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Background: Motivated by the need for a diverse technological workforce, broadening participation in computing (BPC) efforts aim to increase the representation of people who identify as women, African American or Black, Hispanic or Latinx/a/o/e, Native American, Indigenous, persons from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and persons with disabilities. Research on BPC efforts has highlighted exemplar institutions and activities, but tends to focus onwhatinitiatives computing departments have undertaken and the outcomes of these initiatives. Purpose: Given this prior focus onwhatinitiatives computing departments are undertaking, we propose refocusing onhowchange happens to increase our collective capacity for impactful change efforts. We apply a well-known organizational change framework, John Kotter’s eight-stage process of leading change, to examine catalysts for change in computing departments, who contributes to this work, and what motivates the work. Doing so can deepen our understanding of BPC efforts and how to enhance them. Theoretical Framework: Kotter’s framework for leading change includes the following eight stages: (1) establishing a sense of urgency, (2) creating the guiding coalition, (3) developing a vision and strategy, (4) communicating the change vision, (5) empowering broad-based action, (6) generating short-term wins, (7) consolidating gains and producing more change, and (8) anchoring new approaches in the culture. Methods: Using a practitioner research approach, we conducted interviews with 13 faculty and staff members across R1 and R2 U.S. institutions via Zoom. Participants were recruited based on their involvement in BPC efforts at their respective institutions. We used inductive and deductive analytic coding approaches to capture how the Kotter framework illuminated participants’ experiences leading BPC efforts. Findings: Kotter’s stages provide a useful breakdown of processes with which to understand and illuminate catalysts for change in computing departments. Across our participants, we see examples of how each stage not only takes shape in different departments, but also how subsequent stages build upon the one(s) before it. Findings reveal a variety of factors that motivate the urgency for computer science (CS) departments to engage in BPC work, along with the importance of top-down leadership and institutional resources. Implications: Kotter’s organizational change model provides an appropriate frame to guide BPC efforts and may be useful to practitioners. Findings from this study illuminate several areas for CS departments to address in order to build capacity for organizational change efforts that support BPC goals. These include examining a variety of departmental data, effectively using meetings and other communications mechanisms, and revising hiring and promotion policies. 

Teacher isolation, where only one teacher at a school is teaching a particular subject, has been reported as one of the biggest challenges for computer science (CS) teachers in the US. However, the extent of CS teacher isolation has not been documented beyond teachers' self report. We use 14 years of middle and high school data from California to determine factors affecting the likelihood of CS being offered or a CS teacher being isolated at a school. We find that teachers in CS experience isolation at a higher rate than almost all other subjects and that larger schools are more likely to have one or more CS teachers. We extend prior work by showing that schools with a greater proportion of students underrepresented in computing are less likely to offer CS even when controlling for school size.