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Background:
IWITTS was awarded a $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Award to fund the
CalWomenTech Project in April of 2006. Through this five-year grant, California community colleges receive
expert support and technical assistance to help recruit and retain women into technology programs
where they are under-represented.
Eight California community colleges were selected in a competitive process to receive free intensive
CalWomenTech training and assistance on recruiting and retaining women in technology programs
in which they are under-represented, for approximately 3 years. Our focus is terminal associate degrees or certificates in programs with jobs that are high skill and high wage, and have a strong connection to employers and local labor market demand with an emphasis on emerging industries.
The Project is being highlighted by NSF for demonstrating significant achievement and program effectiveness following an expert panel review at the three year mark in December 2008 to the Committee for Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Performance Assessment, where it has also been very well received.
CalWomenTech Core Strategies:
Tried and true strategies to increase the number of women in CalWomenTech Community College Sites' technology programs and retain
them, based on "proven" methods. Our strategies are surefire, easy-to-implement and sites can start
to see results the very next semester. See our WomenTech Proven Practices Library to view the research our
work is based on, in addition to our successful track record with community colleges in our national
WomenTech Project.
Recruitment Assistance: We develop recruitment posters, flyers (see example on the right), brochures and a PowerPoint Presentation
featuring female role models from the site's college as well as a CalWomenTech section of each college's
website - both the website content and design (see example on the right).
We provide "free" WomenTech Training on "how to" recruit and retain women and the sites develop
a detailed plan with a timeline as part of the workshop. We have been providing this training on
a fee basis for over 10 years throughout the US and we've worked in 42 of the 50 states.
Sites receive $2,000 worth of software from our CalWomenTech Learning Library that enables
them to assist students in developing technology building block skills in areas such as spatial relations and math that will increase their retention in the classroom.
Sites develop a CalWomenTech Leadership team of ten key players that enables them to showcase
their technology program throughout the College. Leadership team members receive a stipend of
$500 yearly. Leadership Team members travel to come to a Project Partner meeting in the Bay Area annually to meet jointly with the other community colleges in the Project, to share strategies and receive joint training. Find out more about the first Project Partner Meeting, held on September 19, 2008.
We provide on-site WomenTech training, technical assistance and on-line webinars and podcasts on specialty topic areas such as "how to" develop curriculum examples that appeal
to female learning style and interests or how spatial reasoning software has increased retention of
female engineering students. Each CalWomenTech site will receive stipends for adjunct faculty to participate
as an incentive.
Female students have access to our online community of womentechworld.org and we focus
on each site's program career areas. WomenTechWorld.Org includes e-mentoring, e-jobs job board and
WomenTechTalk email listserv with over 500 members.
IWITTS Brings National Expertise To Your Tech Program:
The CalWomenTech Project is IWITTS's second grant working with community colleges to increase
the number of women in technology, and our third National Science Foundation (NSF) grant.
Other successful projects have included The Cisco Gender Initiative and we have worked extensively
nationally with NSF Advanced Technology Education Centers in Community Colleges. We have been
conducting WomenTech Training nationally on a fee basis for over ten years. Click Here for More Information on Project Expertise
Project Timeline:
This is a 5-year Project that will end in April 2011.
CalWomenTech Community College Sites:
The first four CalWomenTech community colleges that were brought on board in June 2006 are:
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City College of San Francisco Computer Networking and Information Technology Program, with a focus on the new Digital Home Integration Technology certification
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San Diego Mesa College's Geographic Information Systems program
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Caņada College's new 3-D Animation and Video Game Art Program
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El Camino College's Air Conditioning Refrigeration program
The second set of colleges, brought on board in December 2007 are:
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Evergreen Valley College's new Hybrid-Alternative Fuel Program
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Irvine Valley College's Electronic Technology Program
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Las Positas College's Welding and Automotive Programs
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San Jose City College's Facilities Maintenance Technology Program
Read More about Each College's Program
CalWomenTech Project Goals Ensuring an Effective Project:
The primary goal of the CalWomenTech Project is to increase the number of women enrolled and retained in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education in the 8 selected CalWomenTech community colleges.
Read more about our goals
Ensuring an Effective Project: our Total Quality Management Model
We've built a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach directly into this project. Throughout the project, we ask for, and incorporate, feedback about our services from our community college team members to make sure we're on track.
Read more
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The CalWomenTech Project is Funded by The Program for Research on Gender in Science and Engineering from The National Science Foundation - Grant no. 0533564
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