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Women Increase from 18% to a High of 30% of City College of San Francisco's (CCSF) Computer Networking and Information Technology (CNIT) Program

CCSF Female Role Model

City College of San Francisco's CNIT Program

Founded in 1935, City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is one of the largest community colleges in the country serving about 100,000 diverse students annually at nine campuses. The Computer Networking and Information Technology (CNIT) department offers an associate’s degree and several certificates that prepare students for entry-level positions in network administration, computer technical support, and web development. From spring 2006 to fall 2007, women made up only 18.1% of students in the CNIT program.

In an effort to affect change, Carmen Lamha -- the Chair of the CNIT department in 2007 -- became the co-PI on the CalWomenTech Project and CCSF became the first community college to partner with the CalWomenTech Project to increase the number of women in targeted technology courses. To increase the representation of women in the CNIT program, CCSF's Leadership Team of key instructors, counselors, public relations staff, and administrators knew that they needed to first focus on recruiting and enrolling more female students into the program, and then on classroom retention strategies to keep the women in the program.

Recruitment Strategies

All of the CalWomenTech Project community college sites were required to carry out four core recruitment strategies during their first year of participation in the Project. In addition, they could also incorporate custom recruitment strategies into their annual strategic plans. CCSF successfully completed all of the core recruitment strategies in the recommended timeline and the percentage of women enrolled in CNIT increased by 45.9%.

The required recruitment strategies included:

• Identifying female role models in computer networking and information technology and getting photos, bios and quotes for IWITTS to place in the CalWomenTech template marketing collateral;

• Distributing recruitment posters, flyers, brochures and a CalWomenTech college website section featuring female role models.

Over the course of the Project the college carried out additional strategies such as:

• CCSF has a very large counseling staff with over 100 counselors. The Project key leaders made a presentation to all of the counselors at their monthly meeting and provided them with "Women in CNIT" recruitment brochures and posters with the CCSF CalWomenTech website URL. Distribution of recruitment materials by counselors was then written into CCSF's annual strategic plan as a regular practice. Showed a PowerPoint presentation developed by IWITTS made to appeal to potential female students. See example slides.

• Sending out an email with CNIT program and career information to potential female students (sample email in Outreach Kit as well).

Recruitment Results

After just over a year of focusing on the recruitment of female students, the percentage of women in CNIT increased to 30.1% on average. Four years later at the end of the CalWomenTech Project, the average enrollment of female students in both introductory and advanced CNIT courses had risen by 45.9% from baseline. Women made up 26.4% of CNIT students when averaged over the entire CalWomenTech Project. In spring 2010, the program reached its highest percentage when the average number of women enrolled went to 33.2% -- an increase of 15 percentage points and 82.9% from baseline.

Increases in targeted introductory CNIT courses meant more female students in the pipeline, which by the end of the CalWomenTech Project had resulted in significant increases in the number of women in advanced CNIT courses with prerequisites. The representation of women in advanced CNIT courses went from a low baseline of 10.3% to 27% on average over the life of the CalWomenTech Project. This means that before the CalWomenTech Project began there were only 1.5 women on average in the advanced courses, while during the Project the average number of women rose to 8.6 per course. Now, instead of being the lone woman in a classroom full of men, female students in advanced CNIT courses can be comfortable in courses where both women and men are represented. The most impressive increase in Project occurred in the advanced courses in spring 2010, when the average number of women increased by 288.5% from 10.3% to 40% -- making the courses almost half women.

Retention Strategies

The primary retention strategies at CCSF -- chosen by the CCSF Leadership Team and CNIT faculty -- were classroom strategies (e.g. appealing to female interests) versus traditional support strategies such as mentoring, which is why they have impacted the retention of both women and men. While making conference presentations with IWITTS on CCSF's participation in the CalWomenTech Project, the key and co-leader of the Leadership Team described the cultural shift that occurred in their department during the CalWomenTech Project. The CalWomenTech Project acted as the catalyst that allowed CNIT faculty to come together as a team to work on student success for the first time. The two to three hour CalWomenTech retention trainings and brainstorming sessions on the development and implementation of retention strategies in the classroom allowed both full-time and adjunct faculty to learn new strategies and share existing ones that had worked for individual instructors.

Some examples of CCSF retention strategies and teaching to both female and male learning styles included:

• After learning in the retention training that many students -- both women and men -- come into CNIT courses with no knowledge of the tools used in computer networking and information technology, a CNIT instructor designed, printed, and distributed a poster with visual illustrations of all the tools used in CNIT that faculty could use to help female (and male) students with tool identification and use.

