Greetings from Turkey!(Ambassador: Reyyan Ayfer)

Spring is in the air... After a cold winter with lots of snow in Ankara, we are enjoying the blossoming trees, warmer weather and the fresh smell of nature after a spring rain. It is mid-semester at Bilkent University. All faculty and students are very busy with midterm exams, term projects; all kinds of activities ranging from research to social. Among these activities are ones organized by the ACM-W Students Chapter BilWIC (Bilkent Women in Computing), which in its second year became one of the prestigious student clubs among the 90 clubs at the university. In this month’s blog I would like to share my personal journey with ACM-W and present some of the issues I have been dealing with.

My interest in ACM-W began when I saw the decrease in the number of female students in my own department. During an Internet search I found numerous reports by the ACM-W so I sent an e-mail to the address on the web page, and immediately I received a reply from Anita Borg. It is amazing to see now that what she has started is touching lives of many women including some in Turkey.

The below message -which I still keep in my folder- is dated November 02, 2001:

Dear Reyyan Ayfer,
I am forwarding your message to Denise Gurer at the Committee for Women at the ACM. She will be able to help you with the Ambassador program. I would also like to direct you to the web sites for the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing (www.gracehopper.org). We will be particularly hoping for international participation. I would be very interested in a list an contact information of any senior women in computing in Turkey. It is possible that the Institute for Women and Technology (www.iwt.org ) will be holding an event for which we would very much international participation.
Anita Borg

That was when I became acquainted with the ACM-W, the Grace Hopper event and when I started to become aware of women's status in my country. Until then I was so busy with my work, family and trying to keep up with the advances in technology and computer science that I had no chance to look around. At the beginning I thought that work regarding women in computing would be a luxury when the basic requirements about gender issues like the literacy ratio, women's representation in the work force, etc are considered. However, we had to start from some point. I took the role as the Turkish Ambassador of ACM-W.

I returned from Grace Hopper Conference 2002 with the idea of starting an ACM-W Student Chapter. I am thankful to Paula Gabbert for the support provided at that stage. I arranged meetings with students of related departments to discuss the possibility of establishing the chapter. We got together many times to discuss the problems female students encounter in their departments, especially during their first year. Students were happy to get together, eat pizza and share thoughts for arranging activities, but not willing to take responsibility for an ACM-W Student Chapter. One of the major reasons was that the students did not know anything about ACM. The first question I had to answer was: “What is ACM? Why ACM?” followed by “Why should I become a member?” I was a student member 35 years ago because it was a privilege to receive the printed ACM material. Now things are different. Students have access to all kinds of information online. Using presentations of my own, finally a group with 40 members was formed on March 31, 2005. The first active year for Bilkent University student chapter has been 2006. After a good start the chapter continued organizing activities with a new executive board in the following year. This year they have conducted three seminars: “Women in IT: Experiences from New Zealand” by Dr. Annika Hinze, ACM-W New Zealand Ambassador, “Grades and Students: Who is the Driver?” by Dr. Anders Berglund, Upssala University, “Turkish Women Throughout the European Union Process”, by Gulsun Bilgehan, Former Chairperson, Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe. Future plans include thematic courses for students and more seminars as well as social activities.

The major challenge when working with student groups, especially with students of CS related departments, is the very heavy and demanding student workload. Since the students have very limited time to use for extra-curricular activities, leading student groups requires very good planning and follow-up. In order to be able to realize the activities planned at the beginning of the academic year, we decided to hold weekly lunchtime meetings. Those regular, short, face-to-face meetings were important to ensure the sustainability of the chapter. We prepared a checklist to be used by organizers of the activities, which was very helpful for ensuring the success of the activity. While the students were able to keep-up with activity organizations and attending activities, they were not successful with their web page. Students prefer communicating with tools like Facebook, messengers, SMSs etc. Our future plans include the use of Moodle, the course management tool that is used widely in the university, to access more members of the chapter and additionally to use Facebook and SMSs for better communication among members.

