| Date | Speaker | Talk |
| Apr 23, 2009 | David Klappholz, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology and Co-Director of the NJ Center for Software Engineering | "Recruiting Young Women into, and Retaining Them in Computing Majors: A High School and College Level Initiative (ACM-W Project) Based Upon a 35-Year Psychological Study" |
Gender equity in computing has long been a national goal advanced by those concerned with fairness and by those who know that the female point of view improves the design and development of software systems. Unfortunately, though, the percentage of young women entering computing-related majors keeps falling, and the female dropout rate is higher than the very high male dropout rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a large increase in the need for B.S. and M.S. computing graduates in the next decade. The largest untapped pool of potential computing majors and, eventually, computing professionals, is science-and math-talented high school students, but only about 10% of entering undergraduate majors in computing majors are female. Despite the many initiatives aimed at attracting young women, the number of female computing majors keeps dropping. In this talk we will discuss results of an extensive psychological research study that followed thousands of science- and math-talented students from middle school to middle age and that explains why many previous initiatives have failed. We will also discuss a new high school and university level initiative that was supported by these psychological studies, and that has recently been designated an ACM-W project. We will invite interested attendees to personally participate in, and encourage their high schools, universities, and/or employers to participate in this initiative.