The square maze on the computer screen had a “Start” and a “Finish” clearly designated. What it didn’t have was computer code that would tell the flashing icon how to traverse around corners and down corridors to solve the puzzle.
The job of generating that code belonged to 17-year-old Abbigail Stoops, a senior at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs.
Stoops leaned back in her chair and with a confident click of the computer mouse added a line of codethat spurred the icon down a narrow hallway. The blinking icon came to a stop at a corner, awaiting Stoops’ next programming code to make a right turn.
Stoops was one of 60 students at the school and more than 16 million nationwide who participated last month in an initiative by Code.org called “Hour of Code.” Students committed to a full hour of completing programs and tutorials supplied by Code.org, a national nonprofit organization that partners with industry and education leaders to take computer science into thenation’s classrooms.
The result was the creation of more than 600 million lines of code - some written by students who had never been exposed to computer science before.
About 51 percent of the participants were female, a key objective by Code.org for the project.
Statistics for women in the computer science education and career fields are daunting, according to a recent study by Change the Equation, a national nonprofit organization that works to improve learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which are known as the STEM subjects.
In its “Code Red” report released last month, Change the Equation reported that in 2012, women were awarded only 18 percent of the computing degrees in the nation - a significant dip from 36 percent in 1983. Specific numbers were not included.
Arkansas is only slightly above the national average, with about 22 percent - 145 out of 655 - of women earning four-year computing degrees in 2013, according to a report issued by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. When it comes to associates degrees and technical certificates earned in Arkansas, the numbers are higher, at 26 percent - 84 out of 323.
Of those Arkansans earning bachelor’s degrees or higher in computer science, only 18.4 percent - 61 of 332 - were women. Of the state’s six doctorates in computer science issued in 2013, none were given to women. In fact, in the past three years covered by the report, only one woman has earned a doctorate in computer science.
EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK
That gender gap follows into the computer-science employment field. Nationally, women hold only 863,000 - 24 percent - of the nation’s 3.6 million computing jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
In fact, that agency lists the computer industry as one of the three industries with the smallest percentage of total employed women - only above the mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction, and construction fields.
Arkansas industry representatives say the state falls in line with the national statistics.
Only 15 percent of the programmers and analysts - 10 out of 66 - at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock are women. About 33 percent - 40 of 120 - of the computer programmers at Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield are women.
Tim McKenna, director of talent acquisition at Acxiom, said the percentage of women software engineers and other computer-related jobs at Acxiom closely follows national statistics.
Acxiom has dedicated college scholarships and internships for women in technology majors. It sponsors campus and professional clubs dedicated to women in computing, and partners with feeder universities to hold summer information technology camps for high school students. Also, the company encourages its female computing professionals to speakto college classes.
The gender imbalance comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Labor counts computer science as the fastest-growing employment field in the nation.
According to Labor Department statistics, there are 1.7 open computing jobs for every employed computer-science professional. By 2020, it is projected that computing jobs will grow to 1.4 million openings, a 22 percent increase.
Max Greenwood, manager of public policy issues and congressional relations with Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, said the company has a high retention rate for its computer programmers, but the firm has had to use independent contractors from outside Arkansas.
“We do foresee a growth in computer programming needs for our company, as well as for most companies, as technology becomes more integrated into most facets of corporate activities,” Greenwood said.
Donna Chachere, a development systems analyst/ programmer at UAMS, said her programming career has been lucrative enough that as a single mother, she was able to send all three of her children to private school and pay for their college educations.
“My first grandson was born last April, and I’ve been able to spoil him. I was a divorced African-American woman with three children. I don’t think I would have been able to do all of that if I had been working in another field,” Chachere said.
Labor Department statistics place the average salary of a computer programmer at nearly $75,000 per year.
The opportunities are endless, even outside the corporate world, Chachere added. She has spent her private time developing programs for Windows phone applications. Chachere’s latest creation, Candy Crush Help, currently sells for 99 cents at a rate of about 20,000 per month.
EXPOSURE AND PERCEPTION Last month’s report by Change the Equation says the reason for gender disparity in the computer-science field simply comes down to exposure and perception.
“When you think of a computer programmer, you think of a guy alone in a room,” said Tara Moses, a senior at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts who plans to pursue a computer-science degree in college.
