MISSION AND CHARTER
The IT Empowerment for Women and Girls Initiative’s mission is to catalyze efforts of participating organizations to move girls and women into the information technology/computer science arenas. The effort spans the continuum from career awareness opportunities to breaking down societal barriers about non-traditional fields, to the means and encouragement for achieving whatever education or training level is appropriate, to support and advancement once in the field.

INITIAL CHARTER
1) To share and leverage current efforts
2) To enlighten the public and private sectors about the opportunities and barriers facing girls and women
3) To advocate about the critical need for women’s involvement and decision-making in policy, design, deployment, and end use of information and computer technology.

Representatives must be willing to participate in the working group meetings and the listserv established for the group by the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender.

PROGRAM FOCUS
• Build stakeholders via awareness and leveraging of activities.
• Promulgate to business and the public the opportunities and obstacles in IT/CS for girls and young women.
• Advocate for women to have a seat at the “technology table.”
• All activities are ongoing and build upon each other.

FOUNDERS
Initiated by the Gender Equity Fund of the American Association of University Women-IL, Inc. with the support of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, this collaboration is a resource for not only its participants, but also an educational and workforce-related effort.

For further information and requests to affiliate, contact:
Ruth Sweetser
AAUW-IL Gender Equity Fund, Board Member; Co-Founder
Director, Professional Learning and Business Relations,
Illinois Institute of Technology
sweetser@iit.edu, 630/682-6020

IT EMPOWERMENT LIST GUIDELINES
1) The IT Empowerment Group is an American Association of University Women (AAUW) Gender Equity Fund project. The IT Empowerment list was set up by the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender as a communication tool for the I. T. Empowerment working group. Members of the list have a combined interest in information technology and gender issues. They must be willing to participate in the working group meetings and agree to follow the guidelines as set forth in this welcome message. 

2) The listserv is currently comprised of approximately 100 subscribers. To see a current list of organizations and subscribers go to http://www.uic.edu/orgs/rin/itempowerment.htm

3) To subscribe to the list, send an e-mail with your name, phone, e-mail address and work address to sshirk1@uic.edu.

4) One can unsubscribe by sending an e-mail to listserv@uic.edu with the text that says unsubscribe ITempowerment your name

5) Postings can be made to the ITempowerment listserv by sending a message to ITempowerment@listserv.uic.edu

6) Please state the category of each posting in the SUBJECT line of the e-mail. A posting to the listserv must fit one of the following categories:
a) DISCUSSION: put discussion topic here
b) EVENTS
c) INFORMATION SHARING
d) NETWORKING
e) ACTION ALERT (reserve for actions needed ASAP, only when extremely urgent)

7) The IT Empowerment working group's mission is to catalyze efforts of participating organizations to move girls and women into the information technology/computer science arenas. Our initial charter is:
1) To share and leverage current efforts;
2) To enlighten the public and private sectors about the opportunities and
barriers facing girls and women;
3) To advocate about the critical need for women's involvement and
decision-making in policy, design, deployment, and end use of information
and computer technology.

8) The purpose of this listserv is to provide Illinois professionals:
a) A forum for announcements and discussions concerning the above stated mission.
b) Information on conferences concerning technology.
c) An electronic networking opportunity.
d) An opportunity to participate in electronic discussions that concern the development, philosophies, and logistics of the I. T. Empowerment working group.

9) List subscribers are to limit their ITempowerment postings to items that will be of interest to the entire list. Messages targeted to an individual, or a smaller group of list members should be sent directly to those individuals not to the entire listserv. If you receive a listserv e-mail and want to send it back to the original author, press "Reply to." That will go to the author only, NOT the entire listserv. If you want to reply to everyone on the listserv hit "Reply to all" or send it to ITempowerment@listserv.uic.edu as with posting any message.

Questions about the listserv can be addressed to Sarah Shirk, List Manager, at sshirk1@uic.edu