Turkey is a beautiful country connecting two continents, surrounded by seas on three sides, a country of diverse cultures, beliefs, ideas, nature and history. (You may find a short film about Turkey prepared by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (3:28) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Z2bVuEYUY) The population of the country is around 70 million of which 49% is female and more than 50% younger than the age of 29 [1]. From the early years of the young republic, women's rights have been considered seriously. Women have received equal rights in 1926, earlier than many other countries. However, we still have a long way to go. One urgent issue is to increase the literacy rate for women because around 90% of the illiterate population is female. Even though the literacy rate for women is increasing, it is behind the literacy rate of men. When we look at the ratio of women in higher education, 40% are women, in computer science related fields it is around 20% with a slight increase in the last 2 years [2]. I am hoping that the students who have awareness of the importance of female representation in CS will graduate and make a difference in their fields for the future generations.

With my best wishes and warm regards.


References:
[1] Turkish Statistical Institute http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?tb_id=39&ust_id=11 accessed March 30, 2008.
[2] Statistics by the National Student Selection and Placement Center at http://www.osym.gov.tr/ accessed March 30, 2008.

International Women's DaySome Thoughts by Annemieke Craig (ACM-W Ambassador Program Co-Leader)

International Women’s Day provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the fight for equal rights for women and international peace.

In our own area of Information Technology (IT), the pioneering women in computing struggled against preconceptions, restrictive work practices and stereotyped management practices in order to survive professionally. In 2008 the unequal participation by women in IT has not disappeared and continues to be an issue around the globe.

The importance of the issue to society is illustrated by the Anita Borg Institute (n.d., p. 4):

…technology has an extraordinary potential for improving the human condition—from more accurate disaster forecasting to medical breakthroughs in diagnostics and health-care delivery. But what are the problems technology is attempting to solve? Whose priorities are represented? How much of technology truly benefits the world’s peoples? Who are the creators of technology? The creators of most of our current technology, however, represent a narrow stratum of the world’s population – North American males. The important needs and problems that inform and drive technology are defined primarily from the experience and perspective of a few.

The ACM-W is supporting women in IT internationally through its Ambassador program. ACM-W ambassadors in nine countries, while sharing much in common in their enthusiasm to promote IT with young women, have different social, political and economic challenges that complicate their drive to increase female involvement in IT.
For example Women's representation in Parliament, often used as an indicator of the status of women, varies significantly in the ambassador countries; the USA is ranked 71s, Australia 30th, the United Kingdom 60th, Canada 50th, Turkey 108th, South Africa 15th, Pakistan 51st, India 107th, and New Zealand 14th (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm).

In my own country Australia, women have many career choices presented to them, a luxury not always available in other cultures. Yet for every $1 earned by men in Australia today, women earn just 84c. Even worse – this gap has actually widened since 2004 (http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/HowTheOtherHalfEarns). While women are embracing IT applications they are not embracing IT careers. One new initiative to attempt to address this was the launch of a fun new book ‘Tech girls are chic, not just geek’ on International Women’s day. The book presents the diversity of IT careers and shows that it takes all types of people to work in IT.

Unfortunately the road ahead is neither straight nor paved as we strive to achieve a critical mass of women in IT. Yet, we should never lose sight of the global picture:

Across the world women have grown poorer than before. With their children, women still make up four-fifths of the poorest people in the US and are among the poorest classes throughout the world. (French 2007, p. viii)

References

Anita Borg Insitute For Women And Technology (n.d.). Changing the World for Women and for Technology, Virtual Development Center Five Year Report, 19992005. Retrieved January 2007, from http://www.anitaborg.org/programs/vdc/vdc_19992005.pdf.

French, M. (2007). The Women’s Room,Virago.

Graphic: ‘Punch 13th June 1910’ retrieved March 2008 from special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/suffrage/f255_37.jpg

Congratulations, Susan Landau!

ACM-W member Susan Landau has been named the Social Impact Award Winner by the Anita Borg Institute. Susan Landau is a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems. The Women of Vision (WOV) Awards honor women making significant contributions to technology in three categories: Innovation, Leadership, and Social Impact. Nominees are submitted by high-tech companies, universities, private industry, and the public, with one winner selected in each category. Susan Landau will receive her award at a ceremony on May 8, 2008.

Congratulations, Susan!

