. Joachim Walther, University of Georgia Dr. Walther is an assistant professor of engineering education research at the University of Georgia (UGA). He is a director of the Collaborative Lounge for Understanding Society and Technology through Educational Research (CLUSTER), an interdisciplinary research group with members from engineering, art, educational psychology and social work. His research interests range from the role of empathy in engineering students’ professional formation, the role of reflection in engineering learning, and interpretive research methodologies in the emerging field of engineering education research. His teaching focuses on innovative approaches to introducing systems thinking and
to making it better, faster, or more efficient. • Engineers help shape the future. They use the latest science, tools, and technology to bring ideas to life. • Engineering is essential to our health, happiness, and safety. From the grandest skyscrapers to microscopic medical devices, it is impossible to imagine life without engineering.These and other recommendations to “change the conversation” or “embrace a broader vision” ofengineering bespeak a realization that the profession is not well understood or reflective of thesociety it serves. Organizations in the engineering community have tested female-inclusiveapplications and strategies in outreach and awareness efforts with limited success. The authenticadult (i.e. Baby
as a frameworkfor promoting professional development and community building for graduate students.Building on the themes of the book, this program sought to promote reflection amongparticipants about the choices and actions that women can take to position themselves forsuccess—and encouraged exploration of students’ personal vision of success. Results of pre-and post-tests, along with observational data gathered by the facilitators, indicated that studentswere concerned largely by two topics: concerns about how to balance their career ambition andtheir goals for a fulfilling personal life (whatever that may be), and how to have positive andbeneficial relationship with mentors or advisors. Students also shared their challenges andfrustration
office. According to our records, 288 employees opened the survey and 175 completed it.Please see table one for a summary of our sample characteristics.Our sample is younger and less experienced than engineers in the country with a slight over-representation of chemical and mechanical engineers. The gender split (74% men, 26% women)reflects that of Canadian engineering graduates over the past two decades. We used Cronbach’salpha to test the reliability of survey scales using the full complement of data collected (n=75, 31survey items, 3 scales) and found that all three scales met the social science reliability thresholdof 0.7 [12]. After analyzing data related to the three engineering leadership orientations andanswering our initial set of
Tool in Addressing Gender BiasAbstractAfter decades of addressing the gender bias in engineering and computer fields, there areexpectations, particularly by women in these fields, that the biases would have been eradicated 1long before 2014. However, an Implicit Association assignment addressing the Gender Gap inmultiple recent semesters of a Computer Ethics class produced results which the author foundboth surprising and disturbing in the biases reflected, and justified, by current students. As astrategy in dealing with this, Problem Based Learning (PBL) was used as the basis of a moreextensive, team-based project in the Spring 2014 iteration of the class. The three
’, ormeeting others’ needs. She did not feel there was anyone in her department she could go tofor help or support. It was not an isolated experience.This story was told to other female faculty members as part of a series of ‘storytellingcircles,’ which were organized in order to gain insight into the careers and experiences offemale faculty members in science and engineering fields. While many stories told during thegroup interviews reflected a lack of consideration for family-related responsibilities, the oneabove reveals clearly the influence of a department head. It reveals a significant lack ofconsideration for the participant immediately after she gave birth to her child.Time and again, we heard stories detailing the ways in which department
highlighted faculty perspectives on institutionalstrengths, areas for improvement, and satisfaction across twenty themed question categories. Of the 438respondents, 151 of the 231 women faculty invited to participate responded (65%), and 287 of the 506men faculty responded (57%). COACHE defines effect size as the measuring of differences betweenpaired subgroups within a campus. Comparison among campus groups included pretenure/tenure,associate/full; gender and white/faculty of color were reflected by small (between 0.1 and 0.3), medium(between 0.3 and 0.5), and large (greater than 0.5) effect size. Table 1 indicates questions where largeand medium effect sizes were seen by gender in the COACHE survey results.Table 1: Gender Differences in COACHE
