The Proceedings of ISECON 2000: §701    Home    Papers/Indices    prev (§700)    Next (§740)     Paper (refereed)     Women and Minorities in Computing Recommended Citation: Thomas, M and S N Vest.  Bridging the Supply and Demand Gap in IT: Strategies for the Recruitment and Retention of Women and Minorities.  In The Proceedings of ISECON 2000, v 17 (Philadelphia): §701.

Bridging the Supply and Demand Gap in IT: Strategies for the Recruitment and Retention of Women and Minorities

Sharon N. Vest    [a1] [a2]
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama    [u1] [u2]
Mobile, Alabama, USA    [c1] [c2]

Research eliminates any doubt that women are as prepared and capable of succeeding in IT as men. To meet our future technology work force demands, we must attract more students into the field of technology, both male and female. Statistical projections suggest that if equal representation could be achieved, our critical IT shortage problem would be significantly relieved; therefore study must continue until equality of representation exits. Two major focus points exist in achieving equal representation: (1) the recruitment of females to major in technology disciplines; and (2) the retention of females in the technology disciplines, once the initial choice is made. This paper will present the efforts of two universities toward these goals of recruiting and retention.

Keywords: women, minorities, recruitment, retention, internship

Read this refereed paper in Adobe Portable Document (PDF) format. (158 K bytes)
Preview this refereed paper in Plain Text (TXT) format. (23 K bytes)

photo/graphic

gif

12 K bytes

Sharon N. Vest

Comments and corrections to
webmaster@isedj.org