Grace Hopper 2008: We Build A Better World

Now is the time to prepare your contribution for Grace Hopper 2008. We hope ACM-W will have a strong presence there. The Call for Participation can be found at the Grace Hopper Celebration website. The deadline for program submissions is March 16, 2008, and the conference dates are October 1-4, 2008.

Australian Ambassador's Report(Ambassador: Catherine Lang)

Many activities and events to promote ICT careers to young women were conducted in Australia in 2007 and more are planned for 2008. I will report on two in which I have an ongoing involvement, Digital Divas; a computer club for girls concept in Australia, and Go Girl Go for IT, a showcase career event.

Digital Divas

Research on the lack of interest by Australian girls in computing shows that they perceive that IT is still ‘geeky’, male dominated, boring and generally does not let to a ‘people-focused’ career. Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G) is a UK program which has been implemented in over 3200 schools in the UK to tackle similar perceptions and to show that girls can ‘do’ and enjoy ICT equally as well as boys. The Digital Divas project is looking at whether a concept similar to CC4G can be successfully implemented in Australia.

A trial was conducted in a large suburban high-school using the CC4G materials. While it was recognised that the CC4G materials were UK centric and linked to the UK standardised curriculum objectives the materials were used with no modification or editing, at this point. The trial was structured as recommended by CC4G as a weekly lunchtime girl’s club and was facilitated by undergraduate students from Swinburne University of Technology’s Women in ICT group.

The positive impacts of the club were as follows:

• The girls enjoyed using the technology in this non-academic club environment.
  
  
• The university students who acted as facilitators had a positive learning experience. They built leadership skills while interacting with the younger students and acting as role models.
  
  
• School staff acknowledged a need and value for this girls only IT experience.
  

The less than positive impacts were that:

• The participation numbers were very low and declined progressively.


• The concept of a lunch-time computer club can be seen as illogical in that food and drink and computer labs do not go together. Students could rarely get immersed in their activities before the need to log-out and get ready for the afternoon classes.


• The CC4G site and log-in was temperamental. Some days it was very slow and girls also had difficulties accessing it from home. This somewhat defeated the purpose of easy accessibility and simplifying ICT to girls

The club had minimal impact in this format. Lunchtime clubs are not a part of the culture of government secondary schools in Australia with girls of this age wanting to spend their short lunch break socialising, not playing in the computer room.

The way forward in 2008 is to create Australian centric materials which can be used for a computer club initiative that can be run as an elective unit in the school curriculum.

Go Girl Go for IT
One strategy to address the lack of awareness by girls of the ICT field is to host a day where girls come and interact with technology and listen to talks by women in the profession. A number of these type of days will be conducted around Australia in 2008 and can be conducted for small groups, or as in the case with the Go Girl, Go For IT career showcase, it may be a large two-day event.

In 2006 for example, all Victorian secondary schools were invited to send girls to the event conducted at Deakin University. The purpose of the showcase was to expand the career horizons of female students by showing the range of career opportunities available in IT. The showcase was attended by almost 1900 girls and 180 teachers. Evaluation from the event found that

• While only 34% of students indicated they had considered IT as a career before the showcase, after the event 63% of the students would consider a career in IT.


• Amongst other things, the surveys revealed that the girls learnt IT could be a rewarding and fulfilling career, not just for males or for geeks and that it is a very diverse field: That there are many different pathways to a career in IT and many different places it can take you. As one student explained: “I like how you never stop learning and that you learn new skills as technology develops and … IT allows you to use your intelligence to do cool things”.


• Overall the vast majority of students and teachers were left with a positive impression of the event, with more than half rating it as Excellent or Great. They found the speakers inspiring and loved the entertainment - the fashion parade, band and trade show.

To conduct this event over 150 professional women (and a few men) volunteered their time, energy, passion and expertise. Fifteen corporate sponsors donated $90,000 AUD in cash and more than double that amount of in-kind support. Presenters donated their time and enthusiasm. The event was a year in the planning. With an overwhelming majority (96%) of teachers indicating they would consider bringing students to another Go Girl event we are currently planning the 2008 event.

