Liberal Studies in Engineering Programs – Creating Space for Emergent & Individualized Pathways to Success for Women in Computing Disciplines

Abstract

Today, an increasing number of women enter, remain, and succeed within science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields. However, women’s participation is still not proportionate. Women earned 18.4% of undergraduate degrees in engineering in 2010 according to the 2013 Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering report published by the NSF, with significant variance by subfield. The proportion of women graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computing disciplines has decreased. 1 In 2012, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee affirmed that, “Women’s increased participation in the STEM workforce is essential to alleviating the shortage of STEM workers” in the United States. The ASEE Diversity Task Force has identified increasing the percentage of undergraduate female students to 25% by 2020 as a strategic goal. Explanations for the continued underrepresentation of women include the impacts of the social structures of society, education and the professions on women’s participation, as well as the content and application of STEM knowledge in these disciplines. While many challenges to recruitment and retention are shared, Roberts, Kassianidou and Irani (2002) suggest that there are “more specific problems that seem unique to or particularly pronounced” in computing disciplines, including huge variance in precollege computing experience by gender and the ease in which social biases can be incorporated into the design of computing systems (p. 85). However, transformative models for changing the face of engineering and of computing disciplines, specifically, already exist. This paper describes and analyzes one such model – an innovative “liberal studies in engineering” (LSE) program at a large state university in California, Comprehensive Polytechnic State University (CPSU). Jointly offered by the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Engineering, LSE is understood as a fourth “computing discipline” by the Department of Computer Science (alongside computer engineering, computer science, and software engineering). Admission to the program is by internal transfer only. Accepted students complete rigorous technical education, including 44 units of support courses shared with the College of Engineering as well as the CPSU General Education curriculum; 34-35 units of additional coursework in an engineering specialization (computer graphics OR electrical engineering (power) OR industrial/manufacturing engineering (systems design) OR an individualized course of study); 24 units of additional coursework in a liberal arts specialization; and at least 4 LSE courses: two on project-based learning, a senior project course, and a capstone. As of Fall 2014, over 34.5% of the 55 LSE total graduates are women. Eighteen of these 55 alumni graduated with an engineering concentration that included at least 4 quarters of the introductory computer science sequence (CSC 123, 101, 102, and 103) – and thus, for the purposes of this paper, function as a comparison group to the computing disciplines at CPSU and nationally. Of these eighteen LSE-computing disciplines alumni, seven, or 38.9%, are women. Why this difference? One explanation is that LSE is a small major with a high level of one-onone advising. However, a high degree of flexibility also contributes. In the LSE program, iterative revision and recreation of an individualized curriculum and career plan are understood as signs of success rather than failure or deviation. Students are encouraged to understand and design their major as a “whole-person technical degree” that does not require them to pass, to assimilate, to compartmentalize, or to conform to stereotypes. We suggest that this holistic flexibility may disrupt barriers such as impostor syndrome by positioning the student not as impostor but as designer and creator – even when enrolled in technical courses in which the sex/gender ratio is skewed male. Lessons learned from “liberal studies in engineering” are identified, as well as sites of further research.