10 STEM Success for Women Case Studies by Career Pathway

Find out how 10 community colleges dramatically improved enrollment and retention of women in STEM/CTE Courses in a year or less

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CASE STUDY #1

Information Technology Case Study

WomenTech Online Bootcamp

How a Hispanic-Serving Institution Increased Female Enrollment in IT & CS by 77 Women in 1 Year

College:

Broward College, FL

Michelle Levine

Interim District Director of Faculty Development, Broward College, FL

"In a year’s time, we had increased female enrollment in our IT & CS Department from 149 to 226 female students and male enrollment had also increased from 751 to 1009 male students. Since then, it has grown organically and blossomed into something that our college just does naturally.”

Recruitment & Retention Results (Female, Male & URMs)

Urban

Hispanic-Serving Institution

CASE STUDY #2

Automotive Technology Pre-Apprenticeship Case Study

How CCSF’s automotive pre-apprenticeship program went from 0 to 7 women in 2.5 months

College:

City College of San Francisco, CA

Monique Forster Pascual

Director of Apprenticeship & Instructional Service Agreements, Workforce Development, City College of San Francisco, CA

"There was a big difference in how we recruited for our 1st cohort of Pre-Apprentices—which had no women—and our 2nd cohort that had 7."

Recruitment & Retention Results (Female & URMs)

Urban

Includes Role Model Profiles

CASE STUDY #3

Emerging Technologies Case Study

WomenTech Online Training

How a Program Chair Increased Female Enrollment by 82% with Zero Budget

College:

Athens Technical College, GA

Mark Evans

Program Chair and Instructor, Emerging Technologies, Athens Technical College, GA

"We now have more women in the program than we thought would be possible. We were able to go from only 1 female student to 15 in an Emerging Technologies course the very next semester after the training. A year later, we awarded almost half of our 43 Video Game Design & Development certificates to women. In fact, we're one of the programs that actually got off Perkins' Naughty List for not having enough women represented in the program because we were able to start meeting our goals."

Recruitment Results (Female & Male)

Serving Rural & Urban Counties

CASE STUDY #4

Welding Case Study

WomenTech Online Bootcamp

9 Women Enrolled in Welding in Only 4 Weeks: How MATC Finally Moved the Needle

College:

Milwaukee Area Technical College, WI

Sue Silverstein

Welding Instructor, School of Technical & Applied Sciences, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Oak Creek, WI

"We recruited 9 new women to Welding in only 4 weeks after participating in a WomenTech Educators Training. Before the training, if we had 3 women in Welding it was like hitting a homerun."

Recruitment & Retention Results (Female)

Urban

Includes Role Model Profiles

About IWITTS

The National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS) has been helping educators nationwide close the gender gap for women and girls in technology since 1994. IWITTS provides tools, resources, and professional development for educators to help them broaden female participation in STEM and CTE programs where they are underrepresented.

To discuss what type of professional development would be the best fit for your school, region or state please Contact Us. Visit our website at www.iwitts.org.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. 1400531. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.