Conference Session

Focus on Faculty

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University; Anita Grierson, AZ State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

140 25 (17.9%) 3 (2.1%) 5 (3.6%) 18 (12.9%) 26 (18.6%)DivisionFull-timeSubtotal 1066First-time 26 6 (23.1%) 4 (15.4%) 2 (3.8) 5 (19.2%) 11 (42.3%)Part-timeFreshmenLower 7 1 (14.3%) 0 (0%) 1 (14.3%) 1 (14.3%) 2 (28.6%)DivisionPart-timeUpper 38 5 (13.2%) 1 (2.6%) 2 (5.3%) 6 (15.8%) 9 (23.7%)DivisionPart-timeSubtotal 71Table I. Full-time and Part-time New Enrollment for Fall 2009 in the Ira A. Fulton Schools ofEngineering by freshmen, transfer, gender, and ethnicity. Source: Office of Institutional Analysis,Arizona State University.3Each year some 300 students transfer into the Fulton

Conference Session

Focus on Faculty

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Koonce, Ohio University; Valerie Conley, Ohio University; Cindy Anderson, Ohio University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

productivity, and others, are identified as markersof academic career advancement.Community colleges differ dramatically from their four-year counterparts in missions andinstitutional characteristics. These differences point to the need to re-examine the explanatorypower of some findings on STEM career success and advancement outcomes of female faculty inthe four-year sector in the context of two-year institutions.In this paper, we present a study to investigate (1) the extent to which the factors associated withadvancement and employment outcomes in the four-year sector translate to the two-yearinstitutional context, and (2) the extent to which there exist other factors affecting female facultymembers’ employment outcomes that are unique to two-year

Conference Session

Effective Methods for Recruiting Women to Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Manjusha Saraswathiamma, North Dakota State University; Kathy Enger, North Dakota State University; Canan Bilen-Green, North Dakota State University; Achinthya Bazebaruah, North Dakota State University; Bruce Schumacher, North Dakota State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

15.367.2enrollment in engineering is almost saturated. Therefore, to increase engineering schoolenrollment and the nation’s supply of engineers, America must recruit and retain females asengineers15.Unfortunately, NSF data for 1995-2005 are not encouraging. These data show vast differencesin the numbers of male and female engineering students in undergraduate programs across thenation32. Female enrollment in engineering schools increased from 18.5% in 1995 to 19.8% in1999; however, by 2005, female enrollment in engineering schools had declined to 17.5%, a fullpercentage point lower than 1999 (See Table 1).Table 1. NSF Data on Undergraduate Engineering Enrollment by Gender from 1995-2005. Year Female Male 1995 18.5

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Judith Cordes, Michigan State University; Thomas Wolff, Michigan State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

engineering and higher education have been looking at this issue and trying to find waysto increase the number of women completing engineering degrees at the bachelors, masters anddoctoral levels.Even with the many efforts going on across the nation, the number of women pursuingengineering degrees is not increasing; and in some areas of engineering, the numbers are actuallydeclining. For many years at Michigan State University (MSU), we saw a steady climb in thenumber of women engineering students, especially in disciplines like Chemical and Mechanical.Through the 1990s, we averaged 22% women engineering students, well above the 16% nationalaverage. However, in 2000 we saw the numbers begin to drop, as they did nationally.Figure 1 compares first-year

Conference Session

Effective Methods for Recruiting Women to Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sara Atwood, University of California, Berkeley; Eli Patten, University of California at Berkeley; Lisa Pruitt, University of California, Berkeley

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

students with an evengender split. The course emphasized outreach, communication, and interpersonal skills with agroup project supported throughout the semester by a required skills lab. The project included anoutreach teaching activity for 5th grade students at a local children’s science museum, a writtenreport, and an oral presentation. The supporting skills lab taught technical writing and editing,oral presentation skills, and interpersonal skills linked to Felder’s learning styles.1 Student teamswere assigned so that all majors, learning styles, and genders were represented in each team. Theactivities were assessed using four surveys throughout the semester.Women undergraduates in the course ranked learning styles, teamwork, writing and

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rachelle Reisberg, Northeastern University; Margaret Bailey, Rochester Institute of Technology; Carol Burger, Virginia Tech; Jerry Hamann, University of Wyoming; Joe Raelin, Northeastern University; David Whitman, University of Wyoming

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Page 15.1223.4change in work self-efficacy; prior academic achievement predicted subsequent academic self-efficacy; and academic support significantly enhanced all three forms of self-efficacy. Womenundergraduates were more confident in obtaining occupational information and learning fromtheir work experiences. While this preliminary study suggested the strong influence of co-op,additional variables constituting a more comprehensive model within larger populations neededto be considered. This larger research project, supported by the National Science Foundation,began in 2008, and the current study is a report of the first wave of findings.Conceptual FrameworkThe framework for the study is depicted in Figure 1 as a series of pathways between