• Using YouTube videos to supplement classroom instruction: CNIT faculty posted videos they developed themselves and those they identified on CNIT building block skills to YouTube and a Google Documents spreadsheet accessible to the entire CNIT department. For example, two CNIT instructors identified a skill that many incoming students struggled with -- converting binary numbers -- and created a series of short instructional YouTube videos. The videos could be shown in class, used in online courses, or accessed by students on their own at need.

• The CNIT department also hired advanced female students and students of color to work in the CNIT lab to act as role models and mentors to the increasing number of entering women.

The most important retention strategy for CCSF ended up being getting the entire faculty together for the retention training, so that the entire CNIT department could implement what they learned in their courses right away with support of their peers.

Retention Results

In order to retain the new female students CCSF was successfully recruiting to the CNIT program, the CCSF CalWomenTech Leadership Team and the CNIT faculty not on the Leadership Team all made a commitment to improving student success and increasing the completion rate of female students. After a series of CalWomenTech retention trainings and strategy brainstorming sessions with full-time and adjunct faculty, CCSF female retention rates went as high as 86.4% in fall 2010 -- an increase of 34.9% or 22.4 percentage points from baseline. In the aggregate, the average female completion rate over the course of the CalWomenTech Project was 78.5% -- an increase of 22.6% or 14.5 percentage points from baseline. The commitment of the entire CNIT department to incorporating recommendations and strategies from the CalWomenTech retention training into their classrooms made it possible for CCSF to improve the retention of both female and male students in CNIT.

The completion rate for male students in CNIT courses went from a baseline of 72.1% to 76.9% on average over the course of the Project -- an increase of 6.6% or 4.7 percentage points. In the aggregate, the CalWomenTech Project succeeded in increasing the retention of both female and male students, and in making CCSF's completion rates comparable between female and male students -- within 1.7% of each other.

Sustainability

The CalWomenTech Project model was designed to institutionalize gender equity strategies into the Project's community college sites. IWITTS worked closely with each college to ensure sustainability beyond the life of the Project.

CCSF plans to continue distributing the "Women in CNIT" posters, email, banner, website section and other outreach collateral developed during the Project. On the retention side, the CNIT instructors have made a commitment to continue using the retention techniques they learned and brainstormed together during the CalWomenTech trainings.

Learn more about CCSF's CNIT program.

Women Now Nearly Half of San Diego Mesa Community College's Geographic Information Systems Program

Members of San Diego Mesa's Leadership Team Accept an Award Recognizing their Success

San Diego Mesa College's GIS Program

As the largest college in the San Diego Community College District, San Diego Mesa College serves a minority-majority population of nearly 27,000 students. Over 50% of the student population is female, and San Diego Mesa wanted to see those women equally represented in technology programs such as the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program. The GIS program at San Diego Mesa offers both an associate's degree and certificate in GIS that prepares students to work as entry-level GIS technicians in government or private industry. From spring 2006 to fall 2007, women made up 34.6% of students in the GIS program and San Diego Mesa wanted to close the gender gap with a percentage closer to 50% to better match the makeup of their student population.

San Diego Mesa College joined the CalWomenTech Project in late 2007. The college's CalWomenTech Leadership Team of dedicated key instructors, counselors, public relations staff, and administrators began implementing strategies right away and started to see increases in the number of female students enrolling and completing in the very next semester.

Recruitment Strategies

San Diego Mesa College successfully completed all of the required CalWomenTech recruitment strategies -- taking photos of female role models in GIS for the CalWomenTech "Women in GIS" recruitment posters, flyers, brochures, PowerPoint presentations, emails, press releases, banners, and website section and distributing those same recruitment materials -- in the recommended timeline. By getting the customized CalWomenTech recruitment and outreach materials distributed in time for the enrollment period, San Diego Mesa ensured that undeclared female students at the college would learn about the GIS program in time to enroll right away. This explains why San Diego Mesa was one of the first CalWomenTech colleges to start experiencing success recruiting female students.

