Ten Keys to Invole More Women in Academic Computing

In January of 2002, MIT Press published our book Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. The book detailed our findings and experiences with regard to gender issues in the undergraduate computer science program at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the leading academic centers of computing in the United States. From 1995 to 1999, we interviewed both men and women as they made their ways into and out of the program, and meanwhile worked on means of increasing the participation of women students. From the fall of 1995 to the fall of 2000, the percentage of women among entering students rose for 7 % to 42 %, and persistence toward graduation also improved. Since the publication of Unlocking the Clubhouse, we have had the opportunity to visit dozens of universities, mostly in the United States but also a number in other countries, to share our experiences and learn about local conditions. The details of what happened at Carnegie Mellon are reported in the book; this note synthesizes our Carnegie Mellon experiences with our subsequent learning from colleagues at many disparate universities, and attempts to distil them into a concise set of key reminders for those seeking to involve more women in their computing programs.