How Students View the Role of Faculty Advisors in the SWE Organization

Gloria Ma is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Technology. She has been teaching robotics with Lego Mindstorm to ME freshmen for several years. She is actively involved in community services of offering robotics workshops to middle- and high-school girls. Her research interests are dynamics and system modeling, geometry modeling, project based engineering design, and robotics in manufacturing.

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Karinna M Vernaza Gannon University

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Dr. Karinna Vernaza joined Gannon University in 2003, and she is the Dean of the College of Engineering and Business and a Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. Her B.S. is in Marine Systems Engineering from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. She was awarded the 2012 ASEE NCS Outstanding Teacher Award, 2013 Gannon University Distinguished Faculty Award and 2013-2014 Gannon University Faculty Award for Excellence in Service-Learning. Dr. Vernaza does research in engineering education (active learning techniques) and high-strain deformation of materials. She is currently the PI of an NSF S-STEM. She is the ASEE North Central Section past chair until 2021.

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Alexa N. Rihana Abdallah University of Detroit Mercy

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Alexa Rihana Abdallah is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Detroit Mercy, rihanaa@udmercy.edu

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Christina Remucal University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Associate Professor Christy Remucal (née Christina Renée Keenan) leads the Aquatic Chemistry group at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is a faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Environmental Chemistry and Technology Program, and the Limnology and Marine Science Program. She holds an MS (2004) and a PhD (2009) in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BS (2003) in Environmental Engineering Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining the UW faculty, Christy completed a post-doc in the Institute for Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

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Stephanie G Wettstein Montana State University; MEERC

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Stephanie Wettstein is an Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering department at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. She has been the faculty advisor of the MSU SWE chapter since 2013.

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Abstract

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) collegiate sections attract many men and women to the society, and they can be among the largest and most active student organizations on the university campuses. A key factor to boost membership is the active involvement of faculty advisors, who serve as the liaison between SWE collegiate sections, the university, the National SWE organization, and professional SWE members. A group of SWE faculty advisors previously conducted a survey of faculty advisors and counselors, with advisors and counselors aggregated in the results, to determine what aspects of their role they consider most significant, and how they engage with the students. The study showed that faculty advisors play an important role in providing continuity to the section, participation in and understanding of the larger organization, and in mentoring students on both general leadership and SWE leadership.

This paper examines how students view the role of their faculty advisor in their SWE collegiate section. The objectives of this study are to understand the challenges that collegiate sections face and what types of support they need from their faculty advisor. A survey about the level of importance of different roles of faculty advisors was conducted. Additional ways students feel their faculty advisor could help them was also addressed. The data was analyzed to identify key factors that faculty advisors should consider while serving in these roles within student sections. The findings were then compared to the results of the self-assessment of the faculty advisors.

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Peters, D. L., & Darbeheshti, M., & Ma, G. G., & Vernaza, K. M., & Rihana Abdallah, A. N., & Remucal, C., & Wettstein, S. G. (2020, June), How Students View the Role of Faculty Advisors in the SWE Organization Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34734