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ASU group helps get women into engineering

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ENGINEER: Fifth-grader Madison Kuhler from Scottsdale puts the finishing touches on a model solar home during the Wow! engineering event on the Tempe campus Saturday.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ENGINEER: Fifth-grader Madison Kuhler from Scottsdale puts the finishing touches on a model solar home during the Wow! engineering event on the Tempe campus Saturday.

For most female ASU students, engineering is not a popular choice of study.

Women made up only 18 percent of those seeking a bachelor’s degree for the fall 2010 enrollment at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, according to University statistics.

But the Society of Women Engineers at ASU aims to change that by offering professional development, outreach, mentoring and networking for women to discover this traditionally male-dominated field.

The group held an all-day program Saturday called “Wow! That’s Engineering” on the Tempe campus. This was the biggest event held by a university chapter of Society of Women Engineers, said civil engineering senior Michelle Brock, the club’s outreach coordinator.

Around 225 sixth to eighth grade girls from nearby middle schools attended and worked on hands-on projects with ASU engineering students and volunteers.

SWE has done outreach programs before, such as GEAR Day at ASU with Girl Scouts, which hosts 120 girls annually. The club saw there were more girls who wanted to participate; however, because of limited funding, they couldn’t accommodate.

The theme of Saturday’s event was sustainability, and the girls were challenged to create a sustainable house, a bouncy ball and an LED butterfly circuit.

“We had to show them we were capable of reaching out to 200 girls, get enough volunteers and make an impact on the local community,” Brock said.

Biomedical engineering senior and public relations coordinator for SWE, Raisa Ahmad, believes outreach programs do make a difference. She participated in a Biomedical Engineering Day at ASU when she was a sophomore in high school.

“I didn’t think there was a field that combined medicine and engineering. It opened the door and opened my mind to that field,” she said.

Biomedical engineering is unique from other engineering disciplines, as it has the highest number of female students nationwide, according to The Biomedical Engineering Society website.

“We hover around 50 percent,” said bioengineering professor Vincent Pizziconi.

The National Science Foundation reported in a 2008 study that women’s participation is lowest in engineering and computer sciences, though the percentage has increased over the past 20 years from 15.2 percent to 18.5 percent in the U.S.

Women and gender studies professor Anne Hibner Koblitz, said if science, technology, engineering and math fields do not have diverse representation of people, “then the questions that the mostly white male scientists and engineers ask and the answers they come up with will be partial at best, and just plain wrong at worst.”

One of the problems, Koblitz said, is that “there are lingering stereotypes about the hard or physical sciences not being appropriate areas for women.”

Pizziconi said motivating more women to become engineers is important to stay competitive.

“The U.S. is losing out on their talents and innovation. It’s something our country really needs,” he said.

Ahmad said through her mentoring experience, she noticed that emphasizing the importance of problem solving and the broad definition of what an engineer is has resounded positively with girls.

Brock said a group like Society of Women Engineers makes female students feel comfortable and welcome, but that a lot of men also come to the meetings to show their support.

Latha Vembu, a parent whose daughter participated at Saturday’s outreach event, said she was impressed by what she saw.

“Engineering is about everything,” Vembu said. “Women can be anything they want if they put their mind to it.”

Lyndsay Hertzig, a sixth grader from Andalusia Middle School in Phoenix, said she wanted to come to the outreach event to learn more about engineering and is now considering it as a future career.

Civil engineering senior and club president Joy Marsalla said Saturday’s event was important in order to encourage girls to explore the field, but not necessarily tell them what kind of job to have.

“We’re just trying to show those that are interested that they can achieve that,” she said. “And [for] those who aren’t, that engineers are pretty cool and it’s a respected profession.”

Reach the reporter at naberra@asu.edu


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