Women in CS News from Canada 2008 (Ambassador: Julita Vassileva)

Happy New Year! I thought that it is appropriate to start with the first January report about a stereotypically cold place – Canada. Right now it is -25 C (-13F) here in Saskatoon, we are right in the middle of this big country. I have gotten used to the cold in the last 10 years since I came here, though in the country where I was born, Bulgaria, in doesn’t get nearly as cold in wintertime. So let me introduce myself: I am Julita Vassileva, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. I hold the NSERC / Cameco Chair for Women in Science and Engineering and I am the current ACM-W Ambassador for Canada.

In this first report I will give a brief overview of the statistics of Canadian women studying Computer Science (CS), women working in the IT sector and describe some measures taken to promote the status of women in academia. I will feature some of the Canadian outreach activities promoting CS to female students. Finally, I will highlight some recent achievements of Canadian female researchers in Computer Science.

Statistics

According to [1] only 27.4% of the IT workforce (public and private sector) in Canada is female, and the only categories of IT that women dominate are technical writing and graphic design/illustration. Women represent only 10% of the 160,000 licensed engineers across Canada.
According to a recent article published by Computing Research Association [2]:
“the overall CS degree enrollment and production trends at Canadian institutions are similar to those seen in the United States. The number of degrees awarded at all levels has grown rapidly in the past decade. Recent enrollment figures would suggest a slowdown in bachelor's degree production in the coming years, in contrast to continued growth at the graduate level. … The biggest decline in bachelor's degree enrollments has been among women: 30 percent fewer women were enrolled in 2003/04 than in 2001/02, compared to an 8 percent drop among men for the same period.”

The percentage of students enrolled in a Bachelor’s program that are women in 2003 was 18%, in MSc. Program – 28% and in a PhD. Program – 24%.

The proportion of female faculty in Canada in 2007 was 32.6% [3], down with nearly 5% since 2001/2002 when it was 37.3% [4]. However, for Science and Engineering areas the proportion is only about 14%. Similar to the US the proportion of women newly hired into tenure-track positions is higher, around 19%, while for full professors, it was as low as 7.7%. Yet, some Computer Science departments, for example, at the University of Victoria, have a very high proportion of women-faculty (approx. 33%).

Government Programs and Institutional Actions

To address the situation with underrepresentation of female faculty in Science and Engineering, the Natural Sciences and Research council of Canada (NSERC) [5] has launched two programs:

• University Faculty Awards
• Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering

The goal of the University Faculty Awards program is to enhance the recruitment, retention, and early career progression of women and Aboriginal people in tenure-track faculty positions in the natural sciences and engineering in Canadian universities, by providing opportunities for them to establish a strong research record. Through this program, a University can nominate a Canadian or permanent resident female candidate. It has to commit a tenure-track position. If the applicant is successful, NSERC contributes $40,000 CDN / year as salary contribution for up to five years. The new faculty member enjoys reduced teaching and administrative load during the award, which allows her to kick-start her research. Unfortunately, as of this year, the UFA program has been cancelled. The program was highly competitive, and it was found that women hired through this program would have obtained faculty positions anyway, so it didn’t result in increasing the number of female faculty overall. A new program is currently being developed to address the underrepresentation of women and Aboriginals in the natural sciences and engineering.

The Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering program is regional, with one Chair for each of the Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairie and British Columbia regions. The goal of this Chair program is to increase the participation of women in science and engineering and to provide role models for women considering careers in these fields. The five current chairs are: Dr. Cecilia Moloney (Engineering, Memorial University) – Atlantic Region, Dr. Valerie Davidson (Engineering, Guelph University) – Ontario, Dr. Nadia Ghazzali (Mathematics, Laval University) – Quebec, Dr. Julita Vassileva (Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan) – Prairies, Dr. Anne Condon (Computer Science, UBC) – British Columbia and the Yukon.

Several Canadian Universities have undertaken an evaluation of their practices as they relate to gender. For example, the University of Calgary performed an evaluation of the workloads of faculty from equity perspective. Their recommendations can be found online [6]. The University of British Columbia Faculty of Science performed recently a study of the working climate for science faculty, led by Rachel Kuske. The results can be found online too [7]. Other Universities are planning to perform such studies too. Hopefully the implementation of the recommendations of these studies will help female faculty advance in their careers on equal pace with their male colleague.

