Increasing women's participation in computing at Harvey Mudd College (Alvarado et al., 2012)The shortage of women and minorities in computer science (CS) is well documented. Data from CRA Taulbee surveys over the last decade indicate that women’s representation in CS at the undergraduate level peaked in the mid-80s at around 37%, and has fallenand remained low since then, currently standing at around 14%. Although success stories exist, few colleges and universities are realizing substantial, sustained changes. Harvey Mudd College (HMC), a small liberal-arts college with a focus on science and engineering, is an exception to this trend. Starting 7 years ago, HMC has increased the percentage of women students in the computer science major from an average near 12% to around 40%, where it has remained steady for the past four years. This percentage is close to the overall percentage of women at HMC, which has been a little over 40% in the same four-year period. This paper details three changes made that led to this growth in the hope that they might help broaden participation at other institutions. We describe the obstacles overcome and lessons learned, and we present specific results and recommendations for adapting them to different environments
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