The Committee was established in 1993 to determine why the number of MIT women students who elect to major in electrical engineering or computer science seems lower that what would be expected from the demographics of the MIT undergraduate student body. The committee charge was contained in a letter from the department head dated April 23, 1993:
The number of women undergraduates who major in EECS is considerably smaller than what would be expected from the population of women students at MIT. In Fall 1992, for example, women comprised about 33% of the MIT undergraduates, about 29% of the undergraduates in the School of Engineering, and about 19% of the EECS undergraduates (21% in VI-1 and 16% in VI-3). . .
I would like to know why this is so. Is this a nationwide phenomenon, characteristic of EE or CS? Is it because the department is seen as inhospitable or uninviting? Does it have anything to do with the culture at the various interdepartmental laboratories? Is there a correlation with technical domain? (It is said that a higher percentage of women follow our bioengineering option.) Is it related to the way that 6.001 is taught? Is it a function of the MIT admission criteria? What can be said about the root cause? Are there particular actions that we can take to affect things? You can probably think of other pertinent questions. Perhaps the initial focus should be on computer science rather than electrical engineering, to the extent that these two can be separated.
The committee issued its final report on February 17, 1995, and then disbanded.
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Modified: Dec 31, 1998|
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