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Creamer, Virginia Tech; Peggy Meszaros, Virginia Tech; Catherine Amelink, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

during high school and outreach activities about career opportunitiesthat occur as early as elementary school. While research outcomes are not entirelyconsistent on this point, evidence is that the gender and racial gap in persistence onceenrolled in an engineering major has narrowed to near parity. In a recent analysis, forexample, Lord et al.1 determined that contrary to prevailing perceptions, women and menpersist in engineering majors at approximately the same rate across all ethnic groups.Less encouraging is evidence that a gender gap persists after completion of anundergraduate major in engineering, when women were significantly less likely than mento express interest in pursuing jobs in engineering2,3,4.Conceptual FrameworkThe literature

Conference Session

ADVANCE Grants and Institutional Transformation

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer, Purdue University; Barbara Clark, Purdue University; Susan Geier, Purdue University; Christie Sahley, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

, thepercentage of female PhD holders in full-time STEM academic positions at 2-year and 4-yearcolleges and universities has increased from 10.6% in 1985 to 25.1% in 2006 1. This increase hasbeen attributed to the increase in the number of females earning science and engineering PhDs.However, progress in faculty representation at research intensive institutions has been painfullyslow. A study of the top 100 science and engineering departments (as ranked by NSF) shows thatfemale science and engineering faculty had increased only 3% in the past five years up to a totalSTEM representation of 17% 2.In 2001, the National Science Foundation announced the ADVANCE program to address thedisparity in faculty representation. The goal of ADVANCE is to “… develop

Conference Session

ADVANCE Grants and Institutional Transformation

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Canan Bilen-Green, North Dakota State University; Elizabeth Birmingham, North Dakota State University; Ann Burnett, North Dakota State University; Roger Green, North Dakota State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

unfairly disadvantage women and minorities, which iscontrary to “principles of social equity rooted both in democratic ideology”1 and contrary to theideal that scientific careers “be open to talent.”2 Over the last thirty years, research on the natureof organizations3,4,5 provides convincing evidence that assumptions about the neutrality oforganizational structures and dynamics have obscured mechanisms that systematically limitwomen. Organizations are, in fact, gendered to the extent that they pattern “advantage anddisadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity,” in terms ofdistinctions between “male and female, masculine and feminine.”6 Acknowledgement of suchgender-based organizational patterns is essential to

Conference Session

ADVANCE Grants and Institutional Transformation

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kristen Constant, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

. Othertargeted activities include college specificmeetings and networking events for womenfaculty in each college, for example, a breakfastmeeting for women faculty in the College ofEngineering designed to combat isolation. (Mostengineering faculty women are one of few in adepartment and rarely meet others within thecollege). Activities directed toward educating thelarger University community (and beyond) rangefrom hosting a national conference to individualone-on-one meetings. These events and activitiesare usually either designed to disseminate resultsof our collaborative transformation efforts, or to Figure 1 Relationship of program elementseducate faculty and administrators on a particular showing the integration across the universitytopic

Conference Session

Focus on Faculty

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Soumya Srivastava, Mississippi State University; Anurag Srivastava, Mississippi State University; Adrienne Minerick, Mississippi State University; Noel Schulz, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

contrasted to maleresponses along with some open ended responses. The survey findings presented here are basedonly on engineering student population and not alumni students.Common Concerns for prospective students: In this survey conducted online, the students were asked to rank a list of eleven mostcommon concerns with 1 as the greatest concern and 11 as little or no concern. The commonconcerns were: 1. Transcript evaluation 2. Meeting the deadlines for admission 3. Getting VISA 4. Being accepted into the program 5. Housing 6. Language and culture change 7. Funding/ Support 8. Finding a good academic advisor 9. Finding good courses 10. Finding job after graduation 11. Safety and security of the Campus Figure 1

Conference Session

Survival Tips from the Trenches

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Lantz, Trine University; Adrienne Minerick, Mississippi State University; Donna Reese, Mississippi State University; Beena Sukumaran, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

habits!2. For important initiatives, do your research and practice your pitch so that you can sell the idea to the appropriate individuals. If that person is a #3, don’t accept ‘no’ for an answer; look for other solutions and talk to other administrators (see #3).1. Enjoy your chosen profession. Be as efficient as possible during the time you have set aside for work. Rate each day according to #5 and compliment yourself for the productive items accomplished that day. During the times you have set aside for family, don’t spend time worrying about work. When you are out on a date with your husband/significant other, put 100 percent of your attention into being in love. When you

