Promoting Women in Mathematics through Creating a Learning Community and Encouraging Double Majors

Abstract

The Mathematical Sciences Department at Shenandoah University focused on increasing the participation of women in the mathematics program by fostering a welcoming learning community and promoting double majors. Data from the past decade is presented. During this time, the program saw an increase in women undergraduate mathematics majors from 11% to as high as 71%. This paper describes the initiatives taken to make these changes.

Keywords:

• Women in mathematics
• mathematics learning community
• double majors

1. INTRODUCTION

Girls traditionally outperform boys in every level of elementary and secondary schooling in all subjects [19]. Women also obtain more than half of all undergraduate degrees in the United States [6], earning roughly 57% of all undergraduate degrees in 2019. Despite advances in women's education, women are less likely to complete degrees in STEM fields, including mathematical fields [20]. Although lower participation of women in STEM fields is common in many countries, it is not a global phenomenon [10].

Much research has been done to investigate reasons for women's under-representation in post-secondary STEM. In particular, STEM students identify gendered expectations surrounding STEM culture in higher education, which discourages women from entering or staying in STEM fields [13]. Peer interactions early in a student's education were also found to have an impact on women's decisions to pursue post-secondary STEM fields, such as computer science and engineering [15]. Women with biased peer interactions in middle school science were less likely to pursue computer science and engineering fields [15]. Further, misguided efforts to recruit women in STEM may, at times, discourage women from STEM fields. This may occur when recruiting efforts display women as distinctive or unique in STEM fields [3].

There have been initiatives to increase the participation of women in STEM fields by taking a proactive approach. These approaches include mentoring and early exposure to STEM concepts. Mentoring women in STEM, with a particular focus on providing women with women mentors [1] is beneficial at many levels. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty leaders all benefit from mentoring, and mentoring has increased the number of women in STEM fields. Another proactive approach is to expose women to STEM courses early. Initiatives include introducing STEM concepts at the elementary and middle school levels, taking AP courses at the high school level, and partaking in STEM activities outside of school. This early exposure encourages women to select STEM majors at the undergraduate level [1].

Women's occupational plans may also be a primary factor in women's decision to pursue STEM fields [20]. Women with an interest in STEM tend to pursue fields that help others and provide a sense of community [1, 20]. As such, this was a starting point for changes in recruitment made in the Mathematical Sciences Department at Shenandoah University in order to increase the number of women seeking mathematics degrees.

This paper focuses on creating a learning community to promote a sense of belonging among women in mathematics. According to the literature, students who have a sense of belonging are more likely to persist in STEM fields, and this belonging involves meaningful social interaction with peers and faculty [14]. In particular, women and underrepresented groups are more likely to succeed in STEM fields when opportunities are in place to nurture their relationships with peers [16]. The Mathematical Sciences Department at Shenandoah University has thought carefully about how to create a greater sense of connectedness and belonging in our mathematics community. With the goal of building a supportive and welcoming community of learners, we have made significant efforts to organize and engage in social activities for our students both inside and outside of the classroom.

A second focus of this paper is on recruiting students to the mathematics program by promoting double majors and interdisciplinary research projects. Recruiting existing students from additional majors allows students to investigate an interdisciplinary approach to mathematics. Interdisciplinary work can be an avenue for successful recruitment and retention of women and other underrepresented groups [7]. Interdisciplinary opportunities may occur in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, interdisciplinary research may allow women to align their STEM education with future career goals [18]. For example, San Francisco State University created an interdisciplinary minor in computing to allow students the opportunity to pair a field of interest with computing [9, 21]. The minor was highly successful in recruiting women and members of traditionally underrepresented groups and included targeted recruiting from existing biology majors. At Shenandoah University, the Mathematical Sciences Department focused on recruiting students to the mathematics program by targeting majors in health-related fields.

Shenandoah University is a small private professional liberal arts institution with approximately 2000 undergraduate students. Shenandoah University recruits a large group of students with interests in the health professions, and students are expected to complete both a major and a minor or a double major. The focus of this paper is on the mathematics program in the Mathematical Sciences Department with a typical enrollment between 12 and 20 students. The department also houses the computer science, data science, and cybersecurity programs.

