University works to bring more women to tech field
Janel Shoun-Smith |
Lauren Gardiner, a Lipscomb junior data science major, participates in the women-only mentoring program at the CCT.
2022 Update: The College of Computing and Technology is now the School of Computing and the School of Data Analytics and Technology.
Lipscomb’s computer science alumnae bring long-absent perspective to the IT industry
In middle school, while other girls were getting into fashion and painting their nails, Aimee Laansma of Grand Blanc, Michigan, was playing softball and taking computer classes. She had a brother, so she didn’t mind hanging out with the guys, but she definitely felt different from the average girl.
“I absolutely think that feeling of being different keeps women from going into tech careers,” said Laansma, a 2014 graduate of Lipscomb’s computer science program and a quality software engineer at MaxPoint in Austin, Texas. “Everyone matures at a different rate, so once a young girl matures and gets comfortable with who she is, then she usually feels more confident going into the industry where her passion lies. But early on, when they are making critical decisions that could affect their future careers, that weirdness certainly deters young girls.”
“That weirdness” is the problem that university technology programs and technology companies across the nation are facing today as the percentage of women in professional computing occupations hovers around 26 percent. According to TechRepublic.com, Google’s workforce is only 30 percent female; Facebook is 31 percent female; Yahoo is 37 percent; and LinkedIn is 39 percent.
In 2012, women made up only 18 percent of computer science majors nationwide, and in 2014 only 12 percent of computer science degrees were earned by women, TechRepublic reported last year.
Lipscomb’s College of Computing & Technology, as well as industry organizations across the nation, is working to change that trend. In fact, this year the college enrolled the most female undergraduate majors in its past five years: 21 in seven technology majors.
“Ideally, technology is created by innovative thinkers who are as diverse as the population served by their services and products,” said Adriane Bradberry, communications director for the National Center for Women and Information Technology. “Currently, this isn’t the case (in IT), and we’re missing out.
“A large study spanning 21 different companies showed that teams with 50:50 gender ratios were more experimental and more efficient. Extensive research has found that groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than do homogenous groups,” she said.
More women on the payroll bring benefit to more than just the IT industry. The high-paying tech industry, with flexible work policies, is a particularly good job opportunity for women who want to have families as well. In the past few years, companies like Adobe established unlimited vacation for employees and this year Netflix announced more parent-focused maternity leave benefits.
Laansma is not shy about the advantages of being a woman in an industry working so hard to buck its reputation as all male and geeky. “I feel like I have a leg-up on the males applying for jobs or working up the career ladder,” said Laansma. “These companies all have gender ratios, and they are frowned upon if they are all male, so anytime I applied for a job online, I marked ‘female’ always feeling like that fact alone would make my resume stand out.”
Laansma has a can-do attitude, but there are many societal pressures steering a host of young girls away from technological expertise. In 2010, the American Association of University Women released a study that referenced a 2005 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology:
“When high school girls think of computer scientists, they think of geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code. These pervasive attitudes and messages influence girls’ academic paths early, and future options in such professions may be curtailed for girls because they have insufficient course foundations,” summarized the AAUW study.
Kelsey Gaines (’13), an information security graduate from Nashville now working at Cigna-HealthSpring, said, “I always loved math as a kid, but I didn’t realize computer science was something I could pursue. I saw it as something you have to be a genius to do. The stereotypes surrounding the IT industry kept me from pursuing it as a potential career path.
“I don’t like that mindset because it pushes people away, and in IT we need a range of talents, not just high-tech geniuses,” Gaines said. “For everything to run properly we need good communicators, we need managers. There are so many roles that people don’t realize exist in the IT world. The industry offers such great opportunities, but the stigma causes many to choose another career path.”
That’s a trend the College of Computing & Technology is trying to change by offering a range of majors within the computer science field and naming those majors more specifically, said Finn Breland, the college’s enrollment management specialist.
“A young girl may be more attracted to a major called ‘web development’ because she doesn’t see the same techno geek stigma associated with that form of computer technology. We try to offer a lot of different avenues, because we are aware of the stigma that computer science departments carry,” he said.
For women who have already made the leap to enroll in computer science programs, they still face a heavily male-dominated industry, so the college offers programs such as a mentoring program in conjunction with Women in Technology in Tennessee. For a year and a half, Lipscomb’s female computing students have been matched with successful women professionals in the industry to obtain advice and perspective on navigating in a high-tech career, said Breland.
“It’s been great to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Someone I can tell, ‘This is what I have a passion for; how do I get there,’ and to help me sort through that process,” said Lauren Gardiner, a junior data science major from Lexington, Kentucky.
Gardiner originally wanted to work in data science in retail, but now she is looking at options in public policy, and her mentor, Saralyn Luehrsen, vice president of global governance at Schneider Electric, has been discussing the implications of that change with her and connecting her with other local professionals who have given her valuable perspective, Gardiner said.
The college has also partnered with WiTT to establish a scholarship for prospective female students who are members of local technology associations. It also hosted a “girl geek” dinner last spring, and Breland recently made a presentation on how to recruit women into IT programs at the STEM Think Tank and Conference held in Nashville.
“Because we have unique programs, we are attracting girls from all over the country, not just Nashville,” said Breland.
Laansma and Gaines went from Lipscomb, where the undergraduate student body is 61 percent female, to work environments where the gender ratio is almost the exact opposite. But they don’t feel hindered or out of place, they say.
At Laansma’s office at MaxPoint, which specializes in online advertising for brick-and-mortar local businesses, there are just seven women among the 85-person engineering office in Austin. “It helps a lot being all engineers, because we feel like a family. We all play games at lunch; we play ping pong,” she said. “Sometimes the jokes do take a turn for the worse, and I have to remind the guys, ‘Hey, I’m a girl!’ But they respect me for being here, and they see my leadership role. They respect me because I do good work, and I can get the job done.”
Gaines echoed that doing good work and effective teamwork is what opens up opportunities in IT more than gender. She is one of 10 Cigna-HealthSpring employees (the only woman) from Nashville selected to participate in TECHDP (Technological Early Career Development Program), a corporation-wide professional development program for technology professionals.
She noted that the TECHDP cohorts of the last few years were certainly male-dominated, but the presence of women in the program is growing.
“This industry needs women to balance out perspectives,” she said. “My TECHDP group will sometimes be working on a project and get stuck on one aspect, and then I’ll come along and provide a new perspective to move things forward. There really is a need for women in the field.”
With the U.S. Department of Labor predicting there will be nearly 1.4 million computing-related job openings available between 2010-2020, it’s more important than ever to attract more women to the industry, said Bradberry, as current college graduation rates in computing can only fill 32 percent of those jobs.