Conference Session

Retention Programs for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kimberly Douglas, Kansas State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

, Reyes, &Hart, 2004). The program has tripled in size since 2002 and currently has over 160women participating. The average participating rate of members for monthly eventsroughly doubled after the transition to a group mentoring structure. Finally, the retentionrate of freshmen participating in the program after their third semester is just over 80%,well above retention rates for the college. This paper will detail the changes that weremade to the organizational structure of WMW, will report impact these changes had onparticipation levels, and will describe best practices and lessons learned.WMW’s Organizational StructureWomen Mentoring Women at Kansas State University was originally designed to be aone-on-one mentoring program linking

Conference Session

The Impact of Curriculum on the Retention of Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lisa Romkey, University of Toronto

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

AC 2007-2256: ATTRACTING AND RETAINING FEMALES IN ENGINEERINGPROGRAMS: USING AN STSE APPROACHLisa Romkey, University of Toronto Lisa Romkey is the Lecturer, Curriculum, Teaching and Learning with the Division of Engineering Science at the University of Toronto. In this position, Lisa plays a central role in the continuous improvement of the design and delivery of a dynamic and complex curriculum, while facilitating the development and implementation of teaching and learning initiatives and innovations. Lisa is cross-appointed with the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE/UT (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto). Lisa holds a Masters in

Conference Session

K-12 Programs (Co-sponsored by K-12 Division)

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeanne Hubelbank, WPI Evaluation Consulting; Chrysanthe Demetry, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Shelley Errington Nicholson, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Stephanie Blaisdell, Independent Consultant; Paula Quinn, Independent Consultant; Elissa Rosenthal, Marketing Research Consultant; Suzanne Sontgerath, Independent Consultant

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Page 12.1024.4who are part of the program staff. The evaluation presented in this paper addresses only the goalsspecific to the middle school “camper” participants.The program design of Camp Reach encompasses research-based best practices for engineeringoutreach programs for girls.3,6,7 The following strategies and messages underpin the program:• Real-world problem solving: The central feature of the camp experience is a service-learning design project in which teams of campers address a problem or need of a non-profit organization in the Worcester community using teamwork, creativity, and the engineering design process. Each team of 10 engineers is coached by a middle school teacher and two or three high school women, and they

Conference Session

Climate Issues for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yong Zeng, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; John R. Duncan, Clemson University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

learningstrategies” 3 (p. 222). Given the goals of increasing the number of women in the engineeringfield and the importance of helping faculty to increase the success and persistence of femalestudents, this study sought to extend prior research findings on the connection between supportfactors and persistence in engineering programs and beyond to the workforce. This studyexplored this issue through two facets. The first was a review of recent empirical studies onsupport factors for increasing persistence of women in engineering programs to better identifythe most effective elements of support. The second part, a qualitative study, explored thoserelevant support factors in-depth and extended the field of study to include practicing womenengineers.Career

Conference Session

Perspectives for Women Faculty

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adrienne Minerick, Mississippi State University; Mara Wasburn, Purdue University; Valarie young, Ohio University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

wives. All those withyoung children do.”The idea that academic life often assumes that a faculty member has a stay-at-home spousefrequently surfaced in the comments. “I am competing with men who have wives that stay athome. They can work late any night they want without consequence. I have to schedule latenights way in advance, or skip them altogether.” Similarly, “My lack of participation at nightevents or weekend events (recruiting, professional dinners) has been noted….I do not think thisis unique to my university, but an indication that the academic culture still revolves around malenorms and practices.” Several respondents noted that this was a concern for both members of adual-career couple, not just women. However, it impacts women

Conference Session

Perspectives for Women Faculty

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Nicole Hawkes, WiSE / University of Southern California; Jean Morrison, University of Southern California; Cauligi Raghavendra, University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

