The Communities I Am a Part Of

Just yesterday, I, along with the otherWomenNC scholars, had the opportunity to attend a luncheon at the North Carolina Executive Mansion where we connected with the broader WomenNC community of mentors, advisors, and advocates. Inside the North Carolina Executive Mansion, I was awestruck at the well-coordinated interior furniture, the monogrammed silverware, and the tradition woven into every aspect of the building. More important than the elegant staircase and delicious butternut squash soup, I felt the wonder of the WomenNC community of diverse individuals all in the fight for gender equality. I learned of the generations of WomenNC scholars before me as well as every individual's dedication, from years to decades long, to the cause. Additionally, from chatting with my fellow WomenNC scholars, I am driven by their thoughtfulness and courage in pursuing gender equality, across women in executive leadership positions to menstrual hygiene products in public universities. In this community of fellows, I am empowered to research and advocate for gender equality in my own area - Computer Science (CS) education.

More specifically, I am deeply engaged with CS education in Durham. As I continue to mentor middle school students with marginalized identities after school in mobile app development, I am interested in the access and pedagogy of in-school CS education, with a special focus on the representation of women and students of color. After speaking with local Durham CS teachers, I am aggregating and analyzing trends from conversations to provide a high-level overview of CS education within Durham. As a student in a local university, I am immensely cognizant and thoughtful of the complexities of the Durham community and my position of privilege within it. While speaking to Durham CS teachers, I have prepared an interview sheet of questions to insure that I ensure that I am valuing their time in proper ways, for they have one of the most interesting and important jobs in our society - self-empowering our future citizens and leaders.

Today, I am feeling an immense sense of gratitude for two communities - WomenNC and Durham. Both of these communities have such unique gifts and challenges that I hope to contribute to and leverage for positive change.

A couple days ago, the middle school students who I teach were learning about algorithms. Using their knowledge about algorithms, they made squares, circles, smiley faces, and stick figures by coding for specific commands. My middle school students, mostly students of color and both female and male identifying, each took unique and creative approaches toward coding for such images. In that faded yellow classroom with large windows to the tall oak trees, I felt the indescribable pain of knowing that tech has left so many talented individuals behind and will continue to do so.

North Carolina is prized for Research Triangle Park (RTP) as a hub for high-growth tech innovation and research. However, RTP, in its rapid growth, has left behind the individuals that make up a large proportion of North Carolina's population, women and women of color. This semester, I am looking forward to researching more on how to incentivize technology companies to improve their recruitment, retainment, and promotion of women, especially women of color. 

As a woman highly involved in tech, I have realized the population of NC tech companies are not reflective of the middle school students in my classrooms. Tech is heavily gendered, but, at its core, it exists as a neutral tool to solve individual and societal problems. For my research, I hope to focus on the structures within tech companies that lead to disproportionately low numbers of women, and even lower numbers of women of color, who apply for positions, stay within their roles, and move up to senior positions. 

Tech doesn't have to leave individuals like my middle school students behind. To actively include all individuals, tech companies need to do better in actively conspiring for gender and racial diversity. Through my research, I am looking forward to working with NC citizens and tech companies to make tech a more equitable space for all of us.