Additional strategies implemented successfully by the San Diego Mesa Leadership Team over the course of the CalWomenTech Project included:

• PowerPoint presentation developed by IWITTS made to appeal to potential female students. See example slides.
• Holding an annual GIS Day with a focus on "Women in GIS" that included female role models, handing out Women in GIS brochures, hanging up CalWomenTech posters, a hands-on activity with GPS units, and career information.
• A "word-of-mouth" strategy where instructors asked students to invite female friends to enroll/attend GIS day.
• Developing a San Diego Mesa GIS Facebook fan page with a "Women's Wednesday" with information about female role models working in GIS and career resources.

Recruitment Results

By the fall 2008 semester, the percentage of women in GIS had increased to 50% on average for two semesters. After four years of involvement in the CalWomenTech Project, the average enrollment of female students in both introductory and advanced GIS courses leveled out at 40.3% -- still an increase of 16.5% or 5.7 percentage points over baseline. San Diego Mesa College is now close to hitting a goal of half women in its GIS program. In advanced GIS courses where students had to complete prerequisite introductory courses, the improvement in recruitment of female students was even more pronounced in the long term due to an increased number of women in the pipeline. The percentage of women in advanced courses went from a baseline of 31.5% to 39.4% on average through the end of the Project, an increase of 25% or 7.9 percentage points.

Retention Strategies

The most important retention strategy -- a implemented shortly after the Project began -- was that GIS instructors modified their teaching style based on the CalWomenTech training they received on retention.

• They started carefully distributing equipment -- such as GPS units -- instead of letting students take the equipment on a first-come, first-serve basis. By deliberately handing the equipment to female students, instructors make sure that women who are hesitant to grab a GPS unit still have an opportunity for hands-on learning.
• They provided information on employment trends, salary and career options of particular interest to women considering a career in GIS -- such as full-time versus part-time and working on site versus from home.
• They decided to begin assigning group leaders on rotation so everyone gets a chance to be in a leadership role, including women that might defer.

When speaking about the impact that the CalWomenTech Project and IWITTS' retention training had on the GIS program and faculty, Kim Mathis -- one of the instructors in the introductory GIS courses and a co-leader on the San Diego Mesa College CalWomenTech Leadership Team -- said:

"We became more aware of the differences in women vs. men, including an imbalance in numbers in the GIS industry and a difference in learning styles and perseverance (with regard to low grades). As a result, we have redesigned our lectures and teaching style to be more encouraging to students -- whether it's the first day of class or half-way through the semester when distributing a low mid-term exam grade. As a result, I have had less students (and specifically less women) drop my class after the mid-term and higher grades overall."

The Leadership Team -- including all GIS faculty members -- decided to make holding additional on-site WomenTech retention trainings for new faculty/staff members a part of their retention plan after the outcome of the original training.

Retention Results

San Diego Mesa College began implementing retention strategies in the classroom immediately after receiving training by the CalWomenTech Project PI on recruiting and retaining female students, which allowed them to start retaining more female -- and male --students right away. The baseline completion rate for female students in the GIS program was 81.3%, and the baseline for male students was 80.3%. Soon after San Diego Mesa joined the CalWomenTech Project, the completion rate for both women and men in the GIS program rose to 100% for two consecutive semesters. In the aggregate, the average female completion rate over the course of the CalWomenTech Project was 88.8% -- an increase of 9.2% or 7.5 percentage points above baseline. The average completion rate for male students in GIS stayed comparable to that of the female rate at 87.7% -- also an increase of 9.2% or 7.5 percentage points. This parallel increase in the retention rates of female and male GIS students can best be explained by San Diego Mesa College's decision to focus on classroom and teaching strategies, instead of outside support strategies such as mentoring and tutoring.

As in recruitment, the greatest increase in San Diego Mesa College's retention can be seen in the advanced courses where the completion rate went from 82.5% to 92% in the aggregate for women and from 75.9% to 88.8% for men. That's an increase in retention of 11.5% for females and 17.1% for men. The large improvements in the recruitment and retention rates for female students in advanced courses are important because 1) students cannot enter them without successfully completing introductory courses and 2) it means that female students are persisting after the introductory courses.

Sustainability

The CalWomenTech Project model was designed to institutionalize gender equity strategies into the Project's community college sites. IWITTS worked closely with each college to ensure sustainability beyond the life of the Project.

San Diego Mesa plans to continue distributing the "Women in GIS" posters, banner, website section, Facebook page and other outreach collateral developed during the Project. On the retention side, the GIS instructors have made a commitment to continue to teach to female learning styles, a strategy that has worked to improve retention for both female and male students.

Learn more about the San Diego Mesa GIS program.