12.1487.112. Undergraduate Research Fellowships (original program, 2001)Up to fifteen fellowships are granted each year in both the USC College and in the USCViterbi School of Engineering to support summer and academic year research. The goal is tofamiliarize students with laboratory research and link them with a mentor early on. It ishoped that through the experience of first-hand research at the undergraduate level, thechances will increase that students will choose to pursue a graduate degree in science orengineering. Student recipients of the fellowship are expected to work on their researchproject at least 12 hours per week during the academic semester in which they receive theaward ($2,500). For the summer, the expectation is about 300 hours or

Conference Session

Retention Programs for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Helene Finger, California Polytechnic State University; Tracy Van Houten, University of Southern California; Barbara Curry, California Polytechnic State University; Jennifer Harris, United Parcel Service; Malia Francisco, United Parcel Service; Betsy Sale, United Parcel Service

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Ph.D. in Economics and Operations Research from the Colorado School of Mines. Her research has primarily focused on retention of female engineering students, including her dissertation entitled, “Female Retention In Undergraduate Engineering Majors: The Effects Of Individual Characteristics, Career Characteristics, And Demand Discrimination”.Jennifer Harris, United Parcel Service Jennifer Harris graduated from Cal Poly in 2003, receiving a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a M.S. in Engineering with a Specialization in Integrated Technology Management. She served for five years on the SWE Executive Council at Cal Poly including serving as President in 2001-2002. Ms. Harris is currently

Conference Session

Retention Programs for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kieran Sullivan, Santa Clara University; Ruth Davis, Santa Clara University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

intervention aimed at enhancing thestudents’ view of themselves as “techies.” Each young woman received a handheld computer,and agreed to complete surveys regarding her use of the computer and to meet with the otherstudents to share experiences, evaluate the computer’s capabilities, and imagine ways it could beimproved.We tracked the graduation rates and degrees earned by these students and compared them withwomen engineering majors who came before and after this cohort. Four-year and six-yeargraduation rates were higher for the intervention cohort (54% and 69%, respectively) than forcomparison cohorts (48% and 57%, respectively)The Problem“Every time an engineering problem is approached with a pale, male design team, it may bedifficult to find the

Conference Session

Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

C. Diane Matt, WEPAN

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

policy areas and information on issues related to increasing women’s participation in engineering; o Collects and offers access to research, best practices, lessons learned, data and information; o Provides capacity building tools, including webinars and blogs; o Provides a platform to test and disseminate a new toolkit for creating information resources that will support the work of researchers and practitioners. The WKC will use new technologies such as harvesting mechanisms to bring together the many resources available but scattered among a wide variety of programs and universities. It will make them readily accessible to stakeholders who need this information to develop policies, intervention

Conference Session

Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy Bentow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Richard Blais, Project Lead the Way; Laura Bottomley, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Catherine Didion, National Academy of Engineering; Norman Fortenberry, National Academy of Engineering; Christina Vogt, National Academy of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

represent key lessons learned from gender equity, engineering education,and project management research and “best practices” knowledge bases; and b) periodic live eventseither recorded or in real-time have been offered among and between experts, collaboratingorganizations and their members on specific and ad hoc issues. EEES targets teachers and faculty as away to reach students, therefore our outreach primarily focuses on providing them with the tools theyneed to be more effective and engaging instructors.Creating a successful online community is one of the most compelling yet elusive goals for web-basedapplications. Most online communities grow slowly in the beginning due in part to the need to createmotivation for contributing to the community

Conference Session

An International Perspective

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Carmen Maldonado, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Tatiana Ramirez, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Idalis Vazques, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Alexandra Medina-Borja, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

. These statistics translate in that at theUPRM only the top tier of high school graduates is granted admission in engineering every year.Regarding economic status of students, around twenty percent of the student body in the collegeof engineering reported family income in the highest bracket while no less than forty five percent(45%) could be categorized by income in the low brackets of society9, 10.II. MethodologyFocus groups have been used in the past to evaluate engineering programs and to elicit studentcharacteristics [e.g. 11,]. The design of the study was based in the seminal work of RichardKrueger’s book, Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research12. Design, execution,and analysis of the study took place over one academic (fall