Recruitment, Preparation, Retention: A case study of computing culture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Computer science is seeing a decline in enrollment at all levels of education, including undergraduate and graduate study. This paper reports on the results of a study conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign which evaluated students attitudes regarding three areas which can contribute to improved enrollment in the Department of Computer Science: Recruitment, preparation and retention. The results of our study saw two themes. First, the department's tight research focus appears to draw significant attention from other activities -- such as teaching, service, and other community-building activities -- that are necessary for a department's excellence. Yet, as demonstrated by our second theme, one partial solution is to better promote such activities already employed by the department to its students and faculty. Based on our results, we make recommendations for improvements and enhancements based on the current state of practice at peer institutions.Comment: 37 pages, 13 figures. For better quality figures, please download the .pdf from http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/research/techreports.php?report=UIUCDCS-R-2007-281

American Law Schools in a Time of Transition

[Excerpt] I will argue that reports of law school unintentionally or intentionally misreporting a variety of types of data to USNWR should not be surprising; we have long seen similar problems occurring with respect to its rankings of undergraduate institutions. The fact that rankings schemes can induce such behavior emphasizes the need for our law school deans and faculty members to always stay focused on the social purpose of higher education, rather being obsessed with perceptions of prestige and rankings

Gender Sidelining and the Problem of Unactionable Discrimination

Gender dynamics suffuse virtually every workplace. Indeed, the way that employees interact with one another turns not only on their individual backgrounds, skills and personalities, but also frequently on their gender. While many employees embrace gender diversity at work and appreciate the benefits of incorporating both male and female perspectives into workplace programs and projects, this ideal does not translate into every work environment. In many workplaces, female workers continue to experience unfair (and often unlawful) treatment based upon their gender. The law has done much to outlaw overt gender discrimination at work, providing a legal framework within which female employees can vindicate concerns regarding gender-based decisions about hiring, promotion, discipline or pay. Similarly, a robust body of sexual harassment jurisprudence has given women a vehicle for protesting workplace actions that create a sexually hostile working environment. Despite all of these strides, however, there remains a subtle but significant undercurrent of less obvious gender bias in the workplace today. In a variety of settings-from conventional boardrooms and factory floors to less conventional workplaces like the art studio, the athletic field or the political stage-women experience a broad range of adverse treatment at work that the law does not address: Male workers often garner more of the limelight than their female coworkers, attracting more attention and recognition. Women often lack access to important opportunities or feel subjected to greater scrutiny than their male peers. The media often portrays female workers in a demeaning or condescending manner, belittling or diminishing their contributions. None of these slights, in isolation, likely would give rise to a viable antidiscrimination claim. Yet collectively, these incidents-which constitute what this article refers to as gender sidelining -accumulate to create very real obstacles and barriers to advancement for women at work. This article explores the various ways in which women across a wide range of employment settings may find themselves sidelined, upstaged or otherwise marginalized in ways not reached by traditional antidiscrimination laws. It both defines the scope of gender sidelining and illustrates the significant impact that this phenomenon has on the workplace for men and women alike. While the law frequently does not (and arguably should not) reach these subtle harms, gender sidelining nonetheless warrants significant attention for its potential to silence creativity, stymie innovation, and negatively impact the productivity and advancement of women at work

Spartan Daily, November 20, 2018

Volume 151, Issue 38https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartan_daily_2018/1080/thumbnail.jp

Students And Service Staff Learning And Researching Together On A College Campus

Describes the preliminary study of a service learning program at Swarthmore College that paired students and college service staff in learning partnerships and as researchers of the program. Three primary questions were answered: How does service within a college campus count as service learning? How was the program community-shaping as well as personally enriching for students and staff? What place does participatory research have in service learning projects

