1

• Were sheep in the lions den. Lets teach
  the lions not to eat the sheep. Not that were
  really sheep.
• female undergrad CS

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Community, Space, and Support

• Keys to People-Friendly
• Gender Climates?
• Principal Investigator Jean C. Robinson

Gender and IT Education Conference, Indiana
University, 2007
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Research Questions

• Do special programs and institutional structures
  create a more women-friendly environment for
  students?
• To what extent do students recognize the value of
  these programs and institutional structures?
• Are applied IT fields more successful than
  computer science in establishing more
  women-friendly climates?

4
BACKGROUND

• What are factors in creating women-friendly CS/IT
  fields?
• More women faculty (Margolis Fisher, 2002
  Roberts et. al, 2002 Cuny Aspray, 2002)
• Support groups and networking (Gabbert Meeker,
  2002)
• Mentoring and role models (Townsend, 2002 Ogan
  2007)
• Changing gendered stereotypes (Hanks, 2007
  Lagesen, 2007 Herring Marken, 2007)

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National Support Systems

• National Organizations
• ACM (14 F)
• ASIS, AECT,SIGMIS no gender data
• Women on Editorial Boards of Major Journals
• Womens Caucuses
• (33 national organizations)
• Recruitment Retention Programs
• 23 different sources for grants, fellowships

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University Support Systems
Female Faculty total Programs for Women in IT Women Science/ Mentoring Programs Student-based Women/ IT group
BUFFALO 32 n.a. n.a. 1
ILL 28 3 n.a. 3
IN 35 4 2 2
MICH 33 1 5 2
WASH 22 2 4 1
Information collected 2005
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Departmental Contexts
One Measure of Women-Friendliness Percentage of
Women Faculty, 2005
BUFFALO ILL IND MICH WASH
CS 8.3 11.5 9.6 8.8 12.5
Informatics/ Information 34.6 n.a. 20.5 32.3 42.8
INF SYS 0 n.a. 33. n.a. 17.6
IST/ED TECH n.a. 60 14 n.a. 22.2
INFO SCI n.a. 40. 46.6 n.a. n.a.
Informatics disbanded at Buffalo 2006
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Methods

• How to measure student recognition of and
  receptivity to women-friendly climates (without
  asking?)
• Analyze student responses to
• If you could change three things about your
  program, what would they be?
• If everything in your program was going to be
  changed, except three things, what would you
  keep?
• Describe something that happened in the program
  that made you feel valued.

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What Matters Beyond good teachers curriculum
All Women All men CS Women Non-CS Women
Faculty recognition 41 28.2 38.2 42.5
Physical space 28.4 8.7 35.2 23.4
Community 17.3 17.4 23.5 12.7
Other responses in descending order
Institutional recognition (awards
scholarships), group work, involvement in
volunteering/ hosting/recruiting self-efficacy
representing students.
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Findings

• Recognition by faculty
• cited most often as an instance of feeling valued
• strongest for all women (41 of women) and
  especially strong for non-CS graduate students
  (51), both male and female
• Recognition varies from nominating for
  internships/summer jobs, asking to be a TA, or
  faculty just talking with students and
  remembering their name

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Physical space

• Second highest in frequency
• Mentioned by far more women than men, more CS
  female than other groups more important for
  grads.
• Natural lighting comfortable lounges places to
  work and feel safe 24/7
• The Center is its own little island its own
  little community and it gives it a completely
  different atmosphere. Theres people in the
  Center 24 hours a day. You walk in its never
  going to be empty. Its a continuously-living
  environment and that kind of a feeling you wont
  get anywhere else. its really nice. Fem. CS ug
• Whenever you have students that are more
  focused on who has the office space versus their
  research, then its not good. Like theyre
  worried about where are theyre going to work
  instead of working. short laugh And also
  theres just no space for kind of, sit around and
  talk. Fem CS PhD student.

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Importance of community

• Third highest frequency among women 2nd among
  men
• Especially important to CS women grads
• Described as collegiality, working together,
  keeping doors open, access to faculty,
  collaborative, socializing, decreased
  competition.
• Its all about the people. Male CS PhD student
• Many of the students and faculty believe its
  very important to have a sense of community. So
  I would definitely keep that, the sense of
  community. Female CS PhD Student

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Women-Friendly Strategies
Percentage of Subjects Citing Women-Friendly
Strategies as Important or Valued
All Women All Men CS Women Non-CS Women
Womens groups other strategies 32.1 8.7 44.1 17
Womens groups alone 7.4 0 20.5 0

Womens groups combined answers coded WIC or
WIS Climate for women womens options in
CS/INFOR positive about female faculty female
recruitment positive diversity programming
positive.
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Womens Groups

