CalWomenTech project: Recruiting and retaining women in technology programs

Abstract

The Institute for Women in Trades, Technology Science's (IWITTS) CalWomenTech Project is being highlighted by NSF following an expert panel review at the three year mark in December 2008 for demonstrating significant achievement and program effectiveness to the Committee for Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Performance Assessment, where it has also been very well received. Project outcomes show that colleges that proactively recruit women into their technology programs will show a significant increase in the percentage of women students in those programs in a little over a year. Of the four community colleges participating in the Project's first cohort, the two sites that implemented recruitment strategies within recommended timelines experienced a significant increase in women in targeted programs: City College of San Francisco's (CCSF) Computer Networking and Information Technology (CNIT) program went from 18% to 30% female students and San Diego Mesa College's Geographic Information Systems program rose from 35% to 50% female. The retention strategies implemented by CalWomenTech colleges have also led to a significant net increase in the completion rates of not only females, but also males, in several of the colleges. Both colleges that saw the largest increases in female completion rates, from 81% to 100% in 15 months (San Diego Mesa College) and from 57% to 100% in 9 months (Evergreen Valley College), also saw a 20% increase in male retention. CCSF's CNIT program saw a significant improvement to completion rates after repeated focus on retention with both full-time and adjunct faculty. Female baseline completion rates increased from 64% in 2006/2007 to 90% in spring 2009. CCSF's male retention rates also increased from 72% to 88%. In addition to providing an overview of proven CalWomenTech recruitment and retention strategies and the online CalWomenTech tools available to all educators, the paper also shares the newly compiled results from surveys of 60 female students in technology courses in which they are underrepresented and describes how the results have been used to evaluate and inform recruitment and retention strategies employed by the colleges. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.