Although the WICS group at DePauw has existed for some time, our group did not provide the kind of support our majors and minors needed. I decided we needed a change! So, we obtained the designation of a recognized organization by DePauw's student government. Therefore, we are very much akin to a new 'Women in Computing' group! I was excited to see a session about this because it is difficult to start a group. Since I am the chair of this new group (and the one who spurred all of this change!), I feel a lot of obligation to improve our group so we can improve the future of female computer scientists at DPU.
Challenges faced when creating a new group:
-What kinds of events should we have? Should we have lunches, meetings, guests speakers, or fun activities?
-How do we convince people to come to our meetings?
-How should we publicize WiCS?
-What is the goal of our group? How do we convey that goal to our members?
-How do we keep participation and membership up?
Some of these questions still haven't been answered. We are still looking for new PR opportunities and creative activities. A few ideas we came with included a hardware workshop, a mentoring program, and a high school preview/roadshow day at DePauw. We're also looking to sustain or improve our numbers. Near the end of the 06-07 school year, we would only have four or five females show up. Fortunately, at our first meeting of the year this year, we had 15-20 students and faculty attend, which was really exciting (considering we do not have large numbers of female majors in the department).
If anyone has any ideas for our WiCS group, please share them in the comments area or e-mail me at brittanymccullar_2009@depauw.edu!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
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