Supporting Education and Outreach

The Jade Project was launched in 2005 by Professor Anne Condon from the University of British Columbia who holds the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for British Columbia and the Yukon. It aims to increase the participation and success of girls and women in the physical sciences and engineering, particularly computer science. Three major components of the project are:

• CS101 - Connecting with Computer Science. This interdisciplinary college-level course, introduces computer science principles through applications in the arts, psychology, and biology. For example, in the biology module, students learn how fragment assembly, a key step in genome sequencing, can be modeled in a way that makes it amenable to solution using a computer.
• The Canadian Distributed Mentor Project (CDMP) is a program to encourage undergraduate women in computer science and computer engineering to go to graduate school. Coordinated by Dr. Faith Ellen at U. of Toronto it supports outstanding undergraduate women in Computer Science at Canadian institutions to immerse themselves in research, working closely with a female mentor. The goal is to encourage these students to consider a research career in computing. The number of undergraduate students involved in the project has grown from 4 in 2001 and 2002 up to 11 in 2007.
• Jade Bridges Program. Bridging across the province, this program supports a network of leaders in B.C. academic institutions, who are working to recruit and support the careers of women in the Physical Sciences and Engineering, with the goal of increasing institutional commitment to the goals of increasing the representation of women.

Professor Anne Condon was the Program Chair of the 2007 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computer Science in Orlando, Florida.

There are many local outreach activities for girls in high- or middle-school out of various computer science departments in the country, such as computing day camps, lab-tours, exhibitions and school lectures.

Individual Achievements

There are many outstanding Canadian female researchers in Computer Science. Here I will list just some recent achievements (in West to East order).

• Gail Murphy from UBC has won several awards, including a Steacie. She has also just won a U. Washington Diamond alumnae award.
• Karon MacLean from UBC has had her work featured in the Economist.
• Rachel Pottinger won a Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award.
• Renee Miller has a chaired professorship at Toronto, the "Bell University Lab Chair of Information Systems".
• Marina Gavrilova from the University of Calgary recently became the first woman Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Transactions on Computational Sciences, Springer. A book on Biometrics she co-authored has become a World Scientific International Bestseller of the month for September 2007. Dr. Gavrilova is presently directing two labs: Biometric Technologies and SPARCS Lab, co-chairing ICCSA conference (since 2003), working on a book on Intelligent Methods in Computational Geometry, and participates in SciberMentor program, a science and engineering email mentorship program out of the University of Calgary.
• Sheila McIlraith, and Toni Pitassi from the University of Toronto, were chosen as two of 50 researchers across Canada to receive inaugural NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplements (DAS) in March 2007. The Discovery Accelerator Supplements support faculty who are on the verge of research breakthroughs. Dr. Suzanne Fortier, President of NSERC notes, "These new grants target 50 outstanding researchers. Based on their success and accomplishments so far, we believe they are poised to make real breakthroughs in their fields, and we believe it is critically important to support them financially at this time." McIlraith’s DAS was awarded for "customizing computer system components," and Pitassi’s - for "solutions to computational complexity".

Until next time - keep warm out there!

References

[1] Ticcoll, D. 2005. Canada’s Information Technology Labour Market 2005: Issues and Options. Report of the Software Human Resource Council Expert Panel. Ottawa: SHRC.
[2] CRA Report January 2006. http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/jan06/vegso.html
[3] CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers) Almanac 2007 http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=442
[4] Canadian Coalition for Women in Engineering, Sciences, Technologies and Trades, CCWESTT
[5] Natural Sciences and Engineering Council, NSERC http://www.nserc.ca
[6] Joldersma, H. (2005) NEXT Steps: Report of the Gender Equity Project, University of Calgary: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/departments/PRES/documents/NextSteps-Gender_Equity_Project.pdf
[7] An Assessment of the Working Climate for the Science Faculty at UBC:
http://www.science.ubc.ca/content/view/42

Tracy Camp wins Outstanding Faculty Award

We celebrate a recent honor of an ACM-W member (and previous ACM-W Co-Chair). Colorado School of Mine's recently presented Tracy Camp with an 'Outstanding Faculty Award' (an award that doesn't occur every year). Tracy was nominated for the honor by her research group, making the award even more special.