Communications - February 2009

this “Wordle“ was created by manyeyes.com, a site by fernanda Viégas and martin Wattenberg as part of IBm’s Collaborative user experience research group.

Western Europe, while the overall percentage of math and CS undergraduate degrees going to women is just 30%, some countries have been doing significantly better—Portugal was at 41% in 2004, Finland 42%, Greece 40%, and Italy 43%. In North America, Mexico also fares reasonably well, with 38% of math and CS undergraduate degrees awarded to women. ²³

˲ The total number of female CS graduate students in the U.S. grew from 9,881 in 1997 to 12,061 in 2005. The proportion of women awarded CS master’s degrees rose from 26.4% in 1995 to 28.5% in 2005, and the proportion of women awarded CS doctoral degrees rose from 16.5% in 1997 to 19.8% in 2005, ²⁵pointing to some graduate-level progress.

˲ The proportion of newly hired women in U.S. and Canadian CS faculty increased from 18% in 1995 to 24% in 2006–2007.⁶

˲ The proportion of women in full CS professorships more than doubled between 1995 and 2007, from 5% to 10.9%. ⁶

˲ The number of women in significant academic leadership positions has increased. For example, the proportion of female university presidents in the U.S. rose from 18% in 1995³¹ to 23% in 2007.¹In recent years, some high-profile research institutions— including Brown, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, Princeton, Penn, RPI, and several University of California campuses— named their first woman presidents.

˲ The percentage of U.S. informa-tion-technology patents obtained by

female inventors rose from 4.4% in 1995 to 6.1% in 2005.²²

the Bad news

The gains listed here, while encouraging, stop short of achieving equal representation and point to the fact that much work has yet to be done.

The proportion of undergraduate CS degrees received by women has declined sharply—from 37% in 1985 to 22% in 2005.²⁵ In research-intensive CS departments that participate in the annual Taulbee Survey conducted by

en among CS degree recipients has remained flat. ⁶Across genders, the proportion of African-American Ph.D. recipients in the United States and Canada has remained unchanged at 1–2% since 1995, and Hispanic representation has dropped from 3% to 2%. ²³

˲ The proportion of female CS graduate students in the U.S. remained flat at 27% from 1997 to 2004 and declined to 25% in 2005.²³ Similarly in the European Union, the proportion of women earning math and CS doctorates has stood at 24%. ³¹

“My slogan is: computing is
too important to be left to men.”

KaRen sPaRCK-Jones: PIoneeR In InfoRmatIon RetRIeVaL anD natuRaL LanGuaGe PRoCessInG. 1935–2007

the Computing Research Association (CRA), the number dropped from 19% in 2001 to 11.8% in 2006–2007.⁶

˲ Interest in CS as a major is at an all-time low both for men and women. In a 2007 teacher survey, a lack of student interest at the high-school level was cited as the number-one challenge. ⁵ Intention of women freshmen to major in computer science dropped from 2.8% in 1985 to 1.3% in 1995 and to 0.4% in 2006.^{23, 25}

˲ Since 1995, the representation of African-American and Hispanic wom-

˲ Women in CS faculty positions at U.S. four-year institutions remain underrepresented, at just 15.8% of all faculty and 11% of full professors. ⁶ Ethnic minority women are doubly underrepresented on faculties, with Asian and African-American women holding just 3% of faculty positions. Hispanic and Native American women are virtually nonexistent among CS faculty. ²⁵Disparity in faculty salaries across all disciplines has remained unchanged since the 1970s—women faculty earn 81% of men’s salary for equivalent