Tag Archives: women

Documentary on 5 Women Majoring in Science and Math at Ohio State

In the clip, Jennifer Jones, a civil engineering student who talks about her challenges and determination to overcome obstacles in her honors program at Ohio State University. The clip is from Gender Chip Project, a documentary following 5 women majoring in the sciences, engineering and math at Ohio State University.

Mentors Prepare Women for Construction Career

photo of Heather Cavitt

Mentors prepare women for construction career

Now Cavitt and other women in the construction school, a part of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, can give themselves another advantage: Learning from pioneering women who have already risen to leadership positions in the business.

The school recently established its Advancing Women in Construction program, a key part of which is a mentorship project. More than 70 women – and several men – in the construction industry in the greater Phoenix area have signed on to mentor female students and provide them an inside look at life in the industry.
…
plan to increase female enrollment from less than 15 percent of total enrollment to 30 percent – or about 200 female students – within five years.

Cavitt says her favorite things about the school’s construction management program are the opportunities to learn beyond the classroom, such as internships and building-project competitions between construction students at other universities. She expects the mentoring program to add significantly to the value of her college education. “I’m excited to learn about the real-world business of construction from women who have been successful at it for many years,” she says.

photo: School of Construction student Heather Cavitt (front) will gain from the experience of Crystal Slawson (center), president of Phoenix Pipelines and Natalie Palmer, the company’s project coordinator, through the school’s Advancing Women in Construction mentorship program.

Beloit College: Girls and Women in Science

photo of chemistry lab

Girls and Women in Science at Beloit College in Wisconsin:

sixth grade girls, along with their teachers and parents. This award winning conference encourages the exploration of science and mathematics by middle school girls through two days of experiments, activities, and interaction with science professionals. The girls, teachers, and parents will work with Beloit College faculty, students, and alumnae.

Girls getting into science

Eaton said the 24 girls participating will be able to take an active role in the laboratories. It’s critical the girls are encouraged and get the chance to increase their risk-taking abilities without boys.

The problem is, Eaton said, that sixth-grade girls’ interest in science starts dwindling and boys start becoming more dominant. “The boys take over the hands-on projects and the girls take notes,” Eaton said. “Boys will answer a question more authoritatively. Girls pose answers as a question. They are not as confident in their answers.”

To help foster activity among girls, the weekend conference also offers several workshops for parents and teachers. The workshops teach adults what they are doing to discourage girls and how they can learn to encourage them more.

Women Choosing Other Fields Over Engineering and Math

graph of science and engineering degrees by gender in the USA 1966-2005

The graph shows college degrees granted in the USA. This topic sets up one for criticism, but I believe it is more important to examine the data and explore the possible ideas than to avoid anything that might be questioned by the politically correct police. An import factor, to me anyway, is that women are now graduating from college in far higher numbers than men. And in many science fields female baccalaureate graduates outnumber male graduates (psychology [67,000 to 19,000], biology[42,000 to 26,000], anthropology, sociology [20,000 to 8,000]) while men outnumber women in others (math [7,000 to 6,000], engineering [53,000 to 13,000], computer science [39,000 to 11,000], physics [3,000 to 900]).

Data on degrees awarded men and women in the USA in 2005, from NSF*:

Field	Bachelors		Master’s		Doctorate
	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men
Biology	42,283	25,699	4,870	3,229	3,105	3,257
Computer Science	11,235	39,329	5,078	12,742	225	909
Economics	8,141	17,023	1,391	2,113	355	827
Engineering	13,197	52,936	7,607	26,492	1,174	5,215
Geosciences	1,660	2,299	712	973	243	470
Physics	903	3,307	427	1,419	200	1,132
Psychology	66,833	19,103	12,632	3,444	2,264	211
Sociology	20,138	8,438	920	485	343	211
All S&E	235,197	230,806	53,051	66,974	10,533	17,405

What does this all mean? It is debatable, but I think it is very good news for the efforts many have made over the last few decades to open up opportunities for women. I still support efforts to provide opportunities for girls to get started in science and engineering but I think we have reached the day when the biggest concern is giving all kids better math and science primary education (and related extracurricular activities). Also continued focus and effort on the doctorate and professional opportunities for women is warranted.
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Women Working in Science

Progress Over the Long Term

The commission found that women have doubled their share of bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering over the last four decades. In 1966, they earned one quarter (24.8 percent) of bachelor’s degrees in those fields, while in 2004, they earned half (50.4 percent). Over the same time span, women also gained a dramatically greater percentage of master’s degrees – 13.3 percent in 1966 versus 43.6 percent in 2004. At the doctorate level, the increase was especially noteworthy – 8 percent in 1966 compared to 37.4 percent in 2004.

Proportion of Females in the following fields, from the article:
Psychologists 67.3%
Biological Scientists 48.7%
Computer Programmers 26.0%
Chemical Engineers 14.3%
Mechanical Engineers 5.8%

Fixing Engineering’s Gender Gap

Fixing Engineering’s Gender Gap by Vivek Wadhwa, Business Week

We can debate whether an engineering gap between the U.S. and India and China exists, but among U.S. engineers there is an indisputable gender gap — fewer than 20% of engineering graduates are women, according to the National Science Foundation. Perhaps a simple solution to maintaining American competitiveness is to encourage more women to enter engineering.

I agree. We need to do a better job of taking advantage of what women engineers can bring to our economy. By taking sensible actions (see some of the related posts below) we can create a system that produces more women engineers and we will benefit from that result.

According to the National Science Foundation, women make up only 5.2% of tenured engineering faculty. Students felt that they had no one to turn to for help and guidance. One student said she felt disadvantaged “when it comes to being an engineer without being like a man.”