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ENGINEERING COUNCIL ADVANCES DIVERSITY AGENDA In an unprecedented commitment to bring more women and underrepresented minorities into engineering, a coalition of businesses, professional societies, and academic and advocacy organizations met in Washington on October 17 to establish the Engineers Week Diversity Council. Stressing the urgency of the challenge facing engineering, Ronald Glover, IBM’s Vice President for Global Workforce Diversity, who convened the inaugural meeting, noted, “The time has passed where we can assume that we can transfer this responsibility somewhere else.” Held at the National Museum of African Art, the meeting’s organizers noted that the unusual venue was specifically chosen to underscore the seriousness of the council’s efforts. Headed by the National Engineers Week Foundation, IBM, and 12 Founding Partner organizations, the council represents the profession’s boldest move yet as it pursues remedies to what has been a longstanding dilemma. Seeking to broaden the ranks of women and underrepresented minorities at all levels of engineering, members of the new group sought to press home the importance of their agenda. “Our country is at a critical, strategic inflection point where forces of innovation, history and demographics offer us an opportunity to ensure that we remain the innovation engine of the world,” said Glover. “The case for the ‘business of diversity’ has transformed from social responsibility to survival imperative.” All of the council’s founding partners, along with many engineering firms and societies, have ongoing outreach policies and programs aimed at increased diversity, but the Diversity Council is the profession’s first attempt to reach consensus to work together and unite those various efforts under a single umbrella to provide for a comprehensive national agenda. At the meeting, led by Zarina Stanford of the Chinese Institute of Engineers-USA, co-chair with IBM of Engineers Week 2008, the council moved to consider creating a platform statement on diversity in engineering to inform presidential candidates and others in next year’s election. The council also will identify methods to enhance diversity programs already underway through Engineers Week’s various educational initiatives, and create a governing structure for itself and operating agreements for its founding partners. Betty Shanahan, executive director of the Society of Women Engineers, one of the council’s founding partners, provided an update on her organization’s efforts to extend the provisions of Title IX to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. Title IX, part of the Education Amendments of 1972, states, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." “Few people even know that Title IX applies to anything beyond athletics,” said Shanahan, “even though there was no reference to athletics in the original legislation.” She exhorted the council to raise awareness of the law’s import by urging academic institutions and the corporations providing them with funding and endowments to encourage voluntary compliance rather than risk outside enforcement. Today, fewer than 12 percent of baccalaureate engineering graduates are underrepresented minorities. Most underrepresented minority students do not even have the option to consider such a career by the time they have left middle school. Approximately 650,000 minority students graduate from high school each year, but only about 26,000 have taken the necessary math and science courses to be fully qualified for admission to engineering study and fewer than 15,000 actually enroll. Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, President and CEO of the National Action Council of Minorities in Engineering (NACME), also a founding partner, said that well-publicized campaigns against affirmative action – several states, for example, may face anti-affirmative action ballot measures next year – also had broader implications for engineering. “We’re a diverse nation that’s becoming increasingly diverse,” Slaughter told council members, “but we are not a nation of equal opportunity. Beyond talking about the importance of achieving and celebrating diversity, we need to be fighting for, convening for, focusing on, and achieving equality of opportunity for all of our citizens. Equity has to be the goal, in addition to diversity.” Other presenters at the all-day meeting included Irving McPhail, NACME Executive Vice President and COO; Susan Skemp of the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project; Diana Bendz from the “Girls! Balance the Equation” project sparked by the U.S. Department of Education; Norma Henry, program manager for Verizon Business; and Helena Berger, COO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. The Founding Partners of the Engineers Week Coalition Diversity Council include:
The Engineers Week coalition comprises more than 75 engineering, professional, and technical societies and more than 50 corporations and government agencies. Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers, the coalition is dedicated to sustaining and growing a dynamic engineering profession by ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce, increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers among young students, and promoting pre-college literacy in math and science. Among the oldest of America’s professional outreach efforts, the coalition also raises public understanding and appreciation of engineering contributions to society through year-round innovative programming and celebration. Engineers Week 2008 is scheduled for February 17-23. # # #
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National Engineers Week Foundation
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