1. Zilin Chen English 115A * Professor Sheriff
Underrepresentation of Women in Mathematics and Computer Science
Zilin Chen English 115A * Professor Sheriff
Unequal Gender Distribution in Math & CS Fields
Proposal to Encourage Female Students
Initial Steps to Help Improve the Situation
Walking into an intermediate-level math or computer science class at Davis, people are not surprised to see that there are significantly more men than women in that class. So what discourages women from taking a math-intensive class at Colby, and how to encourage more women with math-intensive capabilities to participate in Mathematics and Computer Science studies?
The likelihood of the existence of gender discrimination in Math & Computer Science departments at Colby is relatively small. Nevertheless, female students are likely to feel threatened by the numerical representation of male students and give up math-intensive studies because of the stereotypical idea that men are better at doing complex mathematics. Though an individual effort has been made by several female professors by having a private discussion with female students to help them realize their potentials, more women need to recognize their capabilities in doing mathematics and computer science. Thus, a collective effort is needed.
Female students are likely to experience stereotype threat when they believe that they may be treated unequally with male students in a math or computer science class (Murphy, 879). And such unequal treatment will likely make female students feel devalued and no longer want to participate in future studies.
Part One: Increase Professors’ Awareness of the Issue
Professors may not intend to discourage women or devalue their intelligence by showing more interests in men's ideas or giving them more time to come up with solutions independently. And some professors may very well treat all students equally during class. However, it is still important to inform professors the unequal treatments that could be made consciously or unconsciously by them during class, and how vulnerable women can be to those situational cues. Such instruction session can be given to professors through one-hour meetings held once per semester by the chair of each department. And after the first few sessions, the meeting may focus more on progress being made and what still requires more effort.
Part Two: Increase Students Awareness of the Issue
Students, especially female students, should also understand that professors' primary concern is teaching, and it is hard for them to devote full attention to teaching while still being able to consciously evaluating their behavior. One way is to educate female students not to take professors' showing more interests to male students' ideas as a message that professors devalue theirs. And this can be achieved through wellness seminars possibly given by senior female students majoring math or computer science. Freshmen currently taking any math or computer science class will receive extra credit for the class by attending such seminars. And the senior students will also be paid per seminar.
The chairs of two departments should conduct a survey of how current students feel about professors' teaching style and how much professors themselves are aware of the issue to find out how serious the problem is.
The chairs of two departments should meet with professors to discuss the possible time to hold such instruction sessions and schedule the meetings for next year.
The association that is responsible for wellness seminars at Colby should look for students who are willing to take the job either by posting on General Announcement or contacting each department. Then it should also discuss time and money with students and the method to pay those students with Campus Job.
Part One: Increase Professors’ Awareness of the Issue
Professors may not intend to discourage women or devalue their intelligence by showing more interests in men's ideas or giving them more time to come up with solutions independently. And some professors may very well treat all students equally during class. However, it is still important to inform professors the unequal treatments that could be made consciously or unconsciously by them during class, and how vulnerable women can be to those situational cues. Such instruction session can be given to professors through one-hour meetings held once per semester by the chair of each department. And after the first few sessions, the meeting may focus more on progress being made and what still requires more effort.
Works Cited
Clark, Katie. Single and Double Majors of Graduates: 2006 to N.d. Raw data. Colby College, Waterville.
Lu, Lu. "The Underrepresentation of Women in Math." interview. 17 Apr
Murphy, Mary C., Claude M. Steele, and James J. Gross. Signaling Threat: How Situational Cues Affect Women in Math, Science, and Engineering Settings. 18 (2007): Sage Publications, Inc. Web.
Leach, Lisa S. Sexism in the Classroom: A Self-Quiz for Teachers (1994): Science Scope. Web.
Taylor, Stephanie. "The Underrepresentation of Women in Computer Science." Personal interview. 15 Apr
Part Two: Increase Students Awareness of the Issue
Students, especially female students, should also understand that professors' primary concern is teaching, and it is hard for them to devote full attention to teaching while still being able to consciously evaluating their behavior. One way is to educate female students not to take professors' showing more interests to male students' ideas as a message that professors devalue theirs. And this can be achieved through wellness seminars possibly given by senior female students majoring math or computer science. Freshmen currently taking any math or computer science class will receive extra credit for the class by attending such seminars. And the senior students will also be paid per seminar.
Figure 1: Female and male graduates with a degree in mathematics from 2010 to 2014.
Figure 2: Female and male graduates with a degree in computer science from 2010 to 2014.
Copyright Colin Purrington (
Research Methods
I requested the data from the IR office at Colby. I also interviewed Professor Taylor from computer science department in person and Professor Lu from mathematics department through . The other resources I used for the causal analysis are published journals and articles.
Acknowledgments
I thank Lu Lu and Stephanie Taylor for the interviews and Katie Clark from Institutional Research for the data.