Patent Law, Copyright Law, and the Girl Germs Effect

[Excerpt] Inventors pursue patents and authors receive copyrights. No special education is required for either endeavor, and nothing precludes a person from being both an author and an inventor. Inventors working on patentable industrial projects geared toward commercial exploitation tend to be scientists or engineers. Authors, with the exception of those writing computer code, tend to be educated or trained in the creative arts, such as visual art, performance art, music, dance, acting, creative writing, film making, and architectural drawing. There is a well-warranted societal supposition that most of the inventors of patentable inventions are male. Assumptions about the genders of the authors of remunerative commercially exploited copyrights may be less rigid. Women authors are more broadly visible than women inventors across most of the typical categories of copyrightable works. Yet, whether one considers patentable inventions or copyrightable works, the vast majority of the very profitable ones are both originated and controlled by men. This causes a host of negative consequences for women. They start and run businesses at much lower rates than men and rarely reach elite leadership levels in the corporate world or within high-profile artistic or cultural communities. They are perceived as less competent, less dedicated, and less hard working, and suffer from a lack of female mentors and female colleagues. Women are lied to during financial negotiations more than men and earn less than men in equivalent positions. Women control only a tiny portion of the world’s wealth. Though female students outperform male students in almost every context and at almost every level of education, and even seek postdegree job-related training in greater numbers than men, this has not helped women to produce and control patentable inventions or to author and own valuable copyrighted works in numbers comparable to men

Where Are All the Women?: Exploring the Research on the Under-Representation of Women in Computer Science

Women’s participation in computer science is important for many reasons, including playing a significant role in a country’s economic development. A skilled workforce is needed to remain competitive in the globalized world, especially in the area of computer science. This research aims to explore the recent research literature around the factors that contribute to women’s low participation in computer science. Key to this exploration is helping to answer the question: Why does the proportion of women in Western countries’ computing fields remain low, despite years of research and programs with the intention of increasing women’s participation in computing? In order to address this question, and employing a feminist theoretical lens, I conducted a comprehensive literature review. To some degree, I also analyzed my own autobiographical experiences in the field of computer science to better understand how gender relations shape that world. The current study concludes that the main factors that shape women’s low participation in computer science are gender stereotypes, a misunderstanding of science computer curriculum, “know-it-alls” learning environment, unfair work environment, and pay gap. All of these factors will be discussed using three explanatory lenses: psychological explanations, social factors and structural factors. In the end, I conclude with suggestions for how to increase the number of women within this field

Gender and participation in mathematics and further mathematics A-levels: a literature review for the Further Mathematics Support Programme

In preparing this report I have considered evidence from over 60 documents that relate to raising girls’ participation in mathematics. These include published research papers and reports compiled by expert bodies that present an evidence base. Although research specifically addressing Further Mathematics A-level is rare, the last ten years have seen considerable efforts to synthesise and update knowledge from different research perspectives about the relationship between gender and participation. For this reason, the review process started with papers from 2008 onwards

Female computer science and engineering undergraduates: reflections on participation in the academic landscape

Women continue to be underrepresented in computer science and technology related fields despite their significant contributions. The lack of diversity in technology related fields is problematic as it can result in the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and closed-minded, unchecked biases. As technology tools become integral to our daily lives it is essential that a diverse group of people contribute to the sociocultural environments where we participate and live. This dissertation is a phenomenological, interview-based, study designed to investigate the lived experience of women in undergraduate computer science and engineering programs. The purpose of this study was to better understand the factors that might encourage or discourage the participation women in the major and in the field. In order to grow the number of women in technical fields it is important to first understand what attracts them to the field and what supports they find helpful or not helpful. This study illuminated some recommendations that might guide the work of practitioners in secondary schools as well as higher education. Among other things, participants appreciated being challenged by the content and assignments, feeling support from faculty and peers, feeling a connection to the culture, effective encouragement to persist, and engaging interactions. All of the participants described having gone into their field to make a positive impact on society and they also all described the importance having at least one supportive female mentor. Participants described the importance of having spaces where they felt included and appreciated their professors and peers who pushed back against the historical CS-world stereotypes. While the experience of each participant was unique, and there were some very negative experiences, all six participants reported having mostly positive experience in their undergraduate programs