members.Upon review several modifications to the website were communicated to the HR specialist, whoalso acted as liaison between any and all constituents. A major modification reflected howmedium-to-large institutions receive and process applications. Through various communicationand performance difficulties on the part of the webmaster required that, the HR specialistworked closely with the webmaster over the next18 months in order for a majority of therequested changes to be implemented. Unfortunately, these changes were not completed tospecification or functioning.To address these technical limitations and frustrations, a local technology group was hired toexamine and to correct the architecture and functioning of the website. After six months
traditionally-aged collegestudents who are white and cisgendered.While more quantitative data can provide essential big picture data, qualitative case studies havethe advantage of highlighting specific experiences, focusing on the particular instead of thegeneral [15]. In other words, case studies provide rich context and detail, though researchersmust be careful about generalizing what they find. In addition, assessing women’s experiencesmore quantitatively may not be possible because of the number of women present in a givenengineering program (the MSE program studied here has only 6 women out of a cohort of 22enrolled in the senior project course) and because their grades or other methods of numericalevaluation may not adequately reflect their
likely to be retained [6].Effects of gender on retention and successGender influences patterns of retention and academic success in engineering programs. Inengineering majors, men typically outnumber women, as reflected in a 2017 report whichrevealed only 21.3% of bachelor’s degrees in engineering were earned by women [14]. Despitewomen earning fewer engineering degrees than men, a positive correlation between being femaleand graduation rates has been found [3]. Women frequently have been reported to be more likelythan men to earn a bachelor’s degree once enrolled, regardless of the time frame needed to earnthe degree [15] [16] [17]. The evidence, however, has not been uniform: Lord et al. [18] foundno significant difference in four-year
voices in computing ensures oursociety grows and develops accordingly.My participation in BPC efforts has benefited me in many ways. It has strengthened myemotional intelligence; developed my capacity for mentoring; and increased my knowledge ofresources available to students, curriculum development, and new technologies for CS education.It encouraged me to reflect on how my career might best align with my passions. I reasoned thatI could have a bigger impact training the voices of the future than being a singular voice that wasnot reflective of a larger community. My participation in BPC efforts expanded my professionalnetwork; it gave me access to many mentors who helped facilitate my transition from industryand into academia as a tenure-track
USC in hiring and promoting women faculty is significant, relative to where it started.With approximately 16,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate and professional students, USCprides itself on the diversity of its student body. In 2005, undergraduates students were 50.9%female to 49.1% male (graduate students 46.2% female to 53.8% male), 44.2% identify as non-white/caucasian (graduate students 42.4%) and international students comprise 8.6% ofundergraduates and 25.3% of graduate students, representing 108 countries. To better reflect thediversity of its students and to meet a standard of excellence in education that is tied to diversity,USC has embraced an aggressive faculty diversity program, influenced in part by the success ofthe WiSE
4(Information Technology Association of America, 2003). Prior employment research on genderstratification demonstrates that this under representation is a reflection of organizational andsocial structures, rather than essentialist generalizations about gender group characteristics(Trauth, Quesenberry, & Morgan, 2004). As a result, it is necessary to understand thecharacteristics of the IT workplace environment, and in particular, the workplace environmentalfactors that hinder and assist the career progression of women in IT. A study by Wardell,Sawyer, Reagor, and Mitory (2005), found that women are nearly three times as likely as men toleave the IT workforce. Their findings showed that although women are able to gain thenecessary skills
her mentors through aresearch collaboration, “I was very lucky to have a colleague … three or four years into myassistant appointment, who got a very large grant that I was kind of dragged into, fell into byaccident, who really showed me how to run a very large grant and how to do different kinds ofresearch.” In this case, Berta received mentoring as part of a seemingly natural process when sheworked with her colleague in this research project. Reflecting on this experience, Berta nowconsiders her colleague to be an important mentor to her (see Figure 1). Other participants notedthat their mentors were people with whom they taught and/or collaborated in various ways. Although most of the reported multiplex ties between mentor and mentee
3 5 45.5% n/a n/a n/a 45.5%Dean'sOfficesTotal 32 86 95 22.8% 26.6% 31.3% 23.7% 15.6%Women (36/115) (35/148) (24/154)STEMFaculty1 Represents Teaching (as opposed to Research) Faculty2 [2] Table F-2, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/tables.cfm NSF, Women, Minorities, and Persons withDisabilities in Science and Engineering, S&E doctoral degrees awarded to women, by field: 2000–08. Values listedin Table 1 were adjusted to reflect RIT S & E disciplines and necessary weighting based on discipline faculty count3 Data listed is for a subset of
