WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SHORTAGE OF WOMEN ENGINEERS

As I search for engineers; industrial, mechanical and electrical I find that men still dominate the industry. Trying to find qualifed talent no matter the gender is difficult in itself, but for those that are promoting diversity in their organization and focused on balancing the talent pool either direction is a challenge.

Check out this interesting article that I found posted on ASME's website.

At a time when American industry can’t find enough homegrown engineers, engineering schools are seeing their student populations decline. Empty chairs mean that the schools are not graduating the numbers of qualified engineers that U.S. companies so desperately need.

Some observers believe that convincing more women to enter engineering is one answer, but women have been slow to enter engineering and even slower mechanical engineering. According to the American Society of Engineering Education, women account for only about 20 percent of engineering degrees. One reason women may choose a different path is the difficulties they face in being hired by universities and then in getting promoted. A study jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering found that only in the social, behavioral, and life sciences is the percentage of women faculty at leading research institutions in the double digits.

Engineering organizations, universities and some companies are working hard to change that. Cheryl Knobloch, associate director of Women in Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, believes that involving parents is critical. She began to see positive results of Penn State's one-week summer engineering camp for high school girls when parents were included in the experience. "Most are completely unaware of engineering opportunities for women," she says.



Rebecca Cohl is a Lockheed Martin engineer who works with her company's outreach programs to encourage girls to consider engineering. Girls’ consideration about their life work is vastly different from boys, she says. Girls need to know their work has value beyond being a well-paying job, Knobloch says. A career in teaching or medicine is much more obvious, she says. "There is somewhat of a mystery about what we do." She adds that when girls are shown that math and science can give them an opportunity to make a difference to people, they choose engineering readily.

Patricia Daniels, associate dean of the College of Science & Engineering at Seattle University, believes that engineers could do a better job themselves of being spokespeople for their profession. For many engineers, once they have solved a problem, they think the results speak for themselves, she says. The ways an ME gets involved with solving problems with fuel cells or sustainable energy are critical and relevant. And without engineers, there would be no iPods, bicycles, school buses, backpacks, or even Hershey's Kisses.

"We don't talk enough about the benefits of what engineers accomplish," says Michael Gibbons, director of data research for the American Society of Engineering Education. The society has seen the percentage of women students at the graduate level increase in the double digits recently but undergraduate numbers are down close to 20 percent.

Says Daniels, "Engineers love their work so much they can't imagine others not wanting to do the same." She is among other women engineers in influential positions at universities taking action. She is encouraging recent graduates to return to the classroom as mentors and teachers, and she is hiring more women faculty, which account for 40 percent in her engineering school. California Polytechnic State University, another school recruiting women through one of the largest chapters of the Women in Engineering program, has an engineering faculty composed of one-third women.

Among other efforts to attract women is the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project Coalition, a motivational group supported by professional societies, ASME, universities, and other organizations. One of the coalition’s studies found that more than 90% of high school girls are not even given the chance to consider engineering as a career choice.

Another program is the Women in Engineering ProActive Network project "Faculty for the Future" in cooperation with Penn State. Funded by General Electric, there is an online career center for female and minority engineering faculty and a mentoring program. Even the Girl Scouts are contributing. A program for 14-to-20-year-olds has 142 Explorer posts and mentors 4,000 members.

[Adapted from "Filling the Void," by Barbara Wolcott, for Mechanical Engineering, February 2007.]


Article found: http://www.asme.org/kb/news---articles/articles/diversity/women-can-fill-american-industry’s-engineering-voi