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Imperial Oil donates $1 million to University of Waterloo to encourage young women to study computer science
| Toronto, ON, July 9, 2003
| The Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) at the University of Waterloo will be able to encourage more school-age women to study computer science thanks to a $1 million gift from Imperial Oil Ltd.
The money will pay for the expansion of the newly named Imperial Oil Seminar in Computer Science for Young Women, as well as professional development seminars for computer science and mathematics teachers.
The seminar seeks to address the steep decline in the number of women entering the field by introducing Grade 9 and 10 female students to computer science. At that age, the students are starting to make decisions about their future areas of study.
Launched last year, the seminar enrolled 40 female students out of a pool of more than 900 applications. With the new funding, the seminar will be to accommodate a total of 96 students.
"At Imperial Oil, we are committed to building a diverse and healthy workforce," said Barbara Hejduk, president of the Imperial Oil Foundation. "By helping draw more women into the technology and science fields, we believe we are making the best possible investment in Canada's future."
"Imperial Oil has taken a positive approach to helping students and teachers," said Peter Crippin, director of the CEMC. "This approach is appreciated by all of us at the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computer Science."
He said the money will fund two seminars in computer science for young women (48 in each session), along with two week-long seminars for teachers in mathematics and computer science.
"These seminars should be very helpful to teachers and students. Hopefully, over a period of time, what teachers have learned will help to improve classrooms within our schools."
At the inaugural seminar last summer, the young students created their own animations, as well as learning about finite state machines and the basics of hardware design. They also attended lectures on a variety of topics, including talks by women in computer science who shared their stories.
Seed money for the first seminar came from the UW-based Graham Trust Committee. The trust is named after the late UW Prof. Wes Graham, who made many innovative contributions to UW's computing environment and Canada's computer industry.
The CEMC was established in 1995 by UW in response to society's increasing focus on mathematics and computer science education. It provides enrichment activities and materials for senior elementary and secondary school students across Canada in mathematics and computer science.
One key activity is the Canadian Mathematics Competition, first developed over 40 years ago by a group of high school teachers keen about improving their discipline across Canada. About 200,000 students participate each year in the 10 contests from Grade 7 through to the end of high school.
The CEMC is located in UW's Faculty of Mathematics, one of the largest at UW with more than 3,000 undergraduates and 325 graduate students. Founded in 1967, the faculty is the world's largest centre for education in the mathematical and computer sciences.
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