This is not news. While many sugges-
tions have been made for increasing
enrollments, it is unlikely that comput-
er science will ever be as vibrant as it
could be—and should be—as long as a
large portion of the talent pool remains
underrepresented. After all, if we are
missing the best and the brightest of
a group who can offer exciting ideas
that would enrich the field, computer
science suffers. In addition, different
groups often present different perspec-
tives—a scenario completely lost when
we do not encourage diversity.
With this in mind, the mission of
the ACM Women’s Council (ACM-W) is
to inform and support women in com-
puting. Since ACM is an international
organization, this means developing
programs with a worldwide reach;
with something for each of ACM’s very
broad constituencies: K– 12 students,
undergraduates at liberal arts and
research institutions, master’s and
Ph.D. students, faculty from all types
of institutions, and women in industry
and government working as computer
practitioners and researchers. Increas-
ingly, we strive to partner both with
other segments within ACM and other
organizations dedicated to improving
gender diversity.
Some of our active programs in-
clude scholarships to help women
students attend research conferenc-
es. This effort is not aimed at the ad-
vanced Ph.D. student who has already
committed to a career in academia or
industrial research. Rather we look to
support the undergraduate woman by
giving her a chance to see the types of
options available and encourage her to
continue on to graduate school. Simi-
larly we hope to encourage the mas-
ter’s student to aim for a Ph.D. We of-
fer up to 20 $500 scholarships per year.
Moreover, we have recently asked the
ACM’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
to partner with us by offering scholar-
ship recipients complimentary regis-
tration as well as provide conference
mentors to help them learn the ropes.
We are thrilled by the response we
have received from many of the SIGs.
Another program involving SIG
cooperation is our Athena Lecturer
A ward honoring the most outstanding
women scholars. It was established
to address the fact that women are
often overlooked when nominations
are considered for advanced mem-
bership grades or awards. The goal
of the Athena Lecturer Award is to
celebrate women’s scholarship and
technical contributions to the field
as well as increase the visibility of
women scholars. Rather than ask-
ing for individual nominations, each
SIG is invited to nominate their most
outstanding women scholars. By us-
ing this format, we encourage SIGs to
think about promoting women in the
field, and hopefully remember these
women when they are nominating
people for other awards or selecting
keynote speakers or program chairs
for future conferences.
Many readers will be familiar with
the Grace Hopper Celebration of
Women. To keep the Hopper momen-
tum going throughout the year, ACM-
W offers regional Hopper-like events
designed to attract attendees within a
two-hour driving radius of each other.
Not only does this make it relatively
inexpensive to attend meetings since
students and faculty often travel to-
gether, the proximity also helps estab-
lish and maintain a local community
of women pursuing a common goal.
We have sponsored quite a number of
these meetings both within the U.S.
and Australia, with one being planned
in Turkey.
Another unique ACM-W initiative
is the Ambassador program in which a
woman serves as the Ambassador from
her country and shares information
about the climate there for women in
computing. At times we have had rep-
resentatives from six different conti-
nents. We are now developing our first
internationally distributed program
aimed at attracting middle school girls
to computer science by adapting a suc-
cessful program to several different
cultures.
This is just a sampling of the many
programs within ACM-W created to
promote and further advance women
in the computing field. Readers are en-
couraged to visit our Web site at http://
women.acm.org to learn about the
full range of programs and initiatives
offered. ACM-W is an all-volunteer or-
ganization open to anyone interested
in improving gender diversity. If you
see a project that interests you, please
consider volunteering. If you have an
idea for a new project, let us know.
Take a look at our newsletter to see
project details, read interviews with
outstanding women, and learn about
upcoming events.
Diversity is not the problem of the
underrepresented group. It is every-
one’s problem. If we want out field to
grow and flourish, we need the contri-
bution of talented people of all types.
Elaine Weyuker is chair of acm-W and is a researcher at at&t Labs specializing in empirical software engineering and testing research.
© 2009 acm 0001-0782/09/0600 $10.00
References:
Archives