Conference Session

Focus on Faculty

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Knight, University of Colorado, Boulder; Katie Corner, University of Colorado, Boulder; Beverly Louie, University of Colorado, Boulder; Amber Shoals, University of Colorado, Boulder; Cindy Cabrales, University of Colorado, Boulder

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

women; nevertheless, women compose less than 15% of theengineering population.1 Additionally, the proportion of women over the last 20 years hasmerely grown 5%, despite numerous efforts including scholarships, curriculum improvements,and mentorship programs across the country.2 The declining retention rates in universities andslow growth occurs in spite of the fact that overall, the qualifications of women tend to be equalor slightly better than their male counterparts.3The university tracks undergraduate student six-year graduation rate by gender. Upon enteringa degree program in the College of Engineering and Applied Science, student progress ismonitored for up to six years. The figure below illustrates a concerning trend within thecollege

Conference Session

Women in Engineering Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erika Murguia, Arizona State University; Erin Kube, Arizona State University; Jennifer Bekki, Arizona State University Polytechnic; Bianca Bernstein, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

, P.T., Volkwein, J.F., Peterson, G.D. (2001). The changing face of engineering education. National Academy of Engineering of the National Academies. 36(2).11. Latucca, L.R., Voigt, L.J.(2004). Does interdisciplinarity promote learning? Theoretical support and researchable questions. The Review of Higher Education, 28(1), 23-48.12. Ali, F. (2009). Psychologists without borders: a graduate student perspective on interdisciplinary research. APS Observer. 22(10).13. Ivanitskaya, L., Clark, D., Montgomery, G., Primeau, R. (2002). Interdisciplinary learning: process and outcomes. Innovative Higher Education, 27(2), 95-111

Conference Session

Effective Methods for Recruiting Women to Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Milgram, Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (IWITTS); Daniella Severs, Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (IWITTS)

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

―Google/online‖ to ―was inspired by my father and theneed to support my daughter‖ and ―looked at a game education magazine.‖ The recruitmentportion is the smallest section of the survey because the larger focus of the survey is to informinstructors and administrators what retention strategies students are experiencing, which theyfind most helpful and which strategies they are not experiencing but would most like toexperience.What follows in Figure 1 is the ―Retention Activity/Strategy‖ portion only of the ―Survey ofFemale Technology Course Students‖ (aggregate across seven colleges of the eight colleges, asCity College of San Francisco did not participate

Conference Session

Women In Engineering Poster Session / WEPAN Knowledge Center / Women in Engineering Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

C. Diane Matt, WEPAN Inc.; Jenna Carpenter, Louisiana Tech University; Jane Langeman, Langeman Consulting; Lori DuBois, DuBois Information

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

, whether directly orindirectly related. The true power of social networking is the reach and depth of communicationin an unforced, timely manner.WEPAN Knowledge Center and Professional CommunityThe WKC was launched in June, 2009, providing an organized and annotated digital venue forselected information resources for women in STEM community. In addition, a professionalcommunity was established providing an arena for professional interactions among like-mindedpeers. Development of the WKC was funded by NSF grant #0648210.(www.wepanknowledgecenter.org/)Figure 1. WEPAN Knowledge Center Homepage Screenshot.From the WKC homepage, a web visitor can locate and view over 800 (as of November 2009)information resources in the WKC information repository

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Metz, Stevens Institute of Technology; Suzanne Brainard, University of Washington; Elizabeth Litzler, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

implemented the following protocol.Quantitative SurveyThe PACE questionnaire included questions in the following categories: Quality of Teaching,Professors, Teaching Assistants, Labs, Resources, Student Interaction, Extracurricular Activities,Personal Experience, Perceptions of Engineering Careers, Perceptions of Engineering Major,Confidence and Demographic Information. In addition, Personal Experience included ninequestions relevant to sensitive issues such as sex and race discrimination and harassment.In recognition of the varying Institutional Review Board rules that regulate the release of studentdata, we created four survey administration options from which each institution could choose.They included 1) school hosts survey, school samples

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Litzler, University of Washington; Stephanie Jaros, University of Washington; Suzanne Brainard, University of Washington; Susan Metz, Stevens Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

the impact of gender for eachrace/ethnicity group? What is the impact of race/ethnicity for each gender group? This analysisexamines four main concept areas which measure student perceptions of their experiences,abilities and likelihood of leaving engineering: professor-student interactions, student-studentinteractions, self-confidence and risk of attrition.These questions are increasingly relevant as a result of expected demographic shifts in the USpopulation. The US Census Bureau projects that by 2050 all ethnic minority groups willcomprise 54 percent of the United States population.1 This will be a major shift from 2008 whenminorities made up one-third of the US population. Another demographic shift is related to thepercentage of women

