CS and Biology Departments - Support for Students

Support for Students

Departments support their students in a variety of ways. Forms of support include mentoring; faculty-supervised work and part-time employment; and programs such as tutoring and peer mentoring.

The survey items related to these various forms of support for students are identified below. This information is followed by links to the tables that summarize responses from CS and Biology/Life Sciences departments.

Mentoring

Mentoring was defined as "activities such as: recruiting individual students into professional activities; offering personalized advice to individual students; encouraging individual students; helping individual students establish careers."
Faculty were asked two questions about their mentoring: "During the academic years between fall 1992 and spring 1997, approximately how many hours per week did you usually spend mentoring undergraduates in your department?" and "Approximately how many of the undergraduate majors you regularly mentored during the study period were male? female?"
Mean department and discipline responses for CS and Biology/Life Sciences are reported in the tables below.

Supervised Work with Faculty

Supervised work included independent study; part-time student employment; research or project; lab attendant; preparation of a paper; internship or other work experience in the discipline; teaching assistant; or clerical work in the department.
Data on this form of student support were collected by asking faculty, "How many of the undergraduates you supervised were male? female?"
Mean departmental and discipline responses are reported in the tables for CS and Biology/Life Sciences listed below.

Methods of Pairing Students with Faculty

Faculty identified the way students were typically matched with opportunities to work with faculty. Survey respondents selected or wrote-in one matching method in answer to the following question: "What is the most common way undergraduates in your department came to work with you?"
The matching methods tables for CS and Biology/Life Sciences list the percent of respondents who selected a method as their primary way of matching students with opportunities.

Departmental Employment Opportunities for Students

Chairpersons responded to the question "About how many paid, part-time positions does your department (or individual faculty) offer your undergraduate majors during the academic year?"
The mean response for Virginia's CS departments was 10 paid, part-time student positions. The mean response for Biology/Life Sciences was 11 paid, part-time student positions.
Accounting for departments' average enrollment during the study period, the mean number of positions available per student is reported below for CS and Biology/Life Sciences.

Support Programs

Every chairperson reported offering some program or programs to help students succeed in the major. These programs included, peer-mentoring, tutoring, and honors programs. Overall, the most common types of support programs were tutoring, followed by honors programs.
The mean number of programs offered in Virginia's CS departments was 1.9 programs. The mean number of programs offered in Biology/Life Sciences was 2.4 programs.
In order to preserve confidentiality, no table of individual responses is provided for this variable.

Support for CS Students:

Mentoring Hours/Week, Students Mentored, Hours/Student, & Females Mentored
CS Departments	Hours/Week	# Students Mentored	Hours /Student	# Females Mentored
1.2	2.25	9.00	0.25	4.00
2.2	2.00	8.33	0.24	2.33
3.2	4.31	2.00	2.15	0.50
4.2	1.67	8.00	0.21	1.67
5.2	.	.	.	.
6.2	3.33	9.00	0.37	4.00
7.2	5.28	19.00	0.28	7.33
8.2	7.00	16.25	0.43	8.50
10.2	3.56	27.00	0.13	8.29
11.2	4.00	9.00	0.44	3.00
12.2	3.00	34.00	0.09	14.00
13.2	4.50	20.50	0.22	5.50
14.2	3.00	8.00	0.38	5.00
15.2	12.67	31.00	0.41	15.50
16.2	3.40	45.00	0.08	16.50
17.2	2.80	18.00	0.16	5.75
18.2	7.00	19.00	0.37	3.00
19.2	5.50	6.00	0.92	2.50
20.2	6.00	56.00	0.11	43.00
21.2	3.09	17.33	0.18	4.07
22.2	2.75	11.50	0.24	2.50
24.2	2.54	17.83	0.14	3.39
25.2	3.00	20.00	0.15	3.00
mean	4.21	18.72	0.36	7.42