The annual number of women mathematics majors increased significantly over the ten-year period from 2011–2020. In 2011, just under 12% of the mathematics majors at Shenandoah University were women and this percentage fluctuated over the next few years. In 2015, the Mathematical Sciences Department began proactively encouraging students to double major and developed events to create a welcoming learning community within the department. In 2017, the department worked to ensure systemic and sustainable change in the department. Between 2015 and 2020, women became the majority of the majors within the mathematics program, with women comprising 50–70% of majors over time. The next two sections will examine the initiatives used to change the gender distribution among mathematics majors at Shenandoah University.

2. RECRUITING MAJORS

In their efforts to recruit and retain students, the department adopted a two-prong interdisciplinary approach designed to reach students early in their college career, while continuing to pique the interest of students in upper-level coursework. At the introductory level, faculty focused on calculus students, working purposefully to connect coursework to the students' career interests. At the upper level, faculty engaged students in research projects that often involved questions/content from their second major.

Faculty in the Mathematical Sciences Department Shenandoah University encourage both new majors and some existing mathematics majors to consider double majoring. Both groups appear to enjoy the multidisciplinary approach to mathematics. The mathematics major makes up approximately one-third of a student's degree leaving sufficient room for an additional major. Faculty advisors meet with students individually to discuss their interests and potential course schedules to determine whether a double major involving mathematics is feasible. The goal is to provide a student with a clear path toward graduation and a future career. Students are not encouraged to take high course loads. For non-mathematics majors, the faculty discuss how mathematics could be useful in their originally chosen discipline and how mathematical expertise could complement or support their desired career. While not every student can or should double major, the emphasis in the advising is to determine whether it is possible without overloading a student's schedule. Hence, careful planning and collaborating are expected among faculty advisors and students.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women obtain 84% of undergraduate degrees in health professions [11]. Promoting the mathematics major as a second major helped increase the participation in the mathematics program by recruiting majors who were interested in the health professions. The two keys to success in encouraging students to consider math as a second major were showing students a potential path and discussing possible career options that aligned with their interests.

2.1. Calculus Recruitment

In 2011, only 11% of the mathematics majors were women, and Calculus was one of the first considerations for recruiting majors. The department's first Calculus course typically consists of approximately 20–25 students in a single section. Of these students, 1–2 enter as mathematics majors, 1–2 take the class out of interest, and the remaining are chemistry, biology, or exercise science majors with the intention of attending a graduate program in the health profession. The majority of these students intend to go to pharmacy school. Many students in Calculus were looking for a profession where they could make a difference, which aligns with findings from Refs [1, 20]. Tapping into the students' service-related interests, faculty members were able to demonstrate how mathematics can be used to make a positive impact on communities.

While faculty recruit students who they believe would thrive in the major, grades are not the sole consideration. Rather, faculty consider the student's level of interest and engagement. The instructor encourages students to consider mathematics as a second major or a minor during office hours, highlighting their strengths in the course. Additionally, the instructor highlights the interdisciplinary nature of mathematics and how it might pair with a student's current major.

During an initial meeting, faculty engage students in informal conversations as a starting point. If a student shows interest, more formal conversations with faculty are encouraged. These conversations typically include sharing resources, such as an article from Northeastern University [2] or the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics brochure “Careers in Applied Mathematics” [17] to show students future opportunities. Additionally, each member of the department researched potential interdisciplinary positions for mathematicians, such as meteorologist, game designers, and animators for modern films using mathematical modeling. These positions were put on a bulletin board. Copies of the positions for mathematicians are now kept in a shared digital folder to aid advisors in recruitment conversations. The conversations between faculty and students include all members of the department and are reinforced with various interactions outside of class and through advising.

Additionally, Calculus is taught from a multidisciplinary lens to encourage interest in mathematics. Instructors incorporate biological, chemical, and health-related applications of calculus. Stewart's Biocalculus textbook [4] is used as a reference, and the book provides interesting interdisciplinary problems for students to explore. The benefits of a multidisciplinary approach to STEM fields are documented by Doerschuk et al. [5]. In their paper, they describe a comprehensive program including multidisciplinary research along with creating a learning community to recruit and retain underrepresented groups in STEM.

2.2. Retaining Majors through Interdisciplinary Research

The Mathematical Sciences Department solidifies students' love of mathematics by exploring its interdisciplinary nature during a dedicated two-course research seminar sequence. In this sequence, which is required of all mathematics majors, each student completes a research project on a topic of their choosing. In this way, majors are able to explore interdisciplinary projects of particular interest to them alongside peers who are also invested in their work.