. Additionally, Tinto argues that the first year of college, indeed the first semester, is critical to students being incorporated into the college campus, aswell as their eventual persistence through to graduation. Retention programs, therefore, are mostsuccessful when they utilize informal faculty-student contact in order to integrate students intothe academic and social life of the college5.Some studies have examined the effect of precollege characteristics, parental socialization andcollege experiences to determine their relationship with female STEM major persistence.In a study by Espinosa, the experiences of 1,250 women of color and 891 Caucasian womenattending 135 colleges nationwide were collected via a reflecting survey of their four years
other intercultural competencies.Results - Part 1: International Collaboration: Barriers & RecommendationsAs part of their blogging reflections, delegates were asked to list five factors they consider to bebarriers to international collaboration for underrepresented minorities, particularly related towork/life balance. They were also asked to provide recommendations for dealing with suchbarriers. The following sections provide an overview of common factors discussed among thegroup both from the general perspective of being underrepresented minorities as well as relatedto the issues specific to women.Both male and female delegates listed lack of knowledge as one barrier to participation ininternational collaboration. As one male Latino
supervisors as role models and mentors. Third,male engineers did not describe mentoring solely as an instrumental or task-focused exercise,7,8Engineers reported mentoring experiences in both relational and task-oriented terms and oftenemphasized the relational aspects and benefits to having a mentor. Overall, theiracknowledgement of mentoring while struggling to initially recall such experiences and lateremphasizing their feeling of being highly self motivated and autonomous reflected theautonomy-connectedness dialectic. In the following sections we briefly review the literature oncareers, career socialization and mentorship.BackgroundPrevious research on female engineers’ mentoring and career socialization discoursesA study focusing on the nature of
process 13% 25% 11% Help with career path 0% 25% 7%Before the workshop, all of the participants knew how to define racism. However, 67% of theattendees did not know what a micro-aggression was. Surprisingly, none of the faculty listedpossible benefits of being proactive. Students listed that some people may be shy (22%), can't sit Page 26.565.10and do nothing (22%), you get to learn (11%) and can avoid potential problems before theyoccur (22%).Post session methods to increase participation were more concrete and reflected that sessionattendees did learn something (Table 4
: $1,000Evaluation PlanAssessment of the Women’s Engineering Institute will be made by monitoring the retention andenrollment numbers of female engineering students. The Admissions Office will providestatistical data to reflect the impact of the institute on retention and recruitment. The StudentRecords office will also provide reports to analyze academic performance of female studentsprior to and after joining the institute. The number of female students who were grantedscholarships, internship opportunities, and job placements will also indicate the success of theinstitute.Furthermore, as one of the goals of the institute, the number of female faculty hired throughoutthe year will also be analyzed. The number of summer camps attendees will demonstrate
with the organizational analysis approach and project goals.Organizational Analysis ApproachOver the first two years of the project, the team successfully used the multi-frame organizationalanalysis approach,2, 3 as proposed. Recently this approach has been refined to reflect variousrealities of the project and a reconfigured set of three perspectives to guide the work, namelystructural, environmental, and political (Figure 3). Additionally, some of the interventionplacement has been shifted within these categories to better map to an evolving evaluation plan.Project GoalsCurrently, three project goals, displayed on the logic model (Figure 3), map to the originalproposal’s set of four goals where each related to an intervention grouping of
before thesetendencies turn into actual departures. Such early career studies require looking at motivation,because motivation is a critical determinant of future behavior.Although all motivation theories share the common goal of connecting people’s behaviors tospecific motivations, self-determination theory (SDT) is particularly useful because it drawsimportant distinctions among the types of motivations that people experience.15,16 SDT identifiesa continuum of motivation types, ranging from controlled to autonomous. Autonomousmotivations are distinguished from more controlled motivations in that they are driven byinternal rewards rather than external and reflect that an individual is self-directing his or herbehaviors, resulting in greater
country, but it is a major barrier at my institution.I otherwise believe that advocacy needs to be a formalized institution-level mission and goal, andit must be genuine. If it is not for the right reasons (such as public relations), then thoseindividuals within the institution will see through it and potentially lose confidence and morale.It cannot simply be words or data; there has to be action, and institutions cannot fake this. I alsobelieve that it is a barrier if the leaders of the institution do not speak and act consistentlybetween their public and internal personas. These leaders cannot speak of how important equityis and then internally emphasize efforts that do not reflect this
