Communications - February 2009

to ensure that grantees comply with Title IX by performing several compliance activities, such as investigating complaints and providing technical assistance, but most agencies have not conducted all the monitoring activities required. ¹¹

˲ Publicly advertise the agency’s diversity programs and its proportion of women in leadership positions.

˲ Stay aware of new policy and legislative initiatives, even in advance of their demonstrated impacts.

˴ The House Diversity and Innovation Caucus, whose mission is to help generate policy ideas for addressing the underrepresentation of women and minorities in the STEM fields, has held a number of briefings.

˴ The America COMPETES Act of 2007 (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) seeks to strengthen research, provide technical training for 21st-century occupations, and attract the best and brightest workers.

˴ NSF’s ADVANCE program, in place for about a decade, contributes to the development of a more diverse technical work force (see www.nsf.gov/fund- ing/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5383).

˴ The BPC program, while relatively new, is having significant impact on many computing educators and professionals. Its largest initiative is NCWIT, whose organizational structure includes a set of alliances— within participating communities in K– 12, academia, and industry—that have been very successful. For example, the Stars Alliance is a partnership of over 20 southeastern universities that share best practices for recruiting students to computing and retaining them. The goal of the Alliance for Access to Computing Careers is to increase the field’s representation of people with disabilities.

Conclusion

Every computing professional, male and female alike, can contribute to the increased participation of women in the field. At the very least, each of us should do more to encourage women with whom we daily interact. For those readers not well informed about practices and programs that help attract women to our profession

and retain them, we hope this article has provided useful information and indicated actionable steps pertinent to one’s particular circumstances. By way of encouragement, know that institutions that have already made decisions to implement these kinds of practices are seeing significant increases in the participation of women in computing at all levels. Thus we encourage our colleagues to work to effect positive change, both locally—in individual institutions—and globally. Long-term success depends on our entire community taking responsibility for making computing a broadly supportive and inclusive discipline.

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Maria Klawe is president of harvey Mudd college, claremont, ca. Prior to joining hMc, she served as dean of engineering and professor of computer science at Princeton University. she is a former president of acM.