A Faculty Initiative Addressing Gender Disparity at a Small STEM-Focused University: A Case Study

The gender gap and ethnic diversity are historic challenges in computer science (CS) that have faced a lack of progress in the past half-decade. Four CS faculty members explored and investigated the issue of gender gap at a small, newly established, STEM-focused institution. This institution is dedicated to primarily undergraduate teaching and serving many first-generation university students. We collected statistics about women studying CS and the obstacles they face as they enter CS programs. To collect best practices for improving equity, diversity, and inclusion, we attended CS education conferences and discussed within a focus group at the institution. We then implemented the set of initiatives found. There were several challenges in the process: limited participation from faculty members in our focus group, barriers in conducting a survey at a large conference, and difficulty in engaging the faculty and disseminating knowledge. We summarize crucial insights gained from our efforts in this initiative, which could be valuable for future implementation of similar initiatives in other small, newly established post-secondary institutions.

Recommended citation: Amane Takeuchi, Aditya Khan, Phuong Hoang, Jian Yun Zhuang, Mariana Shimabukuro, Randy J. Fortier, Michael Miljanovic, and En-Shiun Annie Lee. 2024. A Faculty Initiative Addressing Gender Disparity at a Small STEM-Focused University: A Case Study. In Proceedings of the 2024 on ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference V. 1 (SIGCSE Virtual 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 200–206. https://doi.org/10.1145/3649165.3690102
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