When Maria Klawe became president of Harvey Mudd College in 2006, she was dismayed — but not surprised — at how few women were majoring in computer science.

A mathematician and computer scientist herself, she arrived at Harvey Mudd (the smallest of the five so-called Claremont Colleges) in the midst of a nationwide downturn for women in computer science. As recently as 1985, 37 percent of graduates in the field were women; by 2005 it was down to 22 percent, and sinking.

And the situation at Mudd was even grimmer. Of the college’s 750 students, about a third were women (the figure is now closer to half), but for years the percentage of computer science graduates had been hovering around the single digits.

How Dr. Klawe (pronounced KLAH-vay) and her faculty turned things around — this year, nearly 40 percent of Harvey Mudd’s computer science degrees will go to women — sheds light on a gender gap that elsewhere remains stubbornly resistant to changing times.

Read more from The New York Times.

From GCN:

The United States desperately needs more programmers and the nation’s high schools are “not producing even remotely enough programmers to meet the hiring needs of the technology industry,” he added. “One of the reasons the elite U.S. colleges seem to turn out so few computer science majors every year is that they are only drawing from a narrow pool of mostly white and Asian males. Minorities and women are embarrassingly under-represented…. I predict that [the school] will be overwhelmed with applicants and this will be the most popular new school in New York City in years.”

Applications for college sophomores through graduate students are open now until February 15th!

From the SWE webpage:

The SWE Scholarship Program provides financial assistance to women admitted to accredited baccalaureate or graduate programs, in preparation for careers in engineering, engineering technology and computer science. In 2011, SWE disbursed 188 new and renewed scholarships valued at $540,000.

Grants are announced in the summer (sophomore, junior, senior and graduate students) and late summer/early fall (freshmen and re-entry students) for use during the following academic year. Grant payments are made in the fall.

Accredited programs are based on ABET accreditation for universities in the U.S. The list of SWE-approved colleges and universities is the same list as the ABET-accredited programs in engineering (EAC), computing (CAC), and technology (TAC).

In 2010, we launched our first international scholarship. This scholarship will again be awarded to a student studying at a university in the Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico. There are several SWE-approved programs at four universities.

Did you know?

Annually, SWE awards individual scholarships to freshmen through graduate students

Scholarships and fellowships range from $1,000 to $20,000 each

In 2011, SWE Society scholarship distributions were $540,000

Many professional SWE sections offer additional scholarships

Learn more and apply here!

At the annual Grace Hopper Celebration:

This week thousands of women gathered in Portland, Ore., for the Grace Hopper Celebration, the world’s largest technical conference for women and computing. High-tech companies are hiring, but there aren’t nearly enough women to meet the demand.

Kate Schmalzried, a graduate student at Stanford, recalls one of her very first classes at the university — Computer Science 106A.

“That was really a good introduction to women in tech — there weren’t many women in the class,” she says, chuckling. “I distinctly remember being the only girl in my section.”

Read the full article at NPR.org.

Congratulations Melissa Winstanley of UW CSE!

Facebook is sending 20 women to Grace Hopper:

When Facebook opened up its second annual Grace Hopper scholarship opportunity this past June, we also announced that we were quadrupling the number of scholarship recipients from 5 to 20. After reviewing hundreds of applications from talented women engineers around the world, we now have the final list of amazing women to receive full scholarships to this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Portland, Oregon.

Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe has some pretty amazing things for women in CSE.

On her watch, the percentage of female computer science majors at Mudd, one of California’s prestigious Claremont colleges, has more than tripled, to 42 percent. Nationally, women account for 14 percent of college graduates in the field, according to the Computing Research Assn.

But, how did she do it?!

According to Bloomberg Businessweek:

The introductory course is now broken into three sections—one for those with some background in programming, another for beginners, and a third with a slant toward biology. “CS for Scientists,” as the introductory course is nicknamed, focuses on teaching problem-solving skills that can be applied to engineering, math, and other subjects. Instead of Java, the class uses the Python language, which has simpler rules and is easier to deploy in Web applications. One of the overarching goals is to “demystify the inner workings of a computer,” according to the course website.

According to The Scientist:

The numbers point to the fact that science graduates aren’t contributing to traditional science and engineering fields in large enough numbers, possibly because their skill-set is highly prized across industries, including those outside of science. “The technical foundation is worth even more than we thought,” the study’s lead author Anthony Carnevale told The Chronicle of Higher Education. The report concludes that given the high demand for technically trained graduates across many sectors, the US educational system is still not producing enough graduates in science and engineering to satisfy the demand.

To read more about the high demand for science and engineering graduates in non-science fields click through to The Chronicle Of Higher Education article.

A ladies-only hackathon!

But it’s also a lot more than that: It’s part of a movement to draw more women into programming. Organizers know that social stigma is a barrier–less than 20% of undergraduate computer-science and engineering degrees are given to women, and big tech companies are almost entirely run by men–so female coders are trying to carve out a niche in the hacking community, showing that there’s plenty of room for them here too.

It’s an important message. “Any country that’s going to be competitive in the not-so-distant future is going to need a large developer community,” says Evan Korth, a professor of computer science at New York University. “If very few women go into it, we’re losing half of our eligible community immediately.”

via Fast Company.

via eduatgoogle on youtube

Lisa Phillips has a great perspective. My favorite part:

You know why there should be more women in Tech? Because tech jobs are awesome. Because women deserve the benefits and privileges that being in Tech are awarded. Because for some lucky reason right now is the best time to be in this industry, and getting in now may mean you have that privilege for the rest of your career.

Read more here.