January 11, 2007

Mills College program for girls to enter computer science

Over at Mills College, Ellen Spertus runs a Interdisciplinary Computer Science program.  Women who have a bachelor's degree in a field other than computer science who want to get into CS or interdisciplinary work can enter the program.  The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote a great article about the program and the opportunities that it presents for women who realize later that they actually want to do computer science (and Ellen has her own notes) .  I was lucky to start in CS and then move into the social sciences but i'm very very very thankful that i have a background in CS and it was deeply frustrating to see how few women were involved in the field.

Update: Meri Williams notes: "In a similar vein, there's a really interesting programme run by the Year In Industry in the UK to encourage women returning to work to consider Science, Engineering & Technology careers."

Posted by zephoria at 02:20 AM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

see jane compute

See Jane Compute is the pseudonymous weblog of an assistant professor in computer science, and among the personal posts about life as an academic, there are often interesting and useful posts about being a woman in a male-dominated field. Her post on how to create an old girls' network to encourage more of her female students to continue in computer science suggests a simple and useful strategy.

Posted by Jill Walker at 02:14 PM in Academia | Permalink

November 11, 2005

Geek Gorgeous calendar raises money for women in CS

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CNET reports:

Lilac Mohr, 26, of Denver, produced and modeled for the newly-launched "Geek Gorgeous" 2006 wall calendar, which features women who work in the high-tech industry. All proceeds will go to a college scholarship fund she's starting for young women interested in computer science careers.

Click on the photo to see the back page of the calendar.

This seems like a good idea, but it's too bad the photos are so cheesy and tasteless (in my opinion).  I don't know about you, but I don't use pink ethernet cable as a bikini top.  In addition to the photo, each month includes a summary of each model's technical skills and quotes on working in the male-dominated tech industry.

I would have much rather seen classy, artsy photos of people looking both beautiful and geeky.  See more at the Geek Gorgeous calendar web site (NSFW).

Posted by Gina at 11:22 AM in Academia | Permalink

December 29, 2004

Crooked Timber on Gender and Blogging

Crooked Timber (an amazing academic blog) addressed gender and blogging directly on December 17 (with references to earlier articles on the topic). CT notes that it has a gender imbalance in both its contributors and blogroll and talks about the role of homophily, women's tendency not to demand attention and the general issues of gender balance in academia.

On the issue of failing to demand attention, one quote made me really reflect - Interestingly, I don't think we ever had a woman ask whether she could write for us, whereas at least four men have. I'm terrible about asking to participate in things in which i think my voice would be valuable. I'm OK when there's a proper submission process and i feel equipped to submit, but i don't even think to ask to be a speaker or a writer in things that i value. It never crosses my mind to demand participation even after i realize that speakers are not chosen through some formal process. I wonder what it will take for it to get through my thick skull that i could even ask to have a voice in these things instead of just waiting around for people to pick me, pick me, pretty please.

Posted by zephoria at 09:02 PM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (3)

December 28, 2004

girl's HS with science focus

Research program is a step up for students - The USA Today did a story on Hathaway Brown School - a private all girls' school outside of Cleveland which is having great successes in getting women involved in science and technology. (Tx Jason)

Posted by zephoria at 08:31 PM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (3)

December 23, 2004

2005 Anita Borg Scholarship

The Google 2005 Anita Borg Scholarship is currently accepting applications. There are both undergraduate and graduate scholarships for those working in computer science, computer engineering or related fields.

Posted by zephoria at 09:52 PM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 03, 2004

cyberarchive

We've been quiet for a while, haven't we? I don't know what causes it, but for me, certainly, my awareness of gender and technology issues goes in waves. I think I get exhausted and need to just ignore after an intense month or so of noticing gender.

I wanted to add a link to a wonderful archive of research papers on cyberfeminism and other topics dealing with gender, bodies and technologies. I found it via Culture Cat's blog, and Dr B's blog and Tore Vesterby's most interesting blog on women and gaming.

Posted by Jill Walker at 10:33 AM in Academia | Permalink

October 21, 2004

National Center for Women and Information Technology

Colorado University-Boulder announced a $3.25 million, four-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to lead in the creation of a collaborative National Center for Women and Information Technology. This new Center will look into the causes behind the decrease in women's participation in tech and develop ways to address this. Congratulations CU!

(Tx Fernanda)

Posted by zephoria at 04:14 AM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 29, 2004

Re-branding engineering for young women

WorldChanging reports on a university competition to make engineering more appealing to young women:

Imperial College London today launches an annual Green Design Challenge, a competition aiming to raise the profile of engineering among young women... Dr Keith Pullen, Senior Lecturer and co-organiser of the competition, said today: “Two of the major world challenges for the 21st century are climate change and alleviation of poverty. We are keen to raise the awareness of the role of the mechanical engineer as a central player in the solution of these problems, and to highlight principles of design and engineering to young women. When members of Imperial's engineering departments visit schools they frequently hear that environmental issues are of particular interest to young women, so this competition will focus on the technical and project engineering skills needed to develop and build sustainable solutions in renewable energy.”

This is smart and seems also to support Professor Wendy Hall's thesis that technology work is getting better for women. I also enjoy the (essentialist but cheering nonetheless) implication that smart young women might positively transform the interests of science and technology.

Posted by Foe at 03:37 AM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 16, 2004

Interdisciplinary Computer Science at Mills

Note from Ellen Spertus:

As some of you know, I direct a unique graduate program in Interdisciplinary Computer Science at Mills College (Oakland, California). Most of our students (and faculty) are women. It works well as a "reentry" program for women (or men) who majored in something else in college and want to switch into CS or interdisciplinary work. One of our students, who had majored in Anthropology in college, is doing an internship at Livermore Lab and is about to start in a top CS PhD program, with a NSF fellowship. Another student, with a background in labor organizing, recently completed a thesis on using the Internet for feminist consciousness raising and has found related employment. You can read more about the program, including seeing a paper that Sheila Humphreys and I wrote for SIGCSE's special issue on women and computing.

Anyway, we're holding an open house on Thursday, August 19, 4:30-6:30. Please forward this announcement to people who might be interested. Our students tend to be people who have worked in tech writing, QA, system administration, web design, or tech support and only discovered after college that they had an interest and talent in computing.

People not in degree programs can also take classes at Mills (for a fee, perhaps paid for by a company). One of the more interesting offerings this fall is Network Security, taught by Prof. Almudena Konrad. Next semester, I'll be teaching a course on Information Retrieval Systems, inspired by my sabbatical work at Google.

Posted by zephoria at 05:26 PM in Academia | Permalink | Comments (1)

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