Asee peer logo

An Investigation into How One Engineering School is Approaching Gender Diversity

Download Paper |

Conference

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Salt Lake City, Utah

Publication Date

June 23, 2018

Start Date

June 23, 2018

End Date

July 27, 2018

Conference Session

Women in Engineering Division Technical Session 1

Tagged Division

Women in Engineering

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--29795

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/29795

Download Count

638

Paper Authors

biography

Vicki V. May Dartmouth College

visit author page

Vicki V. May, Ph.D., P.E. is an Instructional Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on engineering education and K-12 outreach. She teaches courses in solid mechanics, structural analysis, and design at Dartmouth. Prior to relocating to the east coast, Professor May was an Associate Professor of Architectural Engineering at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

visit author page

biography

Joseph J. Helble Dartmouth College

visit author page

Joseph J. Helble is Professor of Engineering, and Dean of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, a position he has held since 2005. Prior to Dartmouth, Dr. Helble was the AAAS Revelle Fellow, spending a year on staff in the U.S. Senate with a focus on science policy. Previously, he was Professor and Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, and from 1987 to 1995, a researcher at Physical Sciences Inc. Dr. Helble is the author of over 100 publications and 3 U.S. patents, the recipient of several awards for his scholarly work, and a 2014 co-recipient of the National Academy of Engineering Gordon Prize for the development of Dartmouth’s Engineering Entrepreneurship Program. He presently serves as Chair of the ASEE Engineering Deans Public Policy Committee. Dr. Helble holds a B.S from Lehigh University and a Ph.D. from MIT.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Nationally, the percentage of women earning degrees in engineering remains low despite continued efforts to attract and retain women. In 2016, however, more than 50% of the undergraduate degrees in engineering awarded at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth (Thayer) went to women, and well over 40% of the current engineering students are women, a level more than twice the national average. What is our campus doing differently to successfully attract and retain women in engineering?

Several things set the engineering school at Dartmouth apart from other campuses. Key differences include the fact that the engineering school is part of a liberal arts campus, is fairly small, and has no separate departments within engineering. As with many liberal arts universities, students are admitted to the campus but do not declare a major until they are sophomores, giving them time to explore different courses and departments before declaring a major. Dartmouth is a private institution. Students are admitted to Dartmouth by the Admissions Office; the engineering school does not participate in the admissions process nor do they influence selections.

In order to better understand why our campus has been successful at attracting and retaining women in engineering, we examined our program and enrollment trends, conducted interviews, and surveyed faculty, students and alumni. Based on this data, key aspects of the curriculum that seem to effectively attract and retain women include the flexibility of the curriculum, a focus on design and innovation, a collaborative and friendly atmosphere, the presence of female peer mentors, an emphasis on the liberal arts, and a focus on real-world projects.

Data from surveys, interviews and courses are shared so that faculty and administrators at other campuses may learn about different strategies that could be adapted at their own campuses to increase gender diversity.

May, V. V., & Helble, J. J. (2018, June), An Investigation into How One Engineering School is Approaching Gender Diversity Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29795

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2018 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015