competitiveworkforce in STEM fields (e.g., Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics,and Engineering Mentoring16). Linked with larger policy considerations reflecting civil rightsconcerns and the ability of the country to be competitive in a global economy, thesepolicymakers and agencies have specifically identified the importance of mentoring inconjunction with the career development of underrepresented groups in STEM fields, includingwomen in STEM fields.In this paper we report on the junior faculty cohort mentoring program developed by the Womenin Science and Engineering (WISE@OU) program at Oakland University, funded by an NSFADVANCE grant. We first begin by providing background information on the WISE@OUprogram and then discuss the
Page 26.606.5participants and has grown to 33 women students as of the 2014-15 school year. Evaluation dataand student and faculty input presented in this paper reflect the experiences of the study group over the 5 years in which the program has been operating. Figure 1 shows the participants byyear and the mix of freshmen and sophomore students. Because of generous donations, theprogram has been able to increase the number of student mentees over the past five years. 1st-‐year Students 2nd-‐year Students Faculty Mentors
distinct from sex. Connellnotes that gender is not a supposedly biologically-obvious division between men and women, butinstead the way human society collectively makes relevant these reproductive distinctions Page 26.1007.5between human bodies in a social context. For us, the context is engineering education. In its simplest form, gender reflects the set of characteristics, behaviors, and practices that we think ofas “feminine” or “masculine” – characteristics that any individual biological male or female mayor may not embody.Race, like gender, is not a biological category but a social one. And unlike sex, race has nobiological basis, despite a
column reflects the percentage of respondents who checked either "agree" or"strongly agree."The preceding survey results show that the majority of respondents felt that InWIC componentswere valuable or changed their lives in valuable ways. Remarkably, five of the survey itemswere given positive marks by every respondent. Only five of the line items received scores inthe seventy or eighty percent range. The remaining questions lie at the ninety percent level.Pairing the preceding positive response rates with the high survey response rate supports theclaim that the Celebration was successful and deserves emulation by additional regional areasseeking to increase the participation of women in computing
and EEC-1136916. Any opinion,finding, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authorsand do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Page 26.1200.6References1. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (2001). The Carnegie Classification of Institutions ofHigher Education: 2000 edition. Retrieved March 31, 2011 fromhttp://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/resources.2. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research.Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co.3. Hoffer, T. B., Hess, M. D., Welch, V., & Williams
students with the intention of raising awareness.Forty students (8 female) attended the departmental information session during the College OpenHouse event on November 9, 2014. Four female students signed up to participate in a focusgroup. Twenty-four students (3 female) attended the two departmental new student orientationsessions on January 21 and 23, 2015. Two female students signed up to participate in the focusgroup.4.2 Special Registration Advisement SessionsAdvisement helps students register for the proper courses by following their degreerequirements; this is both important and challenging, as the CST degree program requirementsare constantly under modification to reflect new technologies. Students entering the College atdifferent times
effect of significance has been an increase in direct, targeted recruitmentof women into the program — and subsequently from the program by employers. Weanecdotally note also that women in cybersecurity command a higher average placement wagethan men, although regret that to date, this data is not statistically significant due to insufficientdata samples.IntroductionAt the beginning of 2015, Intel announced a $300 million diversity initiative intended to give fullrepresentation to women within their company by 2020 3. Intel stated that its plan is to “hiredifferently and tie executive pay to performance on the issue 4.” Full representation in thiscontext means that Intel’s aims to reflect the amount of women who have the skills and aptitudeto
-Support-Connect program is an initiative that brought several diversity programstogether at The School of Technology (SoT) of North Carolina Agricultural and TechnicalState University (NC A&T State University) to successfully support female recruitment intotechnology majors. NC A&T State University is a Historically Black College and Universitywith a STEM Early College High School located on campus. NC A&T State University as awhole has a 54 percent female undergraduate student body, but in the School of Technologyonly 25 percent of our students were female. This past challenge gave us a unique position tocapitalize on the opportunity to make a paradigm shift to be more reflective of the nation’spopulation. Although the focus of this