Minority (URM) women faculty have emerged as successful leaders in theengineering academia in a growing number of universities across the United States. Increasedexposure of this group raises the conversation in academia to a new level and createspartnerships based on scholarship with diversity as an added benefit. There are, however, stillunique challenges and opportunities. The representation of URM women faculty at the Top 50institutions (based on research expenditures) is not reflective of demographics due to acombination of selection/self selection processes and hidden biases in the academia (Nelson,2007). As they progress in their faculty careers, Underrepresented Minority Women (URM
focused on gaining exposure tothe engineering in ski resorts including lift operations and snow making processes while buildingstudent-student and student-faculty relationships. During the 4-hour bus ride to the ski resort,students were asked to read a scholarly article on one of eight topics related to ski resorts.Students met in small groups with others that selected the same ski related topic and gave areport out to the larger group. At the ski resort, students had a behind the scenes tour of the liftoperations and of the snow making process. Students had the rest of the day to ski or take alesson with other women on the trip. The evening included a team building workshop whichincluded reflection on the day’s activities and how their
thisarticle, Wasburns suggests providing a gender-neutral classroom by avoiding using sportsexamples or providing assessments earlier and more frequently [3]. Other strategies for gender-focused inclusion can revolve around assigning personal reflections for students to helpunderrepresented engineering students feel a stronger sense of belonging [4]. While thesestrategies may prove useful for building inclusive class-based environments, these strategies mayfall flat when students are utilizing technology as part of their instructional practice.Technology is a critical part of instructional design; however, the types and implementation oftechnology can affect the success and motivation of students. For example, women are heavilyinfluenced by the
form mentoring programs, it is important to monitor theoutcomes over multiple years to accurately monitor the effects. There is also a lack of researchon the effect of mentoring programs on the mental health of students during COVID-19.Methods The mentoring program within the WISE program has now been running for threesemesters since Fall 2019 and the findings after the Fall 2020 semester were measured to 1)assess the cohort’s satisfaction and engagement in the program through a voice of customersurvey including reflections, 2) compare the increase in the number of mentor/mentee pairs fromthe initial pilot period of Fall 2019 compared to the Fall 2020, 3) compare the average GPAs and4) the retention in engineering and science for women
the use of student evaluations ofteaching in peer review and tenure and promotion processes. Given the abrupt switch to onlineeducation in spring 2020, as well as continued virtual delivery of most classes in the 2020-2021academic year, task force members were concerned that traditional course evaluation metrics andstudent feedback would reflect student dissatisfaction with online education, rather thansummative feedback as to teaching quality. This concern was compounded by the known bias instudent evaluations of teaching, where female faculty, faculty of color, and those from othermarginalized groups are disadvantaged [8], [21]. For both spring 2020 and the full 2020-2021academic year, student course feedback is to be included in future
that in the USA the female retention rate in CS programs is not very high; aconsiderable number of women change their mind about having a career in CS soon afterentering the program. When setting up the study, we were curious about the female retention ratein CS programs in Armenia. That information is even more interesting now, in the light of abovepresented data.Through interviews with university administrators, we established that in Armenia changingone’s major is an extremely rare act; apparently, in the soviet educational system the procedureof changing a major is so complicated that it is hardly ever practiced. Therefore, there is noofficial data reflecting student satisfaction with their major. Nevertheless, our survey results shed
, F. E. (1959). Characteristics of socio-technical systems. In Emery, F. (ed.), The Emergence of a NewParadigm of Work. (Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University, Canberra, 1978, pp. 38–86.)16. Johnson, B. L. (2002). Extending the study of learning environments: connecting the field to other literatures.Queensland Journal of Educational Research, 18(2), 183-206.17. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1986). Understanding reflective practice. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 1(4), 353-359.18. Aviolo, B. J. (1999). Full leadership development: Building the vital forces in organizations. Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage Press.19. Aldridge, J. M., & Fraser, B. J. (2000). A cross-cultural study of classroom learning environments in
