Gloria Childress Townsend

People who make a difference: mentors and role models

The literature of gender issues in computing steadfastly and uniformly has advocated the use of mentors and role models (M&RM) for recruiting and retaining women in computer science [3, 17, 20.] This paper, therefore, accepts the results of research studies and avoids reiterating details of the projects but offers instead a practical guide for using M&RM to recruit and retain women in computer science. The guide provides pragmatic advice, describing several different facets of the M&RM concept.

Leveling the CS1 playing field

This paper includes several reasons for the underrepresentation of women in computing, and then describes two low-cost project instances that address the reasons for the decline in womens enrollment in computing classes. One project spans seven semesters from fall 2000 to spring 2006 at a small liberal arts school; the other, the spring 2006 semester at a large research institution. Concluding sections provide anecdotal and statistical evidence that the project is successful over two time periods within two diverse schools.

An Effective Alternative to the Grace Hopper Celebration

Motivated by the significance and the consequences of womens underrepresentation in computing, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of a project linking ACM-Ws (Association for Computing Machinerys Women in Computing) Celebrations of Women in Computing (conferences) with projects sponsored by two additional organizations in the United States, the Anita Borg Institutes Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) and the National Center of Women & ITs Annual Summit. The collaborative project, funded by the National Science Foundation and titled, the Grace Hopper Regional Consortium, featured twelve new regional Celebrations of Women in Computing (Celebrations). An external assessment agency surveyed conference organizers and participants. The paper analyzes data derived from the surveying, demonstrating the impact of the conferences on Celebration attendees, and shows for the first time a comparison of identical survey items from separate GHC and Celebrations assessments.

Grace hopper visits the neighborhood

This paper highlights several viewpoints concerning a small regional conference for women in computing, which is modeled after the successful and well-known Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. The viewpoints include rationale for the conference, descriptions of the celebration that provide a snapshot which captures the ease of organizing a similar event at other regional sites, additional sources for finding complete information (including a detailed how-to manual) and an account of the assessment of two recent regional celebrations performed by senior researchers at the National Center of Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).

ThetenthStrand == 3 * ethicaldebates + solution

This paper includes several sources from computer science literature, describing three conflicting views of how ethical issues should be incorporated in curricula. Descriptions of specific curricular examples, drawn from several phases of our universitys plan for including ethical issues, follow the literature review.

Women in Computing

The history of computer science is composed mainly of male achievements and involvements, even though women have played substantial roles. Although women are a significant part of computing history, the numbers of women in computing still have yet to reach parity with men. This article covers womens experiences and impact in the computing history of the United States and in several other nations and explores some of the reasons for the disparities between the number of men and women in this field. Keywords: women in computing; pipeline shrinkage problem; early computing history; gender equality; support; recruitment; retention

Using evolutionary computation methods to support analytical models for the evolution and maintenance of conditional strategies in chthamalus anisopoma

Biologists have developed models to explain why different environmentally induced morphs of the same organism exist over time. Such conditional strategies are a common form of adaptation to variable environments, whereby an environmental cue allows some individuals to respond to the cue and develop into a morph that is different from the morph of individuals that do not receive the cue. Recently, these efforts have resulted in two different analytical models that give somewhat different predictions. Here we apply evolutionary computation methods to test the two analytical models. The results bear a remarkable similarity to the results of one of the two analytical models. The paper that follows presents the details of a biological application involving snails and barnacles (that occur naturally in two different morphs), moving then to an explanation of two competing mathematical models of the application. Finally, the interdisciplinary paper, which coordinates three separate research projects of a biologist, a mathematician and a computer scientist, describes the evolutionary computation methods used to support one of the two competing analytical models.

A new scheme for reinforcing concepts in CS2

Instructors of introductory Computer Science coursesoften look for new pedagogical tools to help studentslearn concepts like recursion, bg-oh notation, abstractio~and sorting. Whether these concepts are introduced attheendof the first Computer Science course or duringthe second, students often encounter difficulty inmastering them. Since these concepts are interwovenwith many subsequent topics, failure to master themcompletely can make it difficult for students to continuetheir study of computer science.In this paper the authors relate an approach toreinforcing key topics such as recursion, big-oh notation,abstraction, and sorting. This approach--adding a shortScheme unit to the CS2 course--yields additional benefits,all compatible with

Broadening participation: add RESPECT to your summer plans

We invite you to join IEEEs Special Technical Community on Broadening Participation in Computing (stcbp.org) for the second annual conference on Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) in Atlanta, GA, August 11--13, 2016 (http://respect2016.stcbp.org/). Submit research papers, experience reports (due April 17), posters and lightning talks (due June 3).

Julian Scholars: Broadening Participation of Low-Income, First-Generation Computer Science Majors

Using funding from the National Science Foundation, DePauw University launched a program for low-income, first-generation scholars in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields called Julian Scholars. All but one of the undergraduate students in the program began college expressing interest in medical careers, yet over half of the STEM graduates now pursue computer science graduate degrees or computing careers, which is an important statistic because little research about recruiting and retaining underrepresented low-income, first-generation computing students exists. Cornerstones of the program include a week-long summer research experience bridging high school and college, common classes for each cohort, mentoring, one-on-one resume and internship/research counseling, and scholarships. Rockman et al surveyed the Julian Scholars about the bridge program and additional program components to provide quantitative data and also held focus groups to collect qualitative data to augment graduation rates and postgraduation career information.