Our Philosophy
What does chocolate have to do with computing? Ask the members of OSU’s ACMW chapter and they’ll tell you, chocolate is absolutely critical to the success of their student organization.
When a small but energetic band of computer science students at OSU started an ACMW chapter in 2003, they were determined to make it a different kind of Computer Science club. By focusing on the key principles of diversity and celebration, the ACMW chapter at OSU has grown swiftly to include more than 80 members: male and female. As one female student remarks, “I think it is WONDERFUL that we have so many guys involved in ACM-W at OSU… one of the best things that we did was attract a very diverse membership body.
Very little about the ACMW chapter at OSU is formal or traditional. In addition to the officer positions required by the national committee, anyone who wants to be in charge of something can have their own special title (speaker board, social coordinator, etc). Our refreshments include chocolate, popcorn and Chinese food (as opposed to the usual pizza). Most of our meetings have no formal agenda. Yet we’ve managed to host speakers and tours and even invent a new game we call ‘computer jenga’ [see free stuff to do].
Being different has worked for us. Our enthusiasm is infectious, and our success has drawn attention and financial support from the college administration as well as other student groups.
THE FIRST THREE MONTHS
We spent the bulk of our first quarter just getting organized. We had to figure out how to do meetings, how to get money, and how to get along with other student organizations.
Meetings:
We don't have a regular meeting schedule, but we probably meet 2-3 times a quarter. Most students indicated that they'd be happy with one meeting a quarter, but I usually prod them into a couple more get-togethers. Personally, I don't think that a student can derive a feeling of affiliation from only getting together once every 3-4 months.
So, each quarter we have at least one general meeting for everyone, and usually features some sort of activity like a movie or game. Then we also have a couple meetings of just the executive council. The officer meetings are more organizational and oriented towards planning and dealing with chapter business.
A major challenge is finding a time for everyone to meet. Some of our members have families and children. Some have demanding jobs. All have crazy class schedules. Lately, we've found that early evening -- just between school/work and home time -- is the best time to catch a critical mass of members.
Funding:
Funding can be used to offset the costs of bringing in guest speakers, buying food for meetings, sending students to off campus events, purchasing videos, establishing awards, etc.
How we earn:
Our budget is based on what we can get for funding. The university student organization resource center gives every student group $500 and anything else we want to do, we have to go look under sofa cushions for spare change.
That said, we do have one really good reliable way of fundraising. Our faculty and staff accumulate a lot of textbooks from publishers. These are old editions or evaluation copies that weren't selected for use in our curriculum. We ask the faculty to donate those to us, and we sell them on half.com. It's not a lot of work, and we made almost $500 in six months. The biggest aggravation is finding space to store all the books until they're sold.We also get support from the CSE department Diversity initiative, which is funded by the GE Faculty for the Future Fund.
How we spend:
We used a big contribution from CSE Diversity to send four members to the SIGCSE conference in Norfolk, VA in March, 2004. We'll use the same fund again in October, 2004 to send women to the Grace Hopper Conference.
Insofar as food goes, we try to distinguish ourselves from other clubs (that typically serve pizza) by providing a higher quality snack or meal. I often pick up a chocolate cheesecake (or anything, actually with chocolate in it) and we've eaten sub sandwiches, Chinese and Mexican. I made 'death by chocolate' once with brownies, double choc ice cream, and fudge sauce. It's not a lot more expensive than pizza, and the students think it's cool to have something special.
We also had a semi-formal dinner (at Houlihans) to salute our exiting officers and welcome our incoming officers. Both sets of officers prepared gifts for their counterparts to honor them.
Activities:
Free stuff to do:
Computer Jenga - the students completely dismantle a poor unsuspecting PC, bit by bit, in turns. The computer is usually donated by a student or faculty member. Before each component is removed, the PC is powered off, then afterwards, powered back on to see how much of the boot routine will run. If the monitor shows that any part of the boot program runs, then another student removes a component. The loser is the person who removes a component so critical that the PC won't boot any more -- thus, the "Jenga".
This is fun because it effectively eliminates any fear that a computer may be a fragile or threatening piece of hardware. It also gives the faculty sponsor (and the other students!) the opportunity to talk about what the value of each computer piece is.
Cheap stuff to do:
Make your own ACM-W t-shirt - a purely social event where we all got together with iron on transfers, ribbon, paint and beads. Students brought some of their own material, but I provided the iron-ons. Popular images were the ACMW logo, stylized printed circuit boards and snarky cartoons showing women using computers. Since we planned to wear the t-shirts later for a Bowling Night, one women very elaborately wrote "ACMW - Bowling without Balls" on the back of her shirt. It was pretty irreverent and a good time.
Collaboration with other student groups:
OSU's CSE department has several student organizations to meet every imaginable computer interest. We did, and still do have a regular ACM student chapter. When we first started our chapter there was intense scrutiny on the part of these other groups. Many sent representatives to our meetings to see what we were doing and how we were organized.
Naturally, there was also a fair amount of curiosity about why an organization to benefit women in computing was necessary. There was concern about 'affirmative action' and exclusive benefits. I think that it would have been easy to feel intimidated by all the attention, but our founding officers were tremendously charismatic and positive.
We adopted an attitude of extreme openness (which we felt was in parity with the goals of changing the culture of computing). We invited faculty, men and women to our meetings. We invited questions and contributions from everyone. In short order, the faculty, department administration, and the students (even the officers of the ACM chapter) responded, and gave us support and encouragement. The student chapter of UPE offered to help us get through our first year by sharing their funding with us. The ACM student chapter shares their office space with us.
THE FIRST SIX MONTHS
Once our fundamental processes were in place, we felt comfortable inviting other students to be a part of our club. [read more...]
THE FIRST YEAR
We tried to do some new things and we tried some old things done differently. [read more...]
For the latest on OSU's ACM-W student chapter, please visit us at http://acmw.org.ohio-state.edu
For detailed information on ACM-W, please visit our web site at http://women.acm.org/
Last updated by Bettina Bair, 07/12/2004