by, for, and about women in science, technology, engineering, & math

Business Week has a great article on Maria Klawe, Harvey Mudd college president, who has more than tripled the number of women in CS at the school since taking the job in 2006. She revamped the computer science curriculum, splitting what had previously been one introductory course into three (which I think is a great idea — I’ve written before about my experience in introductory CS), one for beginners, one for programmers with some experience, and one designed for (non-computer) scientists. Maybe this is the beginning of a new trend, and we’ll see other CS departments revamping their curricula over the next few years. I hope so — making CS more accessible as a major to a variety of students is a benefit, of course, but it’s also great to teach non-CS students some of the basics of computing, since it’s nearly impossible to avoid using computers in your work in some capacity.

ThinkProgress reports a heartening statistic: the increase in the number of women getting doctoral degrees over the past 30 years. The article suggests that this could mean more female professors for girls entering college in the near future, but unfortunately, as a commenter points out, women drop out of the STEM pipeline at every level, and an increase in women getting doctorates translates into a much smaller increase in women taking roles as professors. Still, it’s a promising trend!