Faculty Supervision of Students
CS Departments	average # students supervised	average # female students supervised
1.2	2.67	0.67
2.2	20.50	2.50
3.2	3.00	0.50
4.2	11.50	2.50
5.2	.	.
6.2	10.00	4.00
7.2	2.65	1.10
8.2	11.25	6.25
10.2	26.50	7.13
11.2	3.00	0.00
12.2	4.00	2.00
13.2	8.00	3.50
14.2	2.00	2.00
15.2	11.00	7.00
16.2	6.33	2.33
17.2	11.00	2.67
18.2	5.00	1.00
19.2	8.00	4.00
20.2	51.50	25.00
21.2	10.46	2.00
22.2	4.50	0.75
24.2	9.67	2.13
25.2	8.00	3.00
mean	10.48	3.73

Most Common Method of Pairing Students with Opportunities
% of responding faculty
CS Departments	Open Applications	Student Initiated	Faculty Invitation	Random Assignment	Referral	Other
1.2	0	33.3	33.3	0	0	33.3
2.2	50	0	50	0	0	0
3.2	0	100	0	0	0	0
4.2	50	0	50	0	0	0
5.2	.	.	.	.	.	.
6.2	0	100	0	0	0	0
7.2	0	73.4	8.3	0	18.3	0
8.2	0	25	25	25	0	25
10.2	12.5	75	0	0	0	12.5
11.2	0	100	0	0	0	0
12.2	0	100	0	0	0	0
13.2	0	100	0	0	0	0
14.2	0	0	100	0	0	0
15.2	33.3	66.7	0	0	0	0
16.2	66.7	0	0	33.3	0	0
17.2	0	66.7	33.3	0	0	0
18.2	0	0	100	0	0	0
19.2	0	0	100	0	0	0
20.2	0	0	100	0	0	0
21.2	11.1	42.2	15.6	15.6	15.6	0
22.2	0	100	0	0	0	0
24.2	15.6	53.3	31.1	0	0	0
25.2	0	0	100	0	0	0
mean	10.9	47.1	33.9	3.4	1.5	3.2

Student Employment Opportunities
CS Department	student positions relative to enrollment
1.2	0.04
2.2
3.2	0.23
4.2	0.12
5.2	0.00
6.2
7.2
8.2	0.06
10.2	0.02
11.2	2.67
12.2	0.11
13.2	0.09
14.2
15.2	0.02
16.2	0.16
17.2	0.21
18.2	0.65
19.2	0.26
20.2
21.2	0.30
22.2	0.03
24.2	0.01
25.2	0.48
mean	0.30

Support for Biology/Life Sciences Students:

Mentoring Hours/Week, Students Mentored, Hours/Student, & Females Mentored
Biology/Life Sciences Departments	Hours/Week	# Students Mentored	Hours /Student	# Females Mentored
1.1	7.67	6.00	1.28	3.00
2.1	3.80	.	.	.
3.1	10.77	53.28	0.20	32.81
4.1	3.00	15.00	0.20	8.50
5.1	12.00	70.00	0.17	35.00
6.1	7.44	31.14	0.24	11.86
7.1	5.02	7.82	0.64	4.39
8.1	6.95	23.66	0.29	16.04
10.1	4.38	34.67	0.13	21.33
11.1	4.50	9.33	0.48	4.67
12.1	3.00	4.00	0.75	3.00
13.1	3.44	15.80	0.22	12.80
14.1	5.00	8.00	0.63	5.00
15.1	7.75	30.00	0.26	21.75
16.1	8.14	44.68	0.18	26.50
17.1	3.20	14.24	0.22	9.06
18.1	3.00	15.75	0.19	6.75
19.1	4.75	5.00	0.95	3.67
20.1	7.20	15.20	0.47	8.20
21.1	5.98	25.06	0.24	13.86
22.1	6.63	92.83	0.07	54.33
24.1	8.03	23.17	0.35	12.20
25.1	5.80	115.00	0.05	71.00
mean	5.98	29.98	0.37	17.53