is ability to capitalize on market differences.The diverse locations of the participating institutions provide access to larger and more diverseminority populations. For example, some of the colleges within NW-ETEP are able to drawfrom a larger number of Hispanic populations, while others are better able to draw from African-American and female populations. 2 In general, each institution attempts to increase URMrecruitment from all minority populations. However, each institution also finds strength indrawing from particular minority applicants that are reflective of geographic location. Thisenables NW-ETEP to make progress toward increasing overall minority recruitment without
worlds and are capable of integrating people withvarious cultural backgrounds into their teams. These demands are for example reflected in asurvey of 2004, carried out by the German Engineering Federation VDMA (Verband DeutscherMaschinen- und Anlagenbau). The results are presented in Figure 2.Figure 2: What companies expect to change in education for engineers. From VDMA 11,translation added by authorsA modern university with its diverse staff and students from all kinds of educational and culturalbackgrounds provides an ideal environment for developing these kinds of skills. Due to theBologna process universities now have the opportunity to integrate the new demands into theircurricula. Unfortunately, a big amount of the Bachelor courses in the
. The knowledge oftechnology for the purpose of this study consisted of practical, technical skills and knowledge oftechnical products. Undoubtedly the one major change in technology since the PATT study in1986 is the ubiquitous presence of computers at all levels of our society and the educationsystem. Therefore the knowledge and the comfort level of working with computers becomes amajor aspect of defining technology. In today’s society the two are often found to besynonymous however we have used a broader definition to reflect the interdisciplinary nature oftechnology that applies to more careers than that of computer science.This research investigated the reasons behind a student’s perception as well as their intent to notonly attend college
programs, all located in Historically Black Colleges and Universities(HBCUs), reveals five factors that encourage female persistence. The HBCUs were selected forthis analysis due to the relative homogeneity of their student populations, which helps to reducethe impact of confounding factors on the analysis. In addition, they have managed to besuccessful with limited resources; the identified factors reflect institutional will and missionrather than economics and therefore are more universally adoptable. The results, obtainedprimarily through document review, are verified via triangulation with other data sourcesincluding interviews and representative sources from the literature. The success of these sixprograms in enabling female undergraduates to
4women’s sense of self-esteem and self-worth were derived more from their perceivedattractiveness to men than from their academic prowess. Peer culture also reflects organizational culture. The culture of engineering has beendescribed as a “masculine culture” (Hacker, 1981; Wajcman, 1991) where quantitative, analyticskills are considered more valuable than social skills. Students are socialized into the culture ofengineering by their professors and by peers. Women are confronted with an assumption thatbeing women makes them inherently less qualified than men to become engineers. Hacker (1981) spent a year researching the culture of engineering, gathering data throughparticipant observation and interviews at an elite engineering
werecomputed for the time period of spring 2004 to spring 2008 inclusive (9 semesters total). Werecognize that this data does not actually reflect the size of courses taught during the time thatthe winners received an award; however, this is the only data available from the Registrar. Thus,only general trends and patterns can be considered.Table 1 shows that 8 of the 28 unique winners are from Science and Engineering but that none ofthem are women. For winners, the average number of undergraduate students taught by thewinners was 343 + 254 (mean + standard deviation) during the 9 semester period and the averagenumber of undergraduate students taught per semester by the winners was 56 + 44. Eighty-eight(88) non-winners were selected at random from the
science, engineering, and technicalworkforce and to bring best practices to communities nationwide.3 The report describes ashortfall of scientists, engineers, and other technically skilled workers.Much research literature documents the under representation of women in science, technology,engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, linking this problem to the attitudes and behaviors ofgirls from elementary school through graduate studies and employment. The studies reflect aclear gender distinction at all ages,4,5 showing that as girls grow older, there is steady decline inthe number expressing interest in STEM subjects, and a corresponding decline in the numbers ofwomen entering higher levels of study. Numerous programs proposed, and implemented
percent of high school girls reported currently participating in team sports.12 The Boise community reflects a similar focus on sports. 3. They have little contact with women in engineering fields. With only about 11% women13 in the overall engineering workforce, teenage girls are unlikely to encounter women engineering role models. Even if young women choose to major in engineering, many students nationally will earn their bachelor’s degrees without ever being taught by a female professor.14 (Although, Boise State University has an unusually high percentage of female faculty, at three times the national average.) 4. They are flocking to professions where they feel they can make meaningful contributions to
