Targets for Hiring Female Faculty in Computing

What is the Action?

Set targets for hiring female staff at a computing faculty.

Quick Facts to Support this Action

• Gender balanced faculty attracts female student applicants;

Female faculty can serve as role models to students. Teachers and older students are the most mentioned role models in computing education, as they contribute to and work on breaking down stereotypes and barriers for students from underrepresented gender groups.

• Achieving a gender balance at the faculty level contributes to the overall gender balance at the institutional level, which is likely to be encouraged by local policy makers.

Ways to Implement this Action

Change needs to happen at the policy level, depending on the processes involved at an institution to set hiring targets.

How will it look when implemented?

Enhanced gender balance at the faculty will be evident, depending on targets set.

Evaluation Approach

While the most effective way to see impact of this action is to see gender balance among staff’s and students’ recruitment and retention numbers in the years following this action, there is no easy or quick way measure the results after the targets are set. TU Dublin’s SUCCESS initiative focussed on not only gender balance among its CS staff, but also on support and career development of female staff at the faculty. Champions from this initiative assessed impact by answering three questions:

• Are we recruiting female staff in sufficient numbers?
• Are female academics succeeding in our School?
• Are we retaining female academics in our School?

Additionally, the initiative recommends to run a staff satisfaction survey to support the evidence of its success.