Date: 2006.3.8 (Wed) 11:00-11:15
Speaker: Maria Gini
Title: Strategies to increase women participation in computing: the University of Minnesota experience
Affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, USA
Type: Panel Discussion

Bibliography: Maria Gini, “Strategies to increase women participation in computing: the University of Minnesota experience”, Women in Robotics towards Human Science, Technology and Society Abstract, No.2, 2006.

Abstract:
Statistics reveal the extreme imbalance in gender of people engaged in computer science at all levels. It is evident that women are not going into the computer science major at the same rate as men, and the retention rate for women in computer science is inadequate. Some of the perceived problems are young women's intimidation by their male counterparts' knowledge about computing; women's internalized beliefs that women aren't supposed to be good at technical subjects, and discomfort with the dynamics of classrooms and computing labs.

We describe activities at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and in the Institute of Technology, the physical sciences and engineering college, to increase participation of women at all levels, from undergraduate students to faculty.

References:
J. M. Cohoon. "Recruiting and retaining women in undergraduate computing majors." In Proc. of the 36th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 48-52, 2002.

Janice Cuny and William Aspray. "Recruitment and retention of women graduate students in computer science and engineering: results of a workshop organized by the Computing Research Association." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 34(2), June 2002.

Carol Frieze and Lenore Blum. "Building an effective computer science student organization: The Carnegie Mellon Women@SCS action plan." SIGCSE Bulletin, 34(2), June 2002.

Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. MIT Press, 2002.

S. V. Rosser. The Science Glass Ceiling: Academic Women Scientists and the Struggle to Succeed. Routledge, New York, 2004.

Ellen Spertus. "Why are there so few female computer scientists?" Technical Report 1315, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, August 1991.

Linda L. Werner, Brian Hanks, Charlie McDowell, Heather Bullock, and Julian Fernald. "Want to increase retention of your female students?" Computing Research News, 17(2), March 2005.