by Donna Milgram
Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science
Would you like to have women in your classes but you find that they just don't
sign up? Did you once have a female student but she dropped out after the first
class? Do you have a few female students but you want more? If you answered
yes to any of the above questions, the WomenTech Best Practices CD is for you.
Finally, the tools you've been waiting for: a step-by-step guide chock full
of winning strategies for recruiting and retaining women into your school's
technology programs. Based on the successful National Science Foundation WomenTech
Project, this attractive, colorful, multi-media CD has tips, real-life examples
and sample materials to help you quickly enhance your own recruitment and retention
activities. There's even ten minutes of video footage of a Women Tech Career
Expo, and lots of photos throughout.
Why reinvent the wheel? The three-year WomenTech Project has pulled together
strategies that work from its three community college demonstration sites: Community College of Rhode Island, North Harris Community College District in Houston, College of Alameda. Use
these time-tested tactics to boost your own school's recruitment and retention
of women in technology. You'll easily navigate through the user-friendly CD,
that works like a website, to develop a blueprint for your own school. The
five sections - Recruitment, Retention, Employers, Institutionalization and
Institutional Assessment - each contain how-to advice and sample materials you
can easily tailor to fit your own school's needs.
Product features:
- Colorful, multimedia format you can navigate just like a website.
- Rich menu of recruitment strategies your school can select from, along with
more than 50 examples of recruitment brochures, flyers, agendas, news articles,
web pages and college catalogs.
- Real examples of press coverage for women in technology events at our demonstration
sites - plus, tips and tools for getting free coverage for your own school.
- Simple ways to leverage your school's internal media to promote women in
technology - with examples of how it's been done.
- Video footage and photos of a Women in Technology Career Expo attended by
over 100 women - and help with developing your own.
- How to use high school recruitment strategies to ensure you'll attract more women to
tech programs.
- Useful tools to help students bridge the digital divide, including a bibliography
and syllabus to help you develop a tech-readiness course.
- Powerful retention strategies that help women in technology feel less alone,
including clubs, mentoring, websites, online discussion boards and e-mail
newsletters.
- Pointers to make sure your efforts to get and keep women in technology are
woven into the fabric of your school.
- A handy checklist to assess how your school is doing with recruiting and
retaining women.
Testimonials
"As one of WomenTech's demonstration sites, we used many
of the tools in this CD to successfully develop women-friendly practices. As
a result, we've already doubled the numbers of women in our targeted technical
areas! This CD pulls together the project's learnings about recruitment and
retention of women into a complete and easy-to-use toolset. You won't find this
kind of information anywhere else. I highly recommend this CD to anyone who
is serious about attracting more women into technology education."
-
Dr. Peter Woodberry, Dean, Business and Technology, Community College of Rhode Island
"We take great pride in recruiting and retaining women
in our technology programs here at CCSN. In fact, we've already successfully
implemented many of the strategies we learned in your workshop two years ago.
But the ideas and examples in your new CD show us we can go much further - I
can't wait to share this valuable resource with our faculty and staff!"
- Warren Hioki, Associate Dean, Community College of Southern Nevada
"The "Best Practices" CD is
GREAT!!!! I especially liked the Free Press Coverage section because it provided
valuable insights - and actual examples - of how I can get the exposure we need
for our own high school technology programs. You did a great job pulling this
all together!"
- Joanne Trombley, Technology Education Teacher, West Chester Area
School District, West Chester, PA, and President, Technology Education Association
of Pennsylvania
Pricing - WomenTech Best Practices CD
