Retention and Recruitment of Women in Computer Engineering

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Retention and Recruitment of Women in Computer
Engineering

• Robert Akl and Ryan Garlick

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Details

• University of North Texas
• Denton, TX
• ICEE Paper 3318
• Sponsored by the Texas Technology Workforce
  Development Grant Program (2005)
• Recruiting and Retention Strategies for Computer
  Science and Engineering at UNT

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Goals

• Attracting more women to Computer Science and
  Engineering degree programs and retaining them
  once they are there.
• Only 17 of 2003 - 2004 Computer Science and
  Computer Engineering degrees awarded to Women 1

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Strategy

• Summer Robotics Camps
• Ambassadors Cohort
• Mentors Cohort

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1. Robo-Camp

• One-week camps for women in grades 9-11
• Mobile labs allowed camps at multiple locations
• Expanding reach to underserved regions
• Ethnically diverse South-Dallas campus

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1. Robo-Camp
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1. Robo-Camp

• BOE-BOT (click for more info)
• Problem-based learning approaches, similar to 2
• Problem Analysis
• System Design
• Construction
• Programming
• Emergent Behavior Students attached pens and
  programmed the robots to draw - RoboArt

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1. Robo-Art
News Coverage .mov file
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2. Ambassadors

• CSEagles Ambassador Program
• Instrumental in Recruitment and Retention

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2. Ambassadors

• Accompany faculty on recruiting visits to high
  schools
• Serve as hosts during prospective student visits
• Serve as mentors for easing the transition into
  CSE
• Astin3 maintains that a students peer group is
  the single most potent source of influence for
  enhancing student learning and personal
  development

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3. Mentors

• Upper-level undergraduates
• Maintain hours in the Help Clinic
• Building a sense of community
• Introduce Activities such as the Society of Women
  Engineers

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Evaluation

• How do students rate the activities
• How do instructors, mentors, and cohorts view the
  usefulness of their activities or participation
• Maintaining statistics on recruitment and
  retention rates
• Will have statistics at the conclusion of future
  programs

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Evaluation

• Follow our progress
• RoboCamp 2006 homepage

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Sources

• 1 2003-2004 Taulbee Survey
• 2 Duch, B., Groh, S., and Allen, D. The Power
  of Problem-Based Learning. 2001.
• 3 Astin, A., What matters in college Four
  critical years revisited. 1993