How CS departments are managing the enrolment boom: Troubling implications for diversity

Abstract

Enrolments in North American undergraduate computer science have been booming in recent years, and many CS departments have been struggling to meet student demand. We surveyed 78 CS professors, instructors, staff, and administrators to see how the enrolment boom has been affecting their practice; and to see how departments are responding in terms of policy. We asked participants to tell us what factors were being considered in their department's policymaking using a page of open-ended questions. Only one participant of 78 noted diversity as a concern. We then gave them a list of factors we thought could affect their department's policymaking, including diversity. After this prompt, more participants reported diversity was important (n=5). We found that policymakers are favouring solutions which are intuitive to them, rather than looking for examples from the literature, similar institutions, or the history of their own institution. Problematically, many of these favoured approaches have historically been linked to having a negative impact on demographic diversity in CS programmes. This could exacerbate the low participation of underrepresented groups in computer science, and undermine efforts to improve diversity.