Faculty Supervision of Students
Biology/Life Sciences Departments	# students supervised	# female students supervised
1.1	5.67	2.67
2.1	6.50	3.50
3.1	16.98	11.83
4.1	6.50	3.50
5.1	60.00	30.00
6.1	8.63	3.43
7.1	7.53	4.87
8.1	11.75	7.50
10.1	7.71	5.56
11.1	10.50	3.50
12.1	9.00	4.00
13.1	10.56	7.50
14.1	.	.
15.1	39.33	32.00
16.1	7.88	3.83
17.1	11.07	6.18
18.1	13.33	6.33
19.1	13.67	7.33
20.1	15.17	8.83
21.1	7.33	3.95
22.1	10.33	4.00
24.1	6.65	4.23
25.1	23.20	12.80
mean	14.06	8.06

Most Common Method of Pairing Students with Opportunities
% of responding faculty
Biology/Life Sciences Departments	Open Applications	Student Initiated	Faculty Invitation	Random Assignment	Referral	Other
1.1	0	33.3	33.3	0	0	33.3
2.1	0	40	20	20	0	20
3.1	0	100	0	0	0	0
4.1	33.3	66.7	0	0	0	0
5.1	0	100	0	0	0	0
6.1	25	12.5	25	12.5	0	25
7.1	24.5	37.7	24.5	0	13.2	0
8.1	0	81.3	0	0	18.7	0
10.1	0	50	0	0	0	50
11.1	33.3	66.7	0	0	0	0
12.1	0	100	0	0	0	0
13.1	11.1	66.7	11.1	0	0	11.1
14.1	.	.	.	.	.	.
15.1	0	0	33.3	33.3	0	33.3
16.1	24.2	33.3	33.3	0	0	9.2
17.1	17.7	64.7	17.7	0	0	0
18.1	0	66.7	33.3	0	0	0
19.1	25	50	25	0	0	0
20.1	0	83.3	0	0	0	16.7
21.1	0	76	0	0	0	24
22.1	0	100	0	0	0	0
24.1	0	65.8	34.2	0	0	0
25.1	0	80	0	0	0	20
mean	8.8	62.5	13.2	3.0	1.5	11.0

Student Employment Opportunities
Biology/Life Sciences Departments	# of student positions relative to enrollment
1.1	0.05
2.1
3.1	0.11
4.1	0.00
5.1	0.36
6.1	0.10
7.1	0.02
8.1	0.00
10.1	0.03
11.1	0.77
12.1	0.09
13.1	0.07
14.1	0.09
15.1	0.02
16.1	0.04
17.1
18.1	0.22
19.1
20.1	0.02
21.1
22.1	0.03
24.1	0.00
25.1	0.27
mean	0.12

Support for Students

Support for CS Students:

Mentoring Hours/Week, Students Mentored, Hours/Student, & Females Mentored

CS Departments

Hours/Week

# Students Mentored

Hours /Student

# Females Mentored

Faculty Supervision of Students

CS Departments

average # students supervised

average # female students supervised

Most Common Method of Pairing Students with Opportunities

CS Departments

Open Applications

Student Initiated

Faculty Invitation

Random Assignment

Referral

Other

Student Employment Opportunities

CS Department

student positions relative to enrollment

Support for Biology/Life Sciences Students:

Mentoring Hours/Week, Students Mentored, Hours/Student, & Females Mentored

Biology/Life Sciences Departments

Hours/Week

# Students Mentored

Hours /Student

# Females Mentored

Faculty Supervision of Students

Biology/Life Sciences Departments

# students supervised

# female students supervised

Most Common Method of Pairing Students with Opportunities

Biology/Life Sciences Departments

Open Applications

Student Initiated

Faculty Invitation

Random Assignment

Referral

Other

Student Employment Opportunities

Biology/Life Sciences Departments

# of student positions relative to enrollment