The CalWomenTech Project has assisted eight community college technology programs to recruit more women into their programs. After two and a half years of participation for the first cohort of colleges and one and a half to two years for the second cohort, six of the eight colleges have had increases in female enrollment.
What recruitment strategies did the colleges implement? Watch IWITTS Executive Director Donna Milgram discuss these strategies and the results, and read on to find out.
Recruitment Results
Recruitment Strategy Highlights
Recruitment Tools for Your Program
CalWomenTech Project Recruitment Results
As of spring 2010, these sites had the greatest gains in percentage of female students:
- San Diego Mesa College's Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program reached its highest percentage of female students in summer and fall 2008 soon after implementing the required recruitment strategies, 52.4% and 50% respectively (an increase of 15%.) Between spring 2008 and spring 2010, the aggregate recruitment rate leveled out to 43.3% (still an 8.7% increase). In advanced GIS courses, the average gain stayed even higher over time. The percentage of women went from a baseline of 31.5% to an aggregate of 42.7% through spring 2010, an increase of 11.2%.
- City College of San Francisco's Computer Networking and Information Technology (CNIT) program reached its highest percentage of female students early in the Project when it went from a baseline of 18% to 30.1% (an increase of 12%) and in spring 2010 when the average number of women enrolled went to 32.6% (an increase of almost 15%.) The aggregate enrollment rate for female students between spring 2008 and spring 2010 is 25.8% (an increase of 7.6%.) The most impressive increase occurred in the advanced courses in spring 2010, when the average number of women increased 29.7% from a baseline of 10.3% to 40%. The aggregate recruitment rate for females in advanced courses is 21.3% (a 10.9% increase.)
- Las Positas College's introductory automotive and welding technology courses went from a baseline of 5.4% to 14% (an 8.6% increase) in spring 2010. In introductory and advanced courses overall, Las Positas has seen an increase from a baseline of 5.2% to 6.4% (a small increase) with a jump in summer 2009 when the percentage of female students went to 13.3% (an increase of 8%). Any increase in the number of women in advanced courses has to start at the introductory course level. Las Positas now has a pipeline of female students that should positively impact advanced level courses in future semesters.
The other five CalWomenTech sites have had smaller increases in female students (six of eight have had some gain on average) or have not been able to implement all the recruitment strategies as planned.
The CalWomenTech Project is still in progress and final numbers will not be available until the end of summer 2011. It is expected that by the end of the Project's five years, all of the colleges will have had considerable increases in female enrollment. This page will be updated with the final results at the conclusion of the CalWomenTech Project.
CalWomenTech Recruitment Strategy Highlights
At this point in the Project, the colleges have completed three recruitment plans each -- one for each year of their involvement in the Project. Typically, each plan contained five to ten broad recruitment strategies.
What has become clear over the course of the Project is that it takes multiple strategies over time to significantly increase the percentage of female students in a program and to maintain that gain in advanced courses. It is also clear that it takes longer for trades programs to see significant successes compared to computer-related programs. While computer-oriented programs saw increases of 10% to 15% in a little more than a year, trades-focused programs didn't see significant gains in enrollment for two years.
The Steps to Successful Recruiting
Each of the eight CalWomenTech colleges committed to certain recruitment strategies at the outset, such as identifying female role models and obtaining photos and quotes to use in role model posters, brochures, flyers and a dedicated website section for women interested in the program. These four starter strategies -- with a few additions -- acted as template strategies that the colleges could all work on implementing right away to essentially build their own outreach and recruitment toolkits for use throughout the life of the Project and beyond. Other strategies employed by all eight colleges included a press strategy using template press releases provided by IWITTS, holding a career event or open house dedicated to their targeted program(s) and a role model banner to bring to events and hang on campus.
This collection of recruitment strategies using templated materials were introduced to the colleges at the WomenTech Training that kicked off the Project. The training also included development of a recruitment strategic plan. The recruitment plan was updated and revised each year to include the strategies that worked best in the previous year and brand new strategies.
Recruitment Strategies
Here are the starter recruitment strategies used by all the colleges and turned into customizable templates by IWITTS in the Outreach Kit for use by all educators:
- Posters featuring female role models.
- A website section devoted to recruiting women into the college's targeted technology program.
- Flyers, a brochure and a PowerPoint presentation.
Here are some of the categories that the recruitment strategies from the college plans fall into:
- In-reach strategies (e.g. targeting counselors)
- Career event/course strategies (e.g. an open house for women)
- Marketing collateral strategies (e.g. Women in Technology banner)
- Outreach strategies (e.g. targeting a feeder high school)
- Press strategies (e.g. getting press on your open house for women)
- Web strategies (e.g. Facebook)
Take a look at these college-specific case studies in our Proven Practices Collection:
- San Diego Mesa College Case Study
- City College of San Francisco Case Study
- Las Positas College Case Study
Recruitment Tools for Your Program
What are some ways you can recreate the CalWomenTech Project recruitment strategies and success at your school?
An important part of the CalWomenTech Project is taking the successful recruitment materials that worked within the Project and disseminating them to educators across the country. Here are solutions you can use to recreate the CalWomenTech Project recruitment strategies and success at your school:
- Women in Technology Outreach Kit – A set of customizable templates for the recruitment collateral and website.
- Female Role Model Posters - These large, colorful poster sets present inspirational female role models. Choose from the trades & technology series or engineering series.
- Female Role Model Screensaver – This one-of-a-kind screensaver displays a rotating photo gallery of female role models working in trades and technology.
- Women in Technology and Trades Banners – These eye-catching large-size banners will attract female students to your information tables at recruitment events.
- WomenTech Educators Training – You can experience the same training provided to the CalWomenTech colleges by bringing IWITTS to your school or by attending the training IWITTS holds in the San Francisco Bay Area several times a year.
The CalWomenTech Project is funded by The Program for Research on Gender in Science and Engineering from The National Science Foundation - Grant no. 0533564
