Unlocking the clubhouse

Abstract

In the fall of 1995, just seven of 95 students entering the undergraduate program in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University were women. In 2000, 54 of 130, or 42%, were women. What happened? This article presents a brief history of the transformation at Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, and the research project that lay behind it. A fuller discussion, set in an analysis of gender issues in computing from childhood through college, is found in our book, Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing [2].The story begins with a research study designed specifically to diagnose and find remedies for the gender gap in Carnegie Mellon's undergraduate computer science program. Female enrollment had hovered below 10% for a number of years, and the fraction of women leaving the program was approximately twice that for men. In 1995, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation funded our proposal for a two-year program, which was followed up two years later with a two-year extension. The goal was to understand the experiences and choices of both men and women with respect to studying computer science, and to design interventions that would involve more women.