For more information
Cynthia Lanius, lanius@cs.rice.edu
Cynthia Lanius--associate director for education, outreach, and training at the Center for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC) at Rice University--recalls vividly the first time she introduced a class to the Internet. "I was teaching math at Milby High School in Houston and I brought a laptop to class, hooked it up, and said 'how many of you would like to see the Internet?' " she says. "Nine students rushed to my desk--eight boys and one girl. I thought 'Boy! Is this an in-my-face symbol of the problem!' "
At the time, Lanius was serving on a brainstorming committee convened by Ken Kennedy of CRPC to address women's lack of representation in computing, and was stunned to see the problem presenting itself in her own classroom. She'd earned a place on the committee through her active participation in the Mathematics and Computational Science Awareness (MCSA) workshop led by Richard Tapia of CRPC and Rice. The workshop focuses on issues driving low minority representation in the sciences, mathematics, and computing, an issue of particular relevance in Houston where a large proportion of the population is Hispanic. After attending that workshop--"I worked with lots of minority kids and I wanted to be sensitive to their particular needs and situation," she says--Lanius encouraged other Milby colleagues to attend.
Kennedy's brainstorming committee focused on ways to apply Tapia's model for minority students to female representation. From that committee, GirlTECH was born. Today, Lanius serves as manager for the GirlTECH program.
As an educator, Lanius knows that students' attitudes towards science and computing are set early and are often influenced by opportunities and behaviors in the classroom, including those that emanate from the teacher. "We want to make teachers aware that women are underrepresented in computational sciences and that it's becoming a greater problem rather than getting better," Lanius says, commenting on 1997 statistics. "Only 17 percent of the advanced placement computer science test-takers were female." The situation is no better after high school. According to a report of the National Science Foundation, college degrees awarded in computer science to women dropped from 36 percent of all computer science degrees in 1985 to 28 percent in 1995.
The GirlTECH program subsequently focuses on teachers in a two-week summer workshop held at Rice. Here they're made more aware of the problems facing women in computing while increasing their own technical skills. "When teachers' own skills are not at a certain level, it's hard to help students become more interested in computer science," Lanius says. Held for the first time in 1995, in 1998 the GirlTECH workshop was combined with MCSA to promote an even greater impact on diversity in computing.
GirlTECH/MCSA provides Web-based training for teachers, including instruction in setting up and maintaining Web pages, searching the Internet, and using electronic mail. These skills support follow-on activities the teachers are involved with during the school year, including participation in a teachers' technology electronic support group that communicates throughout the year via email. They're also encouraged to share and disseminate their curriculum over the Web, something Lanius has herself practiced.
Finally, participants commit to establishing a student technology project on their campuses to ensure transfer of knowledge from teacher to students. Often, the school, class, or club Web sites the teachers learn to create during the workshop become an ongoing project for these student technology councils.
"Throughout it all, we focus on ways to get girls more interested," Lanius said. During the workshop, teachers are provided with a tip list for getting girls interested in computing (at right) that includes suggestions such as purchasing computer games that appeal to girls, calling on them more in class, and showing them what a career in computer science is really like.
Jane Holzapfel, a 1996 GirlTECH participant, said, "It is important to note that GirlTECH was taught with an emphasis on helping us understand some of the biases [against] women in engineering, math and sciences. By examining these biases, it helped me to become more aware of ways to encourage girls to participate in these fields."
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