• CS women are most articulate about need for
  womens support groups, need for women faculty,
  support for diversity programming
• Indeed only CS women talked about the importance
  of womens groups and about criticism about
  womens support systems.
• Having that is like the best resource for our
  freshmen just because it automatically gives
  them a place they can go and say, Hey, there are
  more people here like me that are going to face
  the same problems with the guys that Im going
  to face, and it gives them a nice little place
  to go and meet other people. And when there are
  only about 20 other women in our department, its
  an easy way to meet all of them. Female CS ug

15

• Students who were involved in womens programs
  were also strongly supportive of these programs
  and simultaneously (or consequentially) more
  aware of woman-unfriendly characteristics among
  their peers or within the department.
• We need more support groups, more
  acknowledgment. X doesnt really do anything
  to support women, its kind of just an
  afterthought or if they want publicity theyll do
  something and its really disappointing. Female
  CS MA student
• I mean, if we just had women in our
  organization, wed have like 10 people, because
  half of the women dont want to do it. We say
  to guys We definitely want you to join because
  we want more people, and besides, its not just
  our concern. Guys in our department want to see
  more girls here, too. Theyre tired of being in
  classes that are like 95 male, so its a good
  way to get them to join, too. Female CS ug

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The view from within non-CS programs

• Non-CS women mention the need for more women
  faculty, but did not mention womens support
  groups
• Maybe more women in it? Maybe more women
  teachers. Um, I mean that would help the female
  side of it. Female non-CS ug
• Indeed in our interviews, the women in applied
  fields do not seem to be concerned about gender
  as a problem. Instead women talked about many of
  the same kinds of issues that men did group
  work, collaboration, good faculty advisors, space
  issues, capstones, pathways, faculty support.

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Discussion

• We hypothesized that non-CS programs would have
  more gender-friendly climates.
• CS departments seem to have more active
  participation in womens support organizations
  and more programming for women than in many
  applied programs. This programming is often
  defined as creating more women-friendliness.
• Hanks (2007) finds that CS are consistently low
  in the numbers of women. Our findings suggest
  that CS women are more likely than non-CS women
  to express support for womens groups, for
  hiring more women faculty, for special programs
  for women. This is the institutional response to
  the lack of a critical mass.

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Critical Mass People-Friendliness

• In the absence of gender-related comments by
  students, can we conclude that applied units have
  solved the problem?
• One response might be that the applied fields
  have reached a critical mass of women (gt15) so
  these issues are less important or indeed
  disappear. In CS, because the numbers are few,
  such programming is more critical and gains more
  attention from students.
• For applied fields, where critical mass may have
  been reached, issues like pleasing and safe
  spaces in which to work, community-building,
  opportunities for group work, and most
  importantly faculty recognition may be the
  non-gendered strategies for people-friendliness.

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Sources

• Cuny, J. Aspray, W. (2002) Recruitment and
  Retention of Women Graduate Students in Compiuter
  Science Engineering Results of a Workshop
  Organized by CRA, SIGSCE Bulletin 34(2)
  168-174
• Gabbert, P. Meeker, P. H. (2002) Support
  Communities for Women in Computing, SIGSCE
  Bulletin 34(2) 62-22
• Hanks, K. (2007) What Do IT Program Websites
  Reveal about Woman Friendliness?, ITWF
• Herring, S.C. Marken, J. (2007) Gender
  Consciousness of IT Students, ITWF
• Lagesen, V.A. (2007) The Strength of Numbers
  Strategies to Include Women into Computer
  Science. Social Studies of Science 37(1) 67-92
• Margolis, J. Fisher, A. (2002) Unlocking the
  Clubhouse Women in Computing Boston The MIT
  Press.
• Ogan, C. (2007) The Only Person who cares
  Misperceptions of Mentoring Among Faculty and
  Students in IT Programs, ITWF
• Roberts, E. et. al, (2002) Encouraging Women in
  Computer Science, SIGSCE Bulletin 34(2)84-88
• Townsend, G. C. (2002) People who Make a
  Difference Mentors and Role Models, SIGSCE
  Bulletin 34(2)57-62

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POPULATION INTERVIEWED
GENDER DEPARTMENT NUMBER RESPONSES
FEMALE COMPUTER SCIENCE - UNDERGRADUATE 17 34 CS Women
FEMALE COMPUTER SCIENCE -GRADUATE 17 34 CS Women
FEMALE NON-CS UNDERGRADUATE 8 47 Non-CS Women
FEMALE NON-CS - GRADUATE 39 47 Non-CS Women
MALE COMPUTER SCIENCE- UNDERGRADUATE 10 18 CS Men
MALE COMPUTER SCIENCE GRADUATE 8 18 CS Men
MALE NON-CS UNDERGRADUATE 8 28 Non-CS Men
MALE NON-CS GRADUATE 20 28 Non-CS Men