The purpose of the first semester is to provide students the opportunity to identify an area to study, narrow down their area to a specific research question, and explore existing literature. This is accomplished through a series of meetings and assignments. Students meet at least weekly with the class and at least weekly with their faculty mentor. Prior to formally selecting a topic, students meet individually each week with the course instructor to discuss progress toward topic selection. During early class meetings, faculty in the department visit class, describe their research areas, and present topics that offer ideas for continued study. A research librarian also visits the class to provide instruction on identifying and retrieving appropriate resources. The instructor provides several assignments to promote self-reflection among students, such as journals on their favorite courses throughout their academic career and their hobbies outside of academics. At the end of the semester, the students write a thorough literature review with an outline of their intended project. They also present their work to the department. The projects must be on an open problem. Although students are not given a specific page length, completed papers are typically between 30 and 50 pages. In the past, one or two students have submitted a revised paper for publication, although this is not necessarily the goal of the project.

During the second semester of the research sequence, students focus on completing the research. Again, students meet with their faculty mentor at least once a week and meet as a class weekly. The class meetings serve two purposes. The first is to discuss their research with their peers. This allows students to see common struggles and celebrate small victories. The second purpose is to prepare for careers after graduation. The instructor collaborates with staff members from the career center, who provide a series of presentations for students to help them learn how to promote their skills, particularly skills learned in the research course.

Toward the conclusion of the second course, students present their work on and off campus. On campus, the students participate in two poster presentations. The students also complete a professional presentation at a spring regional conference. Finally, the students complete a senior thesis paper and present their final projects to the department during final exam week. The department invites all mathematics majors and faculty to this event, along with the wider community, and the presentations are followed by a graduation celebration involving food and small prizes for the graduating mathematics majors. The event serves as an effective recruiting tool, highlighting the many ways mathematics can be used in a wide variety of disciplines and revealing the expertise students gain throughout their studies in the mathematics major. While non-mathematics majors come to support their friends, the event also draws the attention of administrators across campus. As such, research seminar students sometimes present at the recruitment events with admissions or highlight their work to the board of trustees. Additionally, the student posters are hung on the walls of the academic building for all students to see. Through exposure to interesting and accessible interdisciplinary research projects, underclass students who are considering the possibility of adding a second major in mathematics gain a sense of how mathematics might relate to their own interests.

3. FOSTERING A WELCOMING LEARNING COMMUNITY

Creating a welcoming learning community invigorated students and faculty. This section will describe several initiatives the Mathematical Sciences Department implemented to provide opportunities for students to interact.

3.1. Major Mondays

The College of Arts and Sciences at Shenandoah University instituted “Major Monday” in 2016. It was scheduled during an hour when no courses met so that departments could gather their majors for an event. The format was completely open to the department. Major Monday was a catalyst for the Mathematical Sciences Department to create a meaningful learning community for the program. Initially, Major Monday events were held approximately twice a semester.

Over time the nature and frequency of these events have evolved. Currently, they occur roughly four times per semester, or about once per month, and events have become increasingly social. In the beginning, faculty in the Mathematical Sciences Department invited guest speakers from the mathematics community or a local business to discuss internship opportunities or current research. While these were beneficial for students, the department found that they were not as useful for creating a learning community within the program, because they did not encourage interaction between students. As a result, the department moved guest speakers to an alternative format and focused the major events more on social opportunities.

Currently, the majority of the mathematics major events focus on team building. At the beginning of the semester, students work in teams to complete a scavenger hunt that sends them all over campus searching for clues to puzzles. The hunt introduces them to other students in the program. Scavenger hunts are often used as a way to introduce students to their environment and create comradary [8]. The students must find a particular room in a building and complete a small mathematics puzzle in order to achieve points. This is completed on paper. The rooms are often faculty offices or campus resource centers.

Later in the semester, students work in teams to compete in problem-solving challenges. One of the most popular events is the recitation of the digits of Pi. Students memorize the digits of Pi and then recite them on Pi Day. For each of these “competitive” events, there is a prize for the winning team. The prize is typically a gift card to a local store that the students enjoy. Although there is evidence that competitive environments push women away from mathematics [12], these competitions are not designed to be truly competitive. When students memorize the digits of Pi, they compete against each other and faculty, and the students see it as a friendly competition. Most of the students boast that they memorized their digits that day. While some students are reciting the digits of Pi, other students are completing alternative activities, such as writing Pi-kus. These are poems modeled after haikus, where each line corresponds to a digit of Pi. There are three syllables in the first line, one syllable in the second, and four syllables in the third. Students then have the opportunity to submit these poems to our campus literary magazine. While these events are sometimes “competitions” these are deliberately casual. Participants enjoy the silliness that ensues regardless of who wins.

