This paper written in the third year of a five year project for presentation at the 2009 WEPAN Conference includes promising early CalWomenTech Project results, sample strategies, and project resources for educators. CalWomenTech Project community colleges that implemented project recruitment strategies within the recommended timeline had an increase in enrollment of women in their targeted technology programs of 10 to 15 percentage points in just over a year. Colleges that implemented the retention strategies saw increases in both female and male retention, and one college saw their retention of women go from 81% to 100% in a little over a year.
Source: |
Milgram, D. (2009). CalWomenTech Project: Increasing Recruitment & Retention of Female College Students in Technology Courses. Conference Proceedings of WEPAN 2009 Center Stage: Effective Strategies for Recruitment and Talent Development. Austin, TX: Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN). |
The WomenTech Educators Training got us thinking intentionally about who we were going to target for outreach, how we were going to target them, and how we would follow up to make sure we had actual results linked to the different programs and events that we were holding. Since then, it has grown organically and blossomed into something that our college just does naturally.
I think getting together as a team with intention—because we're all so busy—and developing a written plan that we could stick to was what made all the difference. I don’t think we would have ever done that if it wasn't for the WomenTech Educators Training.