Week of October 26, 2009
Women Engineers @ the Beach, a biannual conference at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) designed to attract young girls to engineering, was awarded the prestigious Kimberly-Clark Outreach Event Award on Oct. 17 by the National Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
CSULB’s SWE Chapter President Ellen Skow and Vice President Albano Luzardo accepted the award during the SWE’s national conference at the Long Beach Convention Center.
“This award is truly an honor. When I developed this event in 2001 along with an art student and a few faculty members to promote engineering to academically high-performing grade-school girls, I never anticipated that it would grow to more than 50 schools in 10 school districts across California,” said Lily Gossage, director of engineering recruitment and retention for CSULB’s College of Engineering. “Our broad range of participation has made Women Engineers @ the Beach very popular, so much so that it is now a registered event with the National Girls Collaborative Project.”
The honor comes just weeks before the ninth-annual Women Engineers @ the Beach conference on Friday, Nov. 6, which will take place in and around CSULB’s Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) building complex. More than 130 middle and high school girls from across California are expected to attend this year.
Women Engineers @ the Beach takes place each fall semester at CSULB and is designed specifically for junior and high school girls. Engineering Girls @ the Beach, its sister event that is now in its second year, takes place in the spring and is designed for girls in the fourth through sixth grades.
Both conferences share the same mission; to increase the number of women engineers in both academia and industry by teaching young girls about the variety of disciplines involved in engineering and related sciences.
Students who attend the events are chosen for performing at grade-level or higher in mathematics. A large number of the students come from the schools’ Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs.
Currently, women comprise less than 10 percent of the engineering workforce and represent less than 15 percent of the engineering student population. Gossage believes that aside from introducing young girls to engineering, the conferences also focuses on encouraging school counselors and teachers to promote engineering at their school sites.
“While there is much research that tells us girls are just as capable as boys at succeeding in math- and science-based careers, opportunities for young girls to explore the mathematical-logical part of cognitive thought are limited,” said Gossage. “Socio-cultural issues and male and female expectations of career roles are barriers that often delay the discovery of the career until much later.”
Gossage believes it is important to promote the social acceptance by young girls of women as engineers during their formative years when there is plenty of time for academic preparation. “It is important for parents, teachers and counselors to enforce the belief that engineering is also a woman’s world,” she said.
Gossage added, “Both of our events are examples of what real and honest collaboration can accomplish. This is truly a team effort that includes many volunteers and industry partners,” said Gossage. “We have one main goal, to transform the image of engineering for these girls. So we really want to recognize and thank all of our volunteers and partners who continue to help girls realize their full potential. Without them the program wouldn’t be nearly as successful.”
Like Gossage, Pannada Marayong, an SWE adviser, believes that these programs are essential in attracting young women to engineering who may otherwise feel the industry is not suited for them. She also recognizes the importance of such programs in enabling girls to develop supportive relationships with working women engineers.
“It is immensely important for universities to provide outreach opportunities to attract more women into science and engineering,” said Marayong. “This should start as early as middle school and continue all the way through high school. This is when kids start to explore their interests and their career paths. Unfortunately, many girls are discouraged about engineering because they perceive it as being ‘too technical’ and ‘unexciting.’”