The events can be anything from solving Sudoku puzzles or solving brain teasers to playing the children's game Spot It, but they are all mathematical in nature and accessible to any student at the university. This allows students to feel welcome and not out of place no matter their mathematical ability. The department also solicits student feedback to ensure the events are incorporating games or puzzles that the students enjoy. This is accomplished through brief email surveys and casual conversations with students. Additionally, one of the goals is to show students that mathematics is not necessarily an individual endeavor. Instead, these events illustrate the collaborative nature of mathematics.

3.2. Conference Participation

Outside of the Major Monday events, students go to one off-campus regional conference and two on-campus research expos. These typically occur in the spring, which is helpful as the students have developed relationships prior to these events. The conference participation allows students to interact in a professional environment.

Conference attendance among all mathematics majors has increased since the push to build a learning community within the department. This is likely from a combination of reasons. Fees and transportation are covered for students by the department. As the student fee for the conference is very low, the department is able to accommodate student attendance within the annual department budget. Faculty also rent a university bus to take the students. Additionally, all mathematics majors in the department are invited. Over seven years, the department went from 0 to 1 students attending the conference to 90% of the mathematics students attending the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faculty encourage conference attendance, and also conference participation. The department puts together teams for the conference's undergraduate radical dash competition. A radical dash is a competition involving teams of students who compete by solving short, challenging problems to earn points for their teams. The teams rotate to different stations throughout the competition. There are typically 2–4 teams from Shenandoah University in the competition. All faculty promote these events in their courses. Putting the teams together is organized by the department, typically the department chair. The department creates the teams after emailing students to identify interests. This takes the challenge of “figuring it out” away from the students' hands and makes it a fun experience. The students talk about their competitions year round, which then encourages the next group of incoming students to participate.

3.3. Collaborative Learning in the Mathematics Enrichment Center

Finally, seven years ago, the department opened the Mathematics Enrichment Center. This is a university-sanctioned mathematics tutoring center that provides a wonderful collaborative experience for the mathematics majors and minors. The faculty encourage all of the mathematics majors to tutor in the center. While the center was created for students struggling in lower-level mathematics courses, it has proven to be an excellent opportunity to create a strong learning community within the mathematics program. Faculty will leave problems on the board for majors to play around with when the center is quiet, and faculty are regularly in the center, helping students and tutors work through problems. The center creates a bridge between the organized events and the day-to-day lives of mathematics students.

4. DATA

The mathematics major at Shenandoah University is small, but there has been a clear change in the proportion of women who pursue mathematics degrees over time. Table 1 shows the raw data of number of students in the mathematics program over the last 10 years along with the percent of women in the program. The data used is recorded by the institution. During this time period, the University did not include an option for gender non-binary students. Hence, this table lists students as male and female as recorded by the institution. The mathematics program does not at this time have any students who openly identify as gender non-binary.

Table 1. Gender of mathematics program.

Mathematics students
Term	Female	Male	Total	Percent women
Fall 2011	2	15	17	11.76%
Fall 2012	5	17	22	22.73%
Fall 2013	3	15	18	16.67%
Fall 2014	4	9	13	30.77%
Fall 2015	3	9	12	25.00%
Fall 2016	8	7	15	53.33%
Fall 2017	10	4	14	71.43%
Fall 2018	14	7	21	66.67%
Fall 2019	10	5	15	66.67%
Fall 2020	7	5	12	58.33%

The lowest percentage of women in the mathematics program occurred in the 2011/2012 academic year with just 11.76% of students identifying as women. The department began making deliberate changes to the program in 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. By the 2016/2017 academic year, the mathematics program surpassed 50% women. The highest percentage of women in the the mathematics program occurred in the 2017/2018 academic year at 71.43%.