Conference Session

How to Get Published: Tips from Journal Editors

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bevlee Watford, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Education will be a catalyst for the scholarship ofteaching and learning in support of the efforts of the Process Education Academy to transformhigher education. The mission of the Journal are to provide a forum for, and an archivalrecord of, scholarly research in process education, to elevate skills in the discipline of thescholarship of teaching and learning, to explore promising new research areas in processeducation and to foster classroom-based research. The guiding principles of the Journal are (1)all faculty, staff, administrators and students can contribute to classroom research, (2) everyresearcher’s methods can be continuously improved, (3) the term “classroom” is a metaphor forall learning environments (4) mentorship can accelerate the

Conference Session

ADVANCE Grants and Institutional Transformation

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Anna M. Zajicek, University of Arkansas; Shauna A. Morimoto, University of Arkansas; Joseph Rencis, University of Arkansas; Valerie H. Hunt, University of Arkansas

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

supporting the groundwork necessary to transforminstitutional practices systemically, the Institutional Transformation Awards seek to createpositive, sustainable, and permanent change in academic climates.”15The NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation (IT) program was initiated in 2001 with theobjectives 1) to increase the representation of women in STEM; and, 2) to encourageorganizations to implement institutional changes that would empower women scientists to fullyparticipate in STEM disciplines. Since 2001, 37 institutions of higher education have receivedthe NSF ADVANCE IT awards totaling over $130M,i and 19 have completed their five-yearprojects. Although the nature of ADVANCE IT projects varies among universities, theircommon purpose is to

Conference Session

Effective Methods for Recruiting Women to Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eleanor M. Jaffee, Smith College; Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

three sections: 1) Identity, which explored students‟ conceptions of themselves andtheir fields of study; 2) Path, which asked students to describe their academic choices andinfluences; and, 3) Process, which focused on students‟ experiences of learning. For the presentproject, we used data from the Identity and Path sections only.Student researchers conducted interviews with student participants from the Fall 2005 throughthe Spring 2009 semesters. Interviews were then transcribed in electronic form, and linked to anAtlas.ti database (known as a Hermeneutic Unit or HU) for qualitative analysis. In addition, toprovide context for the study, demographic information collected from participants was enteredinto an SPSS database to generate

Conference Session

Focus on Faculty

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Keisha Walters, Mississippi State University; Soumya Srivastava, Mississippi State University; Adrienne Minerick, Mississippi State University; Jacqueline Hall, Mississippi State University; Kaela Leonard, Michigan Technological University; Amy Parker, Mississippi State University; Heather Thomas, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

colleges.IntroductionIn 2006, total U.S. graduate school enrollment in engineering was 123,041 students with 27,944(22.71%) female students1. A National Science Foundation (NSF) survey showed that thenumber of doctoral degrees earned annually by men in engineering fields almost tripled from2,370 in 1978 to 6,164 in 2008. The number of doctoral degrees earned by women increasedfrom 53 (2.2%) to 1,688 (21.5%) over the same time period, a 10-fold change over 30 years2.These numbers lag dramatically behind the life sciences where females earned 52.9% of doctoraldegrees in 20083. For chemical engineering, in 2006 there were 7,261 graduate students in 2006of which 2,159 (29.73%)1. A slightly lower percentage of graduated female Ph.D. chemicalengineers was recorded at

Conference Session

ADVANCE Grants and Institutional Transformation

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christine Grant, North Carolina State University; Jessica Decuir-Gunby, North Carolina State University; Barbara Smith, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Page 15.129.4Engineering Faculty” concluded that: “Faculty diversity at post-secondary institutions can be 3achieved with thoughtfully conceived and executed programs for recruiting and retainingscience and engineering faculty from underrepresented minority groups.” (National ScienceBoard, 2004).The following table summarizes the updated data found in the aforementioned Nelson reports in2005 and 2007:Table 1: Female URM Faculty at “Top 50”* Science and Engineering Departments (FY2002/ FY 2007)). Native American Hispanic Black females

Conference Session

Research and Funding Opportunities

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Beena Sukumaran, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

of questions for the panelists have also been formulated and responses were requestedfrom the panelists but due to time constraints and other commitments by the panelists, noresponses have been received.Panelists and Possible QuestionsThe panelists who have already confirmed attendance at the panel are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Panelists who will be attending the panel Name Agency Represented Larry Weber or another Office of International Science and representative Engineering National Science Foundation Jennifer Keller Jackson or National Collegiate Inventors and