One thing I'd like to better understand is how to continue the groundswell of attention that the "gender pipeline" is getting -- Larry Summers, Maria Klawe's keynote last summer at Microsoft, "The World is Flat" (ok, no gendered component there, but a good wake up call to US pipeline...), this week's piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Kristina M. Johnson... this issue has gotten a lot of press and airplay in 2005, but how does CWIT recommend moving to an "actionable" phase?
Claudia Morrell:
Revi, Nice to hear from you. For those of you who do not know, Ms. Sterling was a leader at Microsoft in this area for years and has returned to academia to get her Ph.D. to find ways to really put words into action. I am a huge fan of hers. I think the challenge is to first recognize the problem, and in part that is what we are doing here. You can't fix it if you don't see it. The second challenge is to get agreement that it needs to be a priority. The US is faced with some pretty important issues, so getting women into IT may not seem the first place to put time and resources. But I would argue that in fact it is exacly the place to put our resources. I cannot say it enough - we need our best minds focused on our challenges. During the Cold War, the US invested heavily in education and encouraged the primary members of our workforce, at that time mostly men, to go into science and technology. We won the space race, the Cold War, and the peace thanks to these scientists. Today our workforce may look different, but the strategy should be the same. Someone once said, if the cure for cancer is in the mind of a woman, we might never find it. We simply cannot let that happen! The final point I would make Revi is this. Let's agree to work together to create change. I'll call you next week to take another step forward for action. And that's how we begin.
Comment from Kara, 15-year CS professional:
I have been in the CS field for several years now and must agree with the earlier comment from Revi Sterling. Educating young women on what CS encompasses goes a long way in helping them to understand how it applies to their every day lives. It peaks their interest.
Question from Kay Schulze, US Naval Academy:
Many of our women indicate a concern about going into the field because of their 5 year military obligation. They think that the field is changing so rapidly that their degree will be useless. I would equate this to civilian women who want to take time off to raise children. Can you please speak to how to respond to them?
Claudia Morrell:
This is indeed a common concern. But more than that, it is a reality that needs some thoughtful solutions. For some companies it means providing childcare so women don't need to take a break. For women who want to take a break, it means an updating of skills when they want to return. As the technology economy heats up, I do see some compnies tryig to find ways to rehire talented women back after a break. After all, many of these women have already proven their work ethic before leaving the work place. But colleges and universities need to think about this as well. I have seen some creative solutions that are interesting as well. CISCO, Sun Microsystems, and Dell lets many of their employees work from home. This does not work for all families, but it is an option. Also CWIT has partnered with other programs at UMBC to run an entrepreneurship program entitled ACTiVATE that takes technologis out of federal labs and universities and provides women training to start their own technology business. This has been hugely successful. Several of the women have gone this route after being out of the workforce for awhile. I guess that is to say, like most complex problems, we will need a range of options and a lot of work to provide solutions.
Comment from Kathy Taylor, Cottey College:
Claudia, I'm glad to hear of all the partnerships going on. It seems those efforts are still outside the standard curriculum of elementary and secondary schools. - -Also a comment to Lisa, I teach at a two year women's college. The pressure to attract students to the cs classes is fierce and I emphasize with the feelings of despair. But I think a long term strategy of creating IT curriculum for K-12 would serve us well.
Comment from K. Yasuhara, U. of Washington (Seattle):
I'd like to chime in on Revi's comment about backlash against women-specific programs. While I believe there are deep-rooted cultural and social factors that result in young women getting fewer opportunities to explore computer science, I appreciate that not everyone agrees. This is why I find outreach, recruitment, and retention efforts that are ostensibly gender-neutral but end up having more impact on women particularly fascinating, not in the least becuase they are often more politically viable. (This is esp. true if your state outlaws differential treatment of specific groups!) There's some evidence that pair programming and GA Tech's media computing course are effective strategies of this type.
Comment from Leah Cook, Florida Distance Learning Consortium:
I couldn't agree more. I think we need to show young women that CS is more than just programming computers. I want to appeal to young women from another angle; what can technology do for society; and show the difference that a woman can make in the field of science and technology and how that affects future generations. Is this a good angle to take? (Moderator's Note: posted as comment because time is running out for the discussion)
Question from C. Murakami, Columbus School for Girls:
Are you suggesting that it is enough for a high school to involve girls in digital photography, digital storytelling and other applications? What more can we do to help girls see CS as an option?
Claudia Morrell:
Not at all. I was only giving a few examples of activities we do that have been enticing to girls to recruit them for informal (after school and summer) programs. The goal is to get them involved and introduce them to a wide range of activities that they might have thought they wouldn't like, but once they get involved they find that they are both fully capable of learning the more technical elements and fully interested in doing so. The Cisco Learning Academy is a good example of getting students in early, giving them a range of activites that are fun and interesting, and then encouraging their continuation in IT broadly. It might interest you to know that the Cisco Learning Academy was started by a collaboration of IT companies who saw the value of getting students interested in IT early on. High school is not the same as middle school of course. Our goal in middle school is to get girls to sign up for those elective high school IT classes. The challenge in high school is the need to better train teachers who too often are recruited from mathematics classes. In an ideal world we need CS teachers in the classroom! But we also need engaging curriculum. We have talked to both many boys and girls who complain the CS classes are all programming courses that "do nothing." Programming a program just to work is not too exciting to students, and particularly not interesting to girls. Boys, who tend to enjoy computer games are more likely to take CS for that. Girls are not drawn as often by game development. Finally, I would like to highlight the work of the Computer Science Teachers Association, who are developing guidleins and support for better CS curriculum in K-12 programs. Chris Stevenson runs that program.
Comment from Lisa Michaud, Wheaton College:
Here's a possible response for the Naval students: After I finished my undergraduate degree, I worked on a PhD for 7 years, during which I narrowed my focus to just one subfield and pretty much ignored all else transpiring in the meanwhile. I then became a professor teaching across the whole discipline, not just in the one corner I was "current" in. My education held up because it was not focused on the technology of the moment, or the programming language du jour, but on the underlying principles and skills that make up the meat of the discipline. I can teach myself anything else I need to know (and I must constantly do so; everyone does).
Question from Annet Nottingham, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK:
It has been argued that that girls are put off the area of computing at an early age. Younger children have to share limited computing resources at schools, which leads to situations where boys compete over the keyboard or mouse, pushing girls to the back. Many of the popular games and applications are predominantly aimed at boys (shoot 'm up, horror). This would encourage girls to perceive computing as a male-dominated domain. Is there any evidence that as resources now are more widely available and easily accessible, and games and applications are increasingly being developed for girls (Barbie, story telling games) that this is encouring a change of attitude amongst girls?
Claudia Morrell:
Annet, Consider for a moment games 20 years ago - Scrabble, Monopoly, even Trivial Pursuit. I would argue we should move away from "girl games" which have not been shown to be very successful in marketing and move back to "family games" which have been very successful already, including engaging girls, boys and families and would help pull every one back together.
Jeffrey R. Young (Moderator):
That's all the time we have for today. Thanks for joining us.
And thanks to our guest, Claudia Morrell, for her thoughtful input.