To Moses, there is no difference between the sexes when it comes to programming aptitude or style.
“I’m a girl and I have helped a lot of guys in programming,” she said. “Nobody has treated me differently. They’re surprised sometimes, yeah, like maybe they think I should be a nurse or a fashion designer or something.”
The “guy alone in a room” stereotype does not ring true in reality, said Ebony Buckley, an alumna of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts. She now works at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville after earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
“I’ve read a couple of surveys of women and why they don’t consider computer-science-related fields as careers, and the top, recurring answer seems to be the perception that all computer scientists do is sit hunched over keyboards all day in a dark room, isolated from other people.That could not be further from the truth,” Buckley said.
In fact, said Nicole LaDouceur, senior business systems analyst in Oregon with Nike Inc., companies are almost completely team-project-oriented now.
“Very rarely anymore is a computer programmer left in a corner all alone and left to code away and not have to deal with others. That is a myth. More often than not, you are working closely in a team towards a common goal. Learning how to deal with team dynamics and difficult people within that team in order to achieve a common goal is vital,” LaDouceur said.
OPENING DOORS EARLIER
Only 17 states in the nation accept computer science as a core math and science credit necessary for high school graduation. Arkansas is not one of them.
The state does, however, allow computer science to count as one of the six career-focus credits required for graduation under the Smart Core or Common Core programs, according to the Arkansas Department of Education.
Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts is an exception in that every student is required to complete at least one semester of computer science, with several different courses available. The school also partners with universities in the state so that students can earn concurrent high school and college credit.
“Computer science is a field that is heavily male oriented, but nothing was done intentionally to keep women out. It comes down to access,” school Director Corey Alderdice said. “Again, if we arewaiting until their freshman year in college to be exposed to computer science, it’s too late.”
Chachere said it was in elementary school at Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock that she was first introduced to computer science by one of her teachers, Sister Mary Finton Killian.
“That was my first exposure. I thought it was neat and just wonderful. She taught us to do cool things like say our name, simple math and to just have that control of the computer language,” Chachere said.
Buckley said she became interested in computer science in the eighth grade at Goza Middle School in Arkadelphia, but her first exposure was not in a school setting.
“I’ve been a lifelong gamer, and I naturally wanted to create my own. There weren’t any classes offered at my junior high, so I taught myself the basics from books and online resources,” Buckley said. “That’s a large part of the reason I was so excited to attend ASMSA since they offered AP Computer Science. It was helpful to go into those classes already being familiar with a bit of programming so that I could focus on computer science and not have to struggle with learning a computer language.”
Kenji Yoshigoe, chairman and associate professor of computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said less than 10 percent of the college’s 102 undergraduate computer-science majors are women.
Yoshigoe said lack of early exposure to computer science translates into lack of interest, which has a direct impact on the number of students pursuing computer science at the college level. Something as simple as the state allowing computer science to be counted as a math or science credit could change the trend, he said.
“Like any other field, role models are also important. We need more women who can encourage girls in their early age to get interested in the field of computer science,” Yoshigoe said.
Shane Broadway, the director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, said education, economic and political leaders in the state are committed to developing a qualified STEM workforce to meet economic needs.
Gov. Mike Beebe and his Workforce Cabinet kicked off a pilot program in 2011 with numerous initiatives aimed at increasing STEM learning opportunities and the number of college majors in those fields.
Department of Higher Education statistics show that the number of computer-science degrees issued has risen from 600 in 2011 to 655 in 2013, an increase of just more than 9 percent since the Workforce Cabinet began its push.
“It is not just a higher-education issue because you need computer people at all different levels and skills. We are trying to take a broad look at it. We are looking at programs in other states that have been successful so we can replicate them,” Broadway said.
Carl Frank, a computer-science teacher at Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts and president of the Arkansas Computer Science Teachers Association, said it is crucial that computer science be given equal treatment in the core curriculum and that students, especially women, be exposed to computing in early education.
The impact, Frank said, would be far-reaching and would benefit the students, their families and the state as a whole, regardless of the ultimate education and career path.
“Computer science and related STEM job growth could emerge as the driving factor in the state’s economic engine,” Frank said. “Computer-science education has the greatest chance of preparing students for the growing number of STEM-related jobs that are currently forecast, but we are not on track to prepare our college graduates for this growing market.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/19/2014