Increasing the Participation of Women in Computer Science and Engineering: A Systematic Approach for Culture Change

Closing the gender gap in computing is socially and culturally related, meaning that solutions in places other than just classrooms are needed. It is important that computing departments provide leadership and support for faculty, staff, and students in developing, implementing, and operating activities that are designed to recruit and retain women students in the computing fields. This paper is an experience report of a computing department's effort in recruiting and retaining women students. The contribution of this paper are the description of strategies that target at all levels of the department and how these closely interconnected strategies can help a departmental effort in increasing women's participation under resource constrained scenario. These strategies include leadership, faculty, and staff commitment, strengthening women' participation in student organizations, data driven decision making, and implement evidence-based practices. There have been some impressive results. Our Department is seeing a sustained growth in the percentage of undergraduate degrees awarded to women students. The percentage of undergraduate degrees awarded by the department for women students has increased from 9.79% in 2012-2013 academic year to 16.07% in 2019-2020 academic year.