Grantmaking

We offer two types of grants to colleges and universities committed to improving the representation of women graduating with computing degrees.

• Best Practice Grants fund the implementation of evidence-based approaches that have been shown to quickly and significantly increase the representation of women in computing.
• Data Grants fund the collection of key institutional and demographic data and are designed for schools seeking to develop a better understanding of where they are losing and gaining students.

Technical Assistance

We collaborate with participating colleges and universities during the application process and throughout implementation. To do this, the Center deploys Technical Advisors who have overseen or participated in designing and implementing best practices to broaden undergraduate student representation. They are nationally recognized computing faculty who remain on hand throughout the life of the grant to support planning, implementation, and data analysis.

Data Analysis

Collecting data for diagnostic and evaluation purposes is a critical aspect of the work and every grantee participates. We seek to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of underrepresented groups in computing at each institution. To do so, we track:

• Student enrollment and persistence and faculty/TA support in introductory CS courses.
• Term-to-term retention and graduation of computing majors.
• Gender and race/ethnicity of all students.