Katy Dickinson

GHC Speaker: Maria Klawe (Harvey Mudd College)

I am up early this morning after dancing late at last night's banquet for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing because Maria Klawe is speaking. Maria Klawe is amazing - she is now President, Harvey Mudd College, after serving as Dean of Engineering at Princeton.

Maria's wants Engineers to do great technical work but also have a full life and make a difference in the world too. Having seen Maria dancing last night, I know she lives what she recommends.

The paradox which Maria highlighted in today's keynote talk is that there are increasing percentages of women in Computer Science Faculty, grad students, and leadership positions in industry and academia; however, undergraduate CS women student numbers continue to decrease. Right now, 20% of Computer Science PhD students in the USA and Canada are women, while only 14% of CS undergrads are women. Yet, the worldwide demand for workers with CS degrees is higher now than ever before (she believes that trend will probably continue for the next 10 years).

Maria encouraged outreach to schools, parents, and teachers to help. She said if each of the 1,400 women at Hopper 2007 could convince 3 girls to go into CS, the problem would start to reverse. She advises finding opportunities to talk to any organization (about leadership or whatever) and then insert truths about CS as an aside. To talk with girls, go where they are: to art classes or camp rather than to High School CS classes. Craft messages for High School math, bio, chem, art and other classes. Maria asked the audience to raise their hands if they would commit to talk with at least one (preferably 20!) High School girls. Most of us did!

Maria Klawe's advice on how to attract female college students to Computer Science:

• Fabulous CS intro (and later) classes
• Get some CS required, have Dean advise all students to take CS classes
• Bring frosh to Hopper
• Post-frosh summer research experiences
• Make it easy to switch into CS (and offer CS in the summer)
• Provide CS double major option and flexibility
• Make a digital pre-med program

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 07:31AM Oct 19, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |