NCWIT: Extension Services

Departments can partner with Extension Services through a two-year customized consultation model focused on increasing women’s participation in undergraduate programs through the development and implementation of a strategic recruitment and retention plan. Using a research-based systemic change model, ES consultants work with departmental committees to develop a strategic recruitment and retention plan in the first year of the partnership and to implement the plan during the second year. Evaluation activities occur throughout the consultation process as well as analysis of trends in the department’s enrollment, retention, and graduation data. As a result of the departmental committee’s work with a designated ES consultant and their collective utilization of ES’s research-based approaches and resources, measurable short and long-term results are produced, and sustainable departmental culture change is positively influenced. 

•  NCWIT’s Extension Services for Undergraduate Programs (ES-UP) has guided 129 academic computing departments in undergraduate systemic change efforts. The earliest participants now significantly raise the mean percentage in degrees awarded to women nationally: in 2019, they awarded 15% of all U.S. CS bachelor’s degrees (men and women), but 17% of degrees awarded to women

Departments of computing participating in Extension Services’s consulting model receive the following benefits:

• A dedicated Extension Services Consultant who works with the departmental committee to set goals; effectively use NCWIT resources and tools; and develop, implement, and evaluate a strategic recruitment and retention plan.
• Guidance for analyzing trends in the department’s enrollment, retention, and graduation data provided to NCWIT through an online Tracking Tool.
• Assistance in administering the NCWIT Entry Survey, an evaluation tool to identify factors influencing students to declare a computing major or take an introductory course. 

Participating departments are required to submit a report describing the committee’s activities and evaluation results during each year of the partnership as well as a final outcomes report within one year of the conclusion of the consulting period. Departmental representatives are also expected to participate in an evaluation interview with Extension Services’s external evaluator.