Learning from the Journey: A Decade of Supporting Women in Computing at a Commuter State College

Farmingdale State College (FSC) is an undergraduate institution within the State University of NY (SUNY) system located in Long Island, serving about 10,000 students where 94% are commuters, 57% are awarded financial aid, 45% are from minority populations, and 43% are women. The Computer Programming and Information Systems (CPIS) program enrollment has doubled in the past ten years reaching about 550 students but the percentage of women in the program has remained flat at 10% during the same period. This paper details the journey of initiatives to engage and retain women in the CPIS program in the past decade, analyzes the high and low periods of such activities, and examines why the high periods were not sustained.