Featured Projects
IWITTS has developed and managed numerous multi-site national demonstration and research projects, working in partnership with educators, law enforcement agencies and other employers to achieve gender equity in technology classrooms and the workplace.
CalWomenTech Project
IWITTS was awarded a $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant from the program on Research on Gender in Science and Engineering in 2006 to fund the CalWomenTech Project. Through this five-year grant, eight California community colleges have received expert support and technical assistance to help recruit and retain women into technology programs where they are under-represented. The Project was highlighted by NSF in 2009 for demonstrating significant achievement and program effectiveness.
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WomenTech Project
The WomenTech Project was a three-year effort funded by NSF in which IWITTS worked collaboratively with three community college demonstration sites -- the Community College of Rhode Island, North Harris Community College District in Houston, Texas and the College of Alameda in Alameda, California -- to help them increase the number of females enrolled and retained in technology programs. The best practices from the WomenTech Project are captured on the Best Practices CD.
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School-to-Work: Women in Science, Engineering & Math Project
In a joint effort with the North Carolina School-to-Work Office and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and funded by NSF, IWITTS produced an interactive teacher training video that it has since used in hundreds of national and statewide WomenTech Workshops, training thousands of educators on how to recruit and retain women and girls in technology occupations. Educators can use the Educators Toolkit, which includes the Preparing Young Women for Tech Careers video, to conduct their own workshops.
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New Workplace for Women Project
This project provided intensive customized technical assistance to eight employers and unions on the recruitment integration and retention of women in traditionally male-dominated careers, with an emphasis on Latinas. Employers ranged from police and fire departments to a cable company. IWITTS collaborated with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and two NCLR affiliates -- Chicanos Por La Causa in Tucson, Arizona and Youth Development, Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Funding for the 18-month demonstration project was provided through the United States Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, and the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training.
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Cisco Learning Institute Gender Initiative
IWITTS partnered with Cisco to increase the number of females in Cisco Networking Academy Programs. IWITTS developed a majority of the domestic best practice portion of the Cisco Learning Institute Gender Initiative website content. In addition, IWITTS led online focus groups with Academy instructors, prepared case study profiles of 11 best practice sites, prepared profiles of 12 female role models and presented at three Cisco conferences.
National Institute of Justice Project
The Law Enforcement Environmental Assessment Tools (LEEAT) enables police departments to self-monitor workplace issues. The questions featured in the LEEAT Tools were based on an extensive review of the literature on women in policing and secondarily on women in the military and sexual harassment research. The first generation of the LEEAT Tools was field-tested in the Tucson and Albuquerque Police Departments with a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The final version of the LEEAT Tools was field-tested in the Albuquerque, New Mexico and Durham, North Carolina Police Departments with partial funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under the "Women in Policing: Assessing the Work Environment" grant.
