How to Make Engineering Programs Worse for Women: A Reverse Brainstorming Session with SWE Students

Sandra Furnbach Clavijo

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: Women in Engineering Division (WIED) Technical Session 6
Tagged Division: Women in Engineering Division (WIED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 21
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--43391
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/43391
Download Count: 307

Paper Authors

biography

Sandra Furnbach Clavijo Stevens Institute of Technology

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Sandra is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering and Science at Stevens Institute of Technolgy. She is responsible for collaboratively working with the Dean, department chairs, associate chairs, faculty and staff to further build and enhance the School of Engineering and Science’s undergraduate academic programs at Stevens. Sandra assists with new program development, monitors enrollment and graduation performance and implements curricular modifications. She directs and manages the instructional delivery, student registration and scheduling logistics and collection of assessment data for all core courses in the undergraduate engineering and science programs. Sandra teaches courses in Entrepreneurial Thinking and Innovation at Baruch College, Lafayette College, and Stevens. Before coming to Stevens, Sandra worked as a consulting engineer with Stantec and T&M Associates specializing in Urban Land Redevelopment and Municipal Engineering. Sandra holds a B.S. Degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering, an A. B. degree in Art History from Lafayette College and a Master of Engineering degree in Engineering Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. She is currently perusing her doctorate degree in Education from Drexel University with a concentration in innovation and creativity. She is currently the Division Chair - Elect for ASEE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Division. She also holds a Professional Engineering license in NJ.

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Abstract

Female engineering students have unique insights for improving engineering programs and yet they often do not feel empowered to suggest changes. This paper will describe the creation and execution of a pilot brainstorming workshop titled, “How to make engineering programs worse for women” which was developed as part of a master’s level creativity and innovation class for a research practitioner. The pilot was run with a small cohort of eight female engineering students from the local chapter of the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) during engineering week in March 2022. The 2-hour workshop employed three proven creativity techniques including reverse brainstorming, a four-field matrix for evaluation, and enrichment tools for elaboration. The catchy title attracted an outspoken group of participants that were able to create many negative ideas, a good exercise in divergent thinking. Negative ideas are often easier to come up with than solutions, as our analytical brains limit creative potential. The results of this workshop were two-fold. First, the students that attended were able to vent their current frustrations and they also were able to practice some creative thinking techniques that might be useful in their careers and personal life. Second, the workshop yielded quite a few implementable ideas ranging from short-term to long-term that are being used to improve the campus experience for female engineering students. To date, the researcher has been able to implement two more ideas generated by the workshop participants including new mid-term course survey, women’s-led makerspace programming and registration support for parents. Additional ideas such as priority registration for women and gender pairing of academic advisors are in longer-term planning talks. This paper will detail the workshop format and supplementing documents, as well as the results generated from the pilot workshop. The research practitioner hopes this brainstorming workshop may be able to be used by other program managers to meaningfully engage with female engineering students, implement rapid change, and improve the learning environment for this underrepresented cohort of students.

Citation
Format

Clavijo, S. F. (2023, June), How to Make Engineering Programs Worse for Women: A Reverse Brainstorming Session with SWE Students Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43391

TY - CPAPER
AB - Female engineering students have unique insights for improving engineering programs and yet they often do not feel empowered to suggest changes. This paper will describe the creation and execution of a pilot brainstorming workshop titled, “How to make engineering programs worse for women” which was developed as part of a master’s level creativity and innovation class for a research practitioner. The pilot was run with a small cohort of eight female engineering students from the local chapter of the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) during engineering week in March 2022. The 2-hour workshop employed three proven creativity techniques including reverse brainstorming, a four-field matrix for evaluation, and enrichment tools for elaboration. The catchy title attracted an outspoken group of participants that were able to create many negative ideas, a good exercise in divergent thinking. Negative ideas are often easier to come up with than solutions, as our analytical brains limit creative potential. The results of this workshop were two-fold. First, the students that attended were able to vent their current frustrations and they also were able to practice some creative thinking techniques that might be useful in their careers and personal life. Second, the workshop yielded quite a few implementable ideas ranging from short-term to long-term that are being used to improve the campus experience for female engineering students. To date, the researcher has been able to implement two more ideas generated by the workshop participants including new mid-term course survey, women’s-led makerspace programming and registration support for parents. Additional ideas such as priority registration for women and gender pairing of academic advisors are in longer-term planning talks. This paper will detail the workshop format and supplementing documents, as well as the results generated from the pilot workshop. The research practitioner hopes this brainstorming workshop may be able to be used by other program managers to meaningfully engage with female engineering students, implement rapid change, and improve the learning environment for this underrepresented cohort of students.
AU - Sandra Furnbach Clavijo
CY - Baltimore , Maryland
DA - 2023/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - How to Make Engineering Programs Worse for Women: A Reverse Brainstorming Session with SWE Students
UR - https://peer.asee.org/43391
DO - 10.18260/1-2--43391
ER -