There was a slight drop in the 2020/2021 academic year. There are a couple of likely reasons for this shift. As the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, the department was unable to hold most of the community events that spring. Additionally, in Fall 2020, Shenandoah University launched a separate program for secondary education mathematics students. A couple of the incoming students chose to pursue the secondary education degree with a mathematics focus rather than the pure mathematics degree. The numbers in Table 1 do not include those students.

Overall there are fewer men in the program. This could be for a number of reasons. In 2011 Shenandoah University did not have any technology-focused programs. As of 2020, several technology-focused programs now exist. Cybersecurity, data science, and computer science were all launched in the last five years. During this time, the mathematics program saw an increase in women, while participation from men stayed largely the same or possibly decreased. These new technology programs potentially pulled some of the male students from the pure mathematics program. For example, in Fall 2021, 82% of cybersecurity majors were men (27 out of 33) and 80% of data science majors (4 out of 5) were men. Whatever the reason for the decrease in men in the mathematics major, it was an unexpected outcome and an area for future consideration.

There is a clear difference in the number of women participating in the mathematics program. The faculty continue to recruit a higher number of women than they did a decade ago. The faculty believes a key component to the higher level of participation from women stems from the changes described above.

We are convinced that the learning community has played a significant role in our success in recruiting women, but we wonder how much the gender of the instructors/advisors has played a role. Calculus, which is a main entry for students in the mathematics major, has been taught by a woman exclusively since 2013. Students in the data science program take the same course as a starting point. The data science program has 20% women in the program, which is the highest it has obtained. The same faculty member also teaches the main entry course for the computer science and cybersecurity programs. The computer science program consists of approximately 22% women, and the cybersecurity program has approximately 18% women. The students in all of these programs have also been advised by the same faculty member until recently, although with different approaches. How much the gender of our faculty instructors and advisors impacts the recruitment of women in mathematics is an area for further consideration

Additionally, the data science, cybersecurity, and computer science programs have not had any significant initiatives to create a learning community. The faculty in the technology-focused programs are currently making changes to work toward this goal, but it is a new initiative beginning in 2021. One of the first steps is including tutoring for introductory computer science and cybersecurity students in the Mathematics Enrichment Center. The department is also working toward creating social opportunities outside of class for these majors. These initiatives are new, and the department hopes to continue these opportunities and promote women in these programs as well.

Further, the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that these efforts to create a learning community also affected the number of women in the mathematics major. Fall 2020 saw a drop in the number of women participating in the major. Data for Fall 2021 suggests a further drop in the participation of women in the mathematics program to approximately 50%. Beginning in Spring of 2020, all social events were suspended. For the academic year 2020–2021, the Mathematical Sciences Department was only able to have a single in-person social event at the end of the academic year, and students were unable to travel for the annual conference events. This caused difficulties in recruiting students to the program. Students who were already a part of the mathematics major were better able to engage in online events than new students. The department is working to revive these opportunities in 2022 to better support and recruit women in the program.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The key focus for the department moving forward is to ensure the changes continue into the future. To this end, faculty are trained to teach the research seminar course. Now multiple faculty have taught the course both collaboratively and individually. This training occurred as co-teaching for two years prior to another faculty member taking over. Additionally, faculty alternate in organizing social events so that all faculty in the department are invested in these events. Finally, the department continues to focus on communication with students to encourage them to participate in various events in the department. This requires participation from every member of the department. The department is currently working on a website that students can access through their learning management system that will provide clear communication and reminders.

Another avenue for future work is to recruit students from courses other than Calculus. At Shenandoah University, two larger enrollment courses are Introduction to Statistics and College Algebra. Introduction to Statistics enrolls a large number of nursing majors and College Algebra enrolls a large number of business majors. Creativity may be required in recruiting from these courses due to higher credit requirements for nursing and business.

Overall, the department has made noticeable changes. By providing opportunities for a learning community that brings together both faculty and students alongside focusing on mathematics as a second major, the department strives to include women in the mathematics major. The key goal is to provide students with a sense of belonging in the mathematics program and to produce a way to sustain these changes over time in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

J. OShaughnessy received her PhD from the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is currently Associate Provost and Professor of Mathematics at Stockton University. Previously, she was an assistant dean and associate professor of math and computer science at Shenandoah University. She is passionate about encouraging women in mathematics, mastery-based grading, and helping students find their best path.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to those who encouraged me along my journey as a women in math, especially Kathy Wolf who showed me it was possible and Ted Hurley for all his encouragement.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).