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GIRLS ARE READY FOR ENGINEERING IF ENGINEERS ARE READY TO SHARE Faced with a profound lack of women engineers, the National Engineers Week Foundation is calling upon its professional community to discard the myths of what’s holding girls back and focus instead on fighting the problem during Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, slated for Thursday, February 21, part of Engineers Week 2008, February 17-23. “Girl Day,” as it’s known among engineers, is the only outreach of its kind aimed at and organized by a single profession. On February 21, 2008 and in programs throughout the year, women engineers and their male counterparts will reach as many as one million girls with workshops, tours, on-line discussions, and a host of hands-on activities that showcase engineering as an important career option for everyone. The Engineer Your Life campaign and coalition launches on Wednesday, February 20 as part of Girl Day 2008. An outgrowth of the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project (EWEP), Engineer Your Life aims to make a national impact on the way engineering careers are presented, particularly to college-bound high school girls. Three new messages developed and tested by EWEP – creativity has its rewards, explore the possibilities, and make a world of difference – form the centerpiece of the national campaign. The Engineer Your Life web site, a guide to engineering for high school girls, is at www.engineeryourlife.org. Currently only 20 percent of engineering undergraduates are women. Only ten percent of the engineering workforce are women. For years, false notions of girls’ innate inability in math, lack of science preparation in high school, and assumptions about the effects of historical and institutional discrimination, have been offered as causes for the startling disproportion. Recent surveys, however, refute most of those theories, including the ones that question girls’ academic readiness to study engineering when they leave high school. Girls and boys take requisite courses at approximately the same rate, with girls’ enrollment often exceeding that of boys. While 60 percent of boys take Algebra II, for example, the enrollment rate for girls is 64 percent. Similarly, 94 percent of girls and 91 percent of boys take biology while 64 percent of girls and 57 percent of boys take chemistry. In the one science course – physics – where boys’ enrollment exceeds girls, the rate is 26 percent for girls and 32 percent for boys. Still, less than two percent of high school graduates will earn engineering degrees in college. Further, assertions of the effects of institutionalized discrimination – certainly a major factor historically – seem undercut compared to professions such as medicine and law that also were largely bastions of men a generation ago yet now have a majority of women pursuing those degrees. Instead, experts contend that the major culprit is one of perception among girls and the people who influence them, including teachers, parents, peers, and the media. In short, girls have to perceive they can be engineeers before they can be engineers. According to the National Engineers Week Foundation, nothing conveys that message as effectively as mentors and role models and no program more effectively brings girls and role models together than Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, now in its 8th year. A 2005 EWEP study found that exposure to role models is essential to drawing young women into the profession. High school girls react positively to first-person stories about how engineering “makes a difference” and offers a monetarily and personally rewarding career. The study also notes that since few of their influencers – whether it’s a parent, a favorite teacher or MTV – understand or even have knowledge of engineering, chances are it’s not on the student’s radar. In other words, if a girl hears about engineering, most likely an engineer is the one who told her. “There are countless television shows featuring doctors, lawyers, police and other professions, so a child readily grasps that these may be career paths,” explains Terry Lincoln, Global Signature Programs Manager at Agilent Technologies. “Unless we directly reach these girls with engineering, they won’t get it, and we will miss up to half of all potential engineers. It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s crucial to the success of our company and to our country. Agilent is proud to be a part of these programs.” Agilent Technologies, Inc. and the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation are lead sponsors for Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, with additional funding from the Motorola Foundation. Girl Day is also part of of the foundation’s many diversification efforts, including the recent founding of the Engineers Week Coalition Diversity Council, a coalition of businesses, professional societies, and academic and advocacy organizations committed to increasing underrepresented minorities in engineering. The Council, headed by the foundation, IBM, and 13 Founding Partner organizations, met for the first time in Washington in October. More than 100 corporations, organizations, government agencies and schools pulled together for Girl Day 2007. ExxonMobil hosted middle school girls at their Houston and San Juan, Puerto Rico facilities. Young women were invited to experience engineering first-hand at Argonne National Lab in Illinois, the Port Authority of New Jersey and New York, and Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico. Universities such as Purdue, Penn State, Arizona State, and California State at Chico introduced middle and high school girls to engineering. The National Coalition of Girls Schools sent copies of the EWEP book, “Changing Our World, True Stories of Women Engineers,” to member schools with tips on getting involved in Girl Day. For its part, the National Engineers Week Foundation offered grants to local Girl Scout troops to stimulate activities in connection with the PBS television programs “Design Squad” and “Cyberchase,” and coordinated interviews with women engineers at www.engineergirl.org. A month after Girl Day comes the 4th annual "Global Marathon For, By and About Women in Engineering," a 24-hour Internet and teleconference running from Noon (EDT) Wednesday, March 26 through Noon (EDT) Thursday, March 27 at www.eweek.org. Presentations and Q&A sessions originate from points around the globe to heighten awareness of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics issues among pre-college, college, and young career women. Honorary Chair of the 2008 Global Marathon is Judy Spitz, Senior Vice President and CIO of Verizon Business. Visit www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/2008_nationalpledgeroster.shtml to access Girl Day activities nationwide. Co-chairs of Engineers Week 2008 are the Chinese Institute of Engineers-USA (CIE-USA) and IBM. # # # 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. Co-chairs of Engineers Week 2008, February 17-23, are the Chinese Institute of Engineers-USA (CIE-USA) and IBM. |
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National Engineers Week Foundation
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