Conference Session

Recruitment & Retention of Women I

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Matthew J Miller, University of Maryland; Robert Lent, University of Maryland, College Park; Paige E Smith, University of Maryland, College Park; Bevlee A. Watford, Virginia Tech; Gregory M. Wilkins, Morgan State University; Matthew M. Jezzi, University of Maryland; Kayi Hui, University of Maryland, College Park; Robert H Lim, University of Maryland, College Park; Nicole A Bryan, University of Maryland, College Park; Helena Mimi Martin, University of Maryland, College Park

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

, University of Maryland, College Park Paige Smith has served as the Director of the Women in Engineering (WIE) Program in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland since September 2001. WIE provides a com- prehensive set of academic year and summer outreach programs for students in grades 4-12. Retention programs include a living and learning community, peer mentoring and fellowships in research and teach- ing. Paige is also the Director of the Mid-Atlantic Girls Collaborative (MAGiC), a regional collaborative of the NSF funded National Girls Collaborative Project. MAGiC connects girl-serving and supporting in- dividuals and organizations in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC that are

Conference Session

Myths About Gender and Race

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Carroll Suzanne Seron, University of California, Irvine; Erin A. Cech, University of California, San Diego; Susan S. Silbey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Brian Rubineau, Cornell University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society, Minorities in Engineering, Women in Engineering

happy! (U37).Many of these young women also question whether engineering is a profession that will providethe space and time to find a balance between work and family. A woman at Smith asks, “Is anengineer allowed to be in love, be attracted to anyone, or better still, even have the time toengage in such wonderful human relationships?” (S03). Her counterpart at MIT echoes the Page 22.1719.9concerns of her peers when she writes, All my life, I‟ve been encouraged to not let being a female limit what I do; women like Sally Ride and Marie Curie were held up as role models and I was always told to pursue what I like and what I

Conference Session

Recruitment & Retention of Women I

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lois Calian Trautvetter, Northwestern University; Rose M. Marra, University of Missouri, Columbia; Lisa R. Lattuca, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Katie L. Piacentini, University of Missouri - Columbia; David B. Knight, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

classes, highlightingcourses with applications and problem solving, providing advisors, and developing a sense ofcommunity can all contribute to retaining budding female engineers6. The WECE report recommended an increase in efforts and opportunities to participate in on-campus community building and also development in other interests and skills in the first twoyears. Freshmen and sophomore years find women most likely to actually leave engineering.One-third of the leavers stated negative aspects of their school’s climate (e.g., competition, lackof support, and discouraging faculty and peers); while sources of encouragement mentioned wereparents, support activities (e.g., study groups, student organizations) and having internships andresearch

Conference Session

WIED Poster Session

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Aura Tuulia Paloheimo, Aalto University, School of Science and Engineering; Kaisa Pohjonen, Aalto University; Pirjo Helena Putila

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

communal maternity clinics and daycare to esteemed communal elementary schoolsystem. However, our weakness is proven to be the conservative gender attitudes amongteenagers aged 15: mathematics is for boys and reading is for girls. For the skill of reading,this is accurate: girls achieve substantially higher scores than their peer boys. However, inmathematics the margin is small. Even so, most of the PISA-aged girls are not interested inmathematics. They also suffer from a low self-esteem concerning their capabilities in naturalsciences; even though they are talented in mathematics, their trust in their abilities is rockbottom. This phenomenon has strengthened in recent years.15In the oldest and largest institution providing higher engineering

Conference Session

WIED Olio

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sarah Hug, University of Colorado, Boulder; Susan Jurow, University of Colorado at Boulder; Wendy C. Chi, University of Colorado, Boulder

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

the same time, knowing whatactions and individual characteristics lead to acceptance in a graduate program and an eventualacademic career assists students in navigating their engineering careers towards academia. Inother words, a program participant who begins to be viewed by professors and peers as aresearcher, as ―graduate school bound;‖ who talks about what she will do as a professor; whogoes to academic conferences and studies for the GRE could be seen as accepting the pathwaytowards the professoriate.Individuals‘ learning pathways in a community arise from multiple factors related to thecommunity‘s routine practices and the individual‘s historically-developed dispositions andambitions.18 The local community, or the specific group of

Conference Session

Recruitment & Retention of Women II

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth T. Cady, National Academy of Engineering; Norman L. Fortenberry, American Society for Engineering Education; Catherine Didion, National Academy of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

programs, mentoring, and research opportunities,while the least successful programs emphasized peer mentoring over other activities. Theprogram directors who saw the most increase in women’s degrees also talked of initiating aneven wider range of activities if they could, while directors with low-performing programsdiscussed continuing and expanding the same activities they were already carrying out. Thesefindings suggest that successful retention of women in engineering is aided by programs thatwork within the institutional context and provide a wide range of support and communityprograms for students9. Page 22.1607.4Although successful programs

Conference Session

Myths About Gender and Race

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy E. Slaton, Drexel University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society, Minorities in Engineering, Women in Engineering

projects include the blog STEMequity.com, and a study, with sociologist Mary Ebeling, of economic equity in nanotechnology training and employment. She is also writing on distributions of blame between workers and materials for failures in contemporary building technologies, as economies of scale and automation continue their long incursion on the labor of commercial construction. Page 22.1061.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2011 Metrics of Marginality: How Studies of Minority Self-Efficacy Hide Structural InequitiesAbstractIn ongoing

Conference Session

WIED Poster Session

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elaine R. Millam, University of Saint Thomas; Ronald J. Bennett, Univeristy of Saint Thomas

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

. Additionally, there is evidence of bias in peer reviews, showing that a female postdoctoral applicant had to be significantly more productive than a male applicant, helping to explain the lower success rate of female scientists in achieving high academic rank. While biases do change, the recent research studies show that gender stereotypes are clearly still at play.  Recent research on marriage and family responsibilities, show that women are at a disadvantage if they have children17,18. In business and industry both women and men identify family responsibilities as a possible barrier to advancement, but women are affected differently than men by this “family penalty.”19,20 Among women and men with

Conference Session

WIED Poster Session

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Natalie Fabert, Arizona State University; Marilyn Cabay, Ph.D., Argosy University, Phoenix; Melissa B Rivers, Arizona State University; Mary Lee Smith, Arizona State University; Bianca L. Bernstein, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

responsibilities, or simply wanting to spend timewith their family set them apart from other students. Women experienced these differences aslost social opportunities, leading to a greater sense of isolation from their peers in thedepartment: They're very young. They go out and celebrate later or go do something else. I do exactly what I want to do which is go home to be with my family. There is just a completely different mindset on what our social lives are like. They live in apartments close to school and they walk to work. I drive 25 miles after dropping the kids off at grandparent’s house or school. It’s a very different world. I have to come home and work and wait until the kids fall asleep