funding and retention data areperhaps more reflective of the unique differences between each participant rather than a true measureof the program’s impact.During the inaugural 2014/2015 academic year the EMS NFLC met 23 times and averaged sevenparticipants per meeting (from a pool of 27 new faculty and academic staff). There were 17 uniqueparticipants, and 15 faculty and staff participated in two or more meetings. During the 2015/2016academic year, the EMS NFLC met 22 times and averaged four participants per meeting (from a pool of13 new faculty and academic staff). There were 8 unique participants, and 7 faculty and staffparticipated in two or more meetings.Feedback from participating faculty during the first two years was overwhelmingly
through a practice of initiating, partnering, and policy making.Advance team members and key campus partners commence change initiatives by identifyingbarriers. Once a new program is developed, input and feedback gathered through campuspartnerships. Finally, successful ideas inform policies and procedures to formalize new practices.AcknowledgementsSupport for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation ADVANCEInstitutional Transformation program under Award No. 1209115. Any opinions, findings, andconclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do notnecessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.References[1] RIT Human Resources and Institutional Research (2015). NSF
their overall course performance. [3]For STEM students, particularly female students, self-efficacy – defined as a student’s belief inhis or her own ability to achieve academic success – is one of the greatest predictors of successin academic coursework. Female students, in general, rate themselves with lower self-efficacy inengineering coursework, even when they are, in actuality, achieving the same or better gradesthan their male counterparts. [7] According to previous research, there are a variety of factorsthat influence student self-efficacy and academic self-confidence, including perceived lecturerdistance and intimidation. [8] Greater perceived faculty distance reflects a colder, detached, andmore impersonal teaching style, which affects
workas a reflection of themselves. For example, Wynita, a third-year robotics engineering student,described how the makerspace allows her to create. In the makerspace environment, I don’t feel like I’m being pushed to do something. I’m working on this. I’m going to do it my way. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. This is going to be me. This is going to be my own work.It appeared that more time in the makerspace for these participants to create their own projectsfostered more autonomy and confidence. The makerspace also represented an environmentwhere there was some flexibility for trial and error. Although Winnie noted that female makers,including herself, felt self-imposed pressure to maintain perfection, she also acknowledged
” may be a more effective strategy forultimately attaining a distribution of gender within engineering that reflects the largercommunity.References1. Roy J, ASEE. Engineering by the Numbers [Internet]. 2018. Available from: https://ira.asee.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-Engineering-by-Numbers- Engineering-Statistics-UPDATED-15-July-2019.pdf2. Bystydzienski JM, Brown A. “I Just Want to Help People”: Young Women’s Gendered Engagement with Engineering. Fem Form. 2012;24(3):1–21.3. Diekman AB, Clark EK, Johnston AM, Brown ER, Steinberg M. Malleability in communal goals and beliefs influences attraction to stem careers: evidence for a goal congruity perspective. J Pers Soc Psychol. United States; 2011;101(5
-efficacy (reflected in themarginal means), and also shows how the increase in Course 1’s women’s self-efficacy comesprimarily from those women who were neutral at the beginning of the course feeling moresuccessful at the end of the class.IntimidationVisually inspecting the survey results for intimidation by programming in Figs. 3, 5b, and 6b, wesee that overall women are more intimidated by programming in both courses, although thisdifference is statistically significant only for Course 2. Therefore, we cannot reject the nullhypothesis for Hypothesis 2. Interestingly, we see that men at the start of Course 2 are, onaverage, about the same as where the left off at the end of Course 1, but women are on averagemore intimidated (not statistically
U.S.filled in 47% of all jobs but only 24% of the STEM jobs [6]. In other words, 76% of the STEMjobs are held by men. In community services, women had a volunteer rate of 27.8% in 2015compared to men 21.8%. Women volunteered at a higher rate than men and this was true acrossall age groups, educational levels, and major demographics characteristics (such as race andemployment status) [7].Influence is closely associated with leadership. A capable leader provides guidance at theworkplace, home, and/or community [8]. It follows that, those influencing are consideredefficient leaders that motivate their colleagues, family or community [9, 10]. Transformativeleadership idealizes influence which reflect standards of moral and ethical conduct; it