approach reflects a foundationalmisalignment in educational philosophies resulting in what might provocatively be characterizedas “bait-and-switch.” The bait-and-switch characterization reflects a mismatch between theengagement logics embedded in most K-12 engineering education and the exclusionary logicsunderlying most university engineering education. While we acknowledge from the start thatuniversity engineering programs are increasingly emphasizing student engagement, the rapidexpansion of K-12 engineering programs has outpaced reforms in higher education aroundengagement, thereby magnifying the problems associated with engineering bait-and-switchexplored in this paper.In popular vernacular, bait-and-switch is often associated with fraud or
dominantnarrative that success in engineering is impossible without being good at math. .The other prominent way we see Rachel counter the “suck at math” narrative is through culturaland circumstantial explanation. Instead of seeing math performance as a reflection of her Page 26.1582.7inherent ability, Rachel tells a story of how her high school preparation and experiencecontributed to her being inadequately prepared in math. This includes early instructionaldeficiencies (“going back to middle school I had really weak algebra training”), structuraldisadvantages (at her private all-girls’ school in Connecticut, even good students rarely tookcalculus), and
and had breakfastwith a faculty member from the Industrial and Systems Engineering department at theUniversity. The culminating event was a group trip to an art/science exhibit in New York City.ProcedureThis paper combines data from different sources in order to understand the different programcomponents that have impacted the 2012 and 2013 cohorts. Internal program evaluations fromthe office reflect student feedback about the effectiveness of the peer and industry-mentoringprogram. Data presented in this paper utilizing the AWE LAESE survey were part of a grantprovided by the Engineering Information Foundation to implement and evaluate the impact of asecond-year program for undergraduate women in engineering. Additionally, as part of a
likely to experience more overt behaviors, while students andfaculty predominantly described comparatively subtle comments or behaviors that gave them asense that they did not belong as women in engineering. Below we provide examples of some ofthe different types of inappropriate behaviors that women encountered.All groups discussed receiving comments reflecting the belief that women are not engineers.For example, one female engineer stated, A lot of times, when women come to meetings, most of the time, the men think they're either the secretary, not an engineer, or they expect me to do the writing or something like that. Sometimes they don't talk to you or look at you. They talk at you, which is not good, or they assume
4institutions. To assess whether the program content matched the interests of the participants,participants were asked to indicate the type of institution(s) to which they plan to apply.Institutions were categorized into four groups: research intensive, research and teachingintensive, teaching intensive, and community college. Participants were also asked to indicate ifthey were interested in tenure or non-tenure track positions. As shown in Figure 2, participants’interests shifted throughout the program. Although no conclusive tends were observed with theparticipants’ change in the type of institution to which they were interested in applying, this datadoes reflect the sentiment of indecision that was observed in the post program interviews
Press.Marra, R., Edmister, W., Watford, V., Bogue, B., Tsai, C., and Gooden, F. (2010). Peermentoring: Impact on mentees and comparison with non-participants. Proceedings of the AnnualConference and Exposition of the American Society for Engineering Education.Niemi, A., Green, M., and Roudkovski, M. (2013). Evaluation of a first-year retention project:Findings at halftime. Proceedings of the Annual Conference and Exposition of the AmericanSociety for Engineering Education.Building Engineering and Science Talent (BEST), 2004. A Bridge for All. www.Bestworkforce.org, accessed 2-19-15.Meyers, K., Silliman, S., Gedde, N. and Ohland, M. (2010). A comparison of engineeringstudents’ reflections on their first-year experience. Journal of Engineering
; and3) a small group cohort experience that emphasizes reflective and experiential learning through smallgroup team building, but also includes social activities. The BUILD program began in the summer of2006 and has continued uninterrupted to the present.The success of the BUILD program has fueled the initiative. BUILD cohorts consistently have higheraverage first term GPAs, high school GPA averages, and average SAT scores compared to the Universityaverages (The first-year retention rates for BUILD cohorts increased from 89% for the (2006 cohort) to ahigh of 95% (2012 cohort). This compared to the University rates which increased from 79% for the(2006 cohort) to a high of 81% for the (2012 cohort), with a high of 81% also occurring for the Fall