Opening doors to exciting CS&E careers

By Dian Rae Lopez

Frequently, young women in college drop out of the sciences when they choose their undergraduate majors [KLe95]. Women turn away from science for many reasons, often because of negative messages received from the media, their peers, their parents and teachers who unconsciously treat young men and women differently in the classroom. The results of such messages have been documented: Young women show a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem at the junior high level [Ore94, AAUW92] and the undergraduate level (see [KLe95] for a list of references).

Careers booklet

The Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRAW) has developed a careers booklet to encourage young women at the high school and undergraduate level to consider careers in computer science and engineering (CS&E).

This booklet contains biographies and pictures of women working in a wide range of CS&E careers. The women are depicted not only as scientists, but also as people who have families, friends, hobbies and other outside interests. In other words, they form a diverse enough group to possibly cause a young woman to think, "This could be me someday."

Women included in the booklet represent a variety of occupations, ethnic backgrounds, achievement levels and geographic locations. Included in the booklet are an astronaut, a chip designer, undergraduate and graduate students in computer science, an entrepreneur, educators, scientists working in visualization and graphical animation, software engineers and women working with operating systems, telecommunications and the government.

By showing young women the many career paths available to them in computer science and engineering, the booklet provides role models to aid them in thinking about future career decisions.

Available soon

The booklets are expected to be available at the 1995 Association for Computing Machinery Computing Week meetings in Nashville, February 25-March 4. The National Science Foundation helped fund an initial printing of 15,000 copies of the booklet. CRAW is seeking additional funding to make the booklet available to as many high school and undergraduate students as possible. Anyone willing to help sponsor such an effort should contact Dian Lopez at lopezdr@cda.mrs.umn.edu or Kimberly Peaks of CRA at tel. 202-234-2111.

Volunteers needed

One of the best ways to encourage young women to consider a career in computer science and engineering is to have them talk to other women who are working in such careers. Such mentoring is difficult because of the lack of sufficient role models needed to reach large numbers of these students.

In the CRA 1992-93 Taulbee Survey, less than 10% of computer science faculty and less than 5% of computer engineering faculty were women [CRA94]. Nevertheless, to enhance the impact of the careers booklet, CRAW is looking for women in computer science and engineering at colleges, universities and industries to distribute the booklets to students in their geographical area.

By giving a presentation to students about career possibilities and by dispelling some commonly held myths and stereotypes, these volunteers will be active role models, reinforcing the biographies shown in the booklet. Maria Klawe (klawe@cs.ubc.ca) has developed a list of topics as guidelines for volunteers to use in their presentations.

The booklets can be given to both female and male students because students of both sexes can develop an awareness of the many careers available and that women are a part of these fields.

People behind the booklet

Many disciplines have created careers booklets to encourage young women to consider career opportunities in their field. Thus it was natural for CRAW at its first meeting to consider the creation of a careers booklet as a high priority.

At the 1993 Federated Computing Research Conference, I heard of CRAW's interest in doing such a project and I volunteered to form a committee and begin working on the development of such a booklet for careers in computer science and engineering.

By September 1993 the committee had formed, was holding regular meetings via E-mail and was making many important decisions concerning the scope and format of the booklet.

Booklet committee members are: Sandra Johnson Baylor, IBM T.J. Watson Research Labs; Faith Fich, University of Toronto; Maria Klawe, University of British Columbia at Vancouver; Dian Rae Lopez (chair), University of Minnesota at Morris; Fanya Montalvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Marianne Winslette, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

All committee members have put forth tremendous effort in planning the booklet and in obtaining biographies and photographs of the featured women. The project has been a group effort of many people who worked diligently and continue working today to further its success.

The booklet is funded through CRAW, and my committee has worked closely with CRA and the CRAW members, all of whom have given us valuable advice and encouragement.

Ann Redelfs, of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, deserves special recognition for working with the booklet's designer, Karin Scholz, to organize the material into an attractive and professional booklet.

The booklet may be made available on the World Wide Web and also at an ftp site in the future.

References

[Ore94] Orenstein, P., Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap, Doubleday, 1994.

[AAUW92] Report by the American Association of University Women, "Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America," 1992.

[KLe95] Klawe, M. and Leveson, N., "Women in Computing--Where Are We Now?," Communications of the ACM, 38(1), 29-35, January 1995.

[CRA94] CRA. "1992-93 CRA Taulbee Survey," Computing Research News, 6(1): 11-15, January 1994.

Dian Rae Lopez is a member of CRAW and leader of the careers booklet project. She currently is a visiting researcher in computer science at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, on leave from the University of Minnesota at Morris campus where she is an assistant professor of computer science. Dian also is president of Info Link Inc., a company that provides Internet access and support services to schools, businesses and individuals in west-central Minnesota. E-mail